Today, no car, just hanging around locally in Split. It’s a Sunday, so we figure we’ll take it easy, well, relatively speaking! Split is a gorgeous little town with beautiful parkland surrounding it. There are bike rentals, and we plan to rent bikes and ride through the park in the afternoon.
Plans change! We had planned to wander the town, go back to the ship for lunch, then take the bike ride. Well, first things first, this is a tender port –which on this monster ship is never an easy thing. We didn’t really factor that into our plans. But, we’re lucky in that we have our priority passes (Elite status has definite benefits!!!) so we don’t have to wait in line to get a tender ticket number. And once in the Priority waiting area, we don’t really have to wait very long to board a tender, and as it turns out we are the last on – so no long wait bobbing in the water either!
But once ashore, as we wander around, getting a feel for the old town, it starts really heating up, so we decide to bike ride first. Ed emailed a couple of bike companies, who wanted a ton of money for a pre-booking. We figured we’d take our chances on land, which turned out to be a good call. The one company he had found wanted 50Euros for a full day, but when we showed up, they gave us 2 bikes for a half day for only 15 Euros total. Cool!
The gal at the rental place gave us a map with a scenic route for us to take – circling around the park and back into town. We had really intended to ride through the park, so we took her map and followed it halfway around the Split peninsula then up into the park. And I mean UP! Oh geez! The first part of the ride out of the city wasn't so bad – mostly flat with one long uphill stretch.
But then when we got to the park…Ay yi yi! Switchbacks all the way up the hill – which was huge. And while there was a great cool breeze, the ambient temperature and the sun were really doing a job on us. Wow! (Oh, and of course, this is the one day that I forgot the water. Yeah. That went over well.) We took our time, rested under the shade a lot, and took our enjoyment from the great views as we rode higher and higher up into the Marjan Forest.
We finally reached the peak – at least for us! And headed back downhill (yay) to the City panorama view point. Beautiful!
From here, we had to divert from the pedestrian path, which was all stairs, and make our way down through the city streets. Ed has this awesome app on his phone called CityMaps2Go – it is better than a GPS and it’s free if you download the info on wifi before you go outside. We’ve used it everywhere, but on a bike, not so easy to ride and watch the phone! But we managed to wind our way through little streets and alleys and finally end up right in the center of the old town area.
We walked the bikes back through the shopping district, then rode down the waterfront promenade to the bike rental place. Great morning outing. Since it was so early, we headed back aboard for lunch, figuring what the heck. Might as well, since we’ve still got all day to explore the old town.
Back on board we were shocked to hear them still announcing tender tickets! OMG – they got all the way up to #55. Holy Guacamole! It’s like 1pm already! We are SO glad we had priority tickets. Luck is with us again, and by the time we want to go back outside, tenders are open for everyone. So off we go again. This time walking all over the old town, exploring the ruins and walking around the cathedral.
Then of course, we stopped for our afternoon beverages and free wi-fi. What would a port day be without cold refreshing beverages and wi-fi?
Back on the tender and back aboard, we cool or and wait for our sailaway to Dubrovnik.
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