Next stop was Spilt, Croatia where we did a day trip to Krka National Park which is famous for its waterfalls and clear water. This region is built on limestone so there are a lot of caves and underground rivers and the water is filtered so it is very clear. The more famous lakes are Plitvice Lakes another couple of hours away. It is about a 1.5 hour trip to Krka National Park where they had a series of waterfalls and then we returned to the old town on Spilt for a quick walk through the old town. Not enough time to properly see Split.
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Krka National Park
We had a guide on the way to Krar – as well as a fellow passenger who felt compelled to try to change our hike through the park as she had been on this tour before and didn’t think we were “going to the right places” and 2 hours in the park was not enough. She continued to try and argue the whole time we were not seeing the best waterfalls – that may have been true but we were clearly on the standard highlight hike. She was trying to convince other passengers to join her rebellion and wasn’t understanding that the boat is leaving at a fixed time. It was cloudy at first and the waterfalls were small the first part of the hike, but by the end the sun was out and the water became bright blue contrasting with the green foliage and it was pretty spectacular.
We did a nice short hike about the lake and eventually arrived at the main falls – initially it was overcast but when the sun came out it transformed into a much-more colorful experience with the turquoise water and the green forest. The tour guide was pretty good – but as the day wore, she shared more on her disappointment that Split had gone from a strong manufacturing city to tourism – “we used to make cars – now we sell t-shirts from China”. She didn’t talk much about the “Homeland War” from the 1990s – just mentioning it briefly. We returned to Split and got some time within the walled city walking around – interesting but much smaller area than Dubrovnik or Kotor.
Split
On the return drive to Split, our guide (who was younger than 50) started to talk about how Split was the industrial heart of Yugoslavia and no one ever visited as a tourist and pointed to the communist concrete tower blocks as said “they used to be filled with workers in the factories – now just people trying to get by on the tourism trade and sell people stuff from China”. But she was very nice and was thrilled to get a selfie with Terry.
We then had a couple of hours in Split – the old town smaller than Dubrovnik and Kotor – but more impressive in some ways and the adjacent parks and squares nice too. This was an example of a great place to stay for dinner and visit different places at night but on a cruise you are out by 6pm.
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