Split, Croatia: Food Bibs, Ivna, Super Cool Palace!



Gorgeous sunset on the Promenade in Split

Super cool story here, I have 2 nieces that just graduated high school.  As part of their graduation gifts, I've promised all my nieces and nephews to get them their passports (or use the cost of a passport to go towards a trip with us if they already have one).  My niece, Shelby, and my step brother, Brian, decided to go with us the day after graduation to.... Croatia!  It was such a neat trip getting to experience traveling through their eyes.  And hopefully they will do a guest blog to do a few highlights from their perspectives.  So, here is a bit about our first stop in Croatia, Split!

We broke down our 4 days in Split to having 2 days in the suburbs and 2 days right next to the city center of Diocletian's Palace.  After a long night/day of travel plus a 7 hour layover in London, we finally arrived in our first destination in the burbs in a super nice penthouse suite.  Fancy huh?  We decided on a nicer place to stay to be able to rest and relax after a long trip out.

Day 1:
 I was sooooo tired!  I, think we all were, but we decided to power through and wandered about at a bar near the apartments we stayed at.  I truthfully don't remember the name as I was still in quite a jetlag fog.  Brian then decided (sorry not sorry Brian) to rapidly approach super hangry mode...  So he and Shelby went to Mcdonalds (as no other place was open that late in the area we were staying) while Dan and I stopped in at a random bar called Caffe Bar Ritual to try out some local Croatian beers, yum!  I'm sure we looked like lost tourists, but the bartender was moderately amused by my attempt to pronounce the name of the beers.  After beers and after Brian was fed, we headed back to the apartment for a couple beers and bedtime.

All smiley after some yum Croatian beers at Caffe Bar Ritual 

Aren't these pretty?


Day 2:
We woke up fairly early to head out to Plitvice National Park (which we will have a blog post on it's own about later).  We stopped by the local supermarket to grab a few snacks and waters as we would be hiking quite a bit around the park.   We drove about 2.5 hours to get there and it was out of this world amazing!!!  I can't quite describe how incredibly beautiful Plitvice was!  Here are a couple pics from the park:

Group hug at Plitvice National Park!
Feeling pretty cute looking down at the Waterfalls

We drove back to the apartment to freshen up for dinner and ended up at Konoba Nevera which was a restaurant in Split a bit off the beaten path.  We got a couple bottles of delicious Croatian wine and took the waiter's recommendation and got the seafood stew.  It was hand's down some of the BEST seafood I've ever had!  It was so awesome that Dan and I had to wear bibs to eat it lol.




Best. Seafood. Ever.

We then headed back to the apartment and relaxed in the hot tub for some decompression time after a long day.


Day 3:
Since we had to return the rental car later in the day, we opted to drive a place a bit closer to Split and ended up in Zadar which was about 1.5 hours away.  Why Zadar?  Well, I'd heard about this awesome  sea organ there that is this pretty complex musical instrument built into the stairs right next to the ocean.  The sound is created by the waves so varies greatly dependent on the amount of waves at any given time.  The only way to describe the sound is hauntingly beautiful! 







After sitting and listening to the organ for about an hour (incredibly relaxing!!!) we walked around Zadar, ate some lunch, then headed back to Split to check into our new Airbnb.

Shelby enjoying ice cream on the streets of Zadar


Beautiful Zadar, Croatia



Our new Airbnb in Split was in this old building right next to Diocletian's Palace, which is an ancient palace built for the Roman Emperor Diocletian in 4th century AD (thanks wikipedia haha!).  It is basically this very large square fortress that houses tons of shops and restaurants in this labyrinth type maze within it.  It was super cool exploring and easy to get lost in at first.


View from our Airbnb right outside of Diocletian's Palace

Walking the endless labyrinth inside of Diocletian's Palace



We ate dinner and then stopped in at NOOR Fine Drinks and Cocktails for some of the most amazing drinks I've ever had!  Very interesting vibe too.  Check out the drink menu:








Our next stop we encountered one of the funnest Croatian people we met on the trip, Ivna, who was our waitress at Sanctuary Bar.  She was my kind of people, very sarcastic (aka hilarious!) and really took the time out to chat with us and make us feel welcome in Croatia.  Because of the stellar service, we helped close down the bar (almost).   After that was bedtime.

Ivna showing off her amazing selfie skills haha!

Day 4
I slept in a bit while the group grabbed breakfast, then I joined down on the main area by the water called the Promenade.  Both of our Airbnb hosts mentioned with great pride that this area was where the locals loved to grab coffee and relax in the morning.  So I got myself a cappuccino and ice cream (because why not ice cream for breakfast?).

We explored more around Diocletian's palace before heading down to the beach.





It was a perfect sunny day to check out Bacvice Beach.  It was such a peaceful little beach and gorgeous!




After the beach we walked back towards the city center and I was getting a bit hungry, so we randomly stopped into a place called Bistro Toc.  Well, this ended up being such a wonderful surprise!   The food was incredibly good!


After we went back to the Airbnb to freshen up, we wandered back to the Promenade to relax and watch the sunset with a few beers.   Well, we (mostly Dan) got pizza'd while sitting by the water.  What does it mean to get pizza'd?  Well.. A bit of drama... a lady apparently got into a fight with her (boyfriend?) and threw a pizza box towards the ocean... but completely missed and the pizza sprayed all over Dan and got some on both Brian and me.  While it could have been a reason to get super upset, the guy apologized and we later just laughed it away and coined the term pizza'd.
Dan enjoying the sunset on the Promenade, pre pizza'd

And... Dan's pants post pizza'd...


After getting pizza'd and watching the sun go down, we ended up eating dinner at Bokeria Kitchen and Wine Bar.  This was probably one of the best gourmet dinners we've had ever, and was well worth the price!  After dinner we went to try and hang out with Ivna again, but the place was super swamped.  We had a drink or two and decided to call it a night.
⇑Yummy seafood from Bokeria⇓



So, would I recommend Split to people visiting Croatia?  Absolutely!  Both the suburbs and city center provided drastically different experiences, but equally fun.  The suburbs allowed us to see and experience what the locals do and provided a neat glimpse of the day to day life of a Croatian in the city while staying next to Diocletian's Palace allowed us to experience the physical beauty of Split.  We walked around at night and felt completely safe in both places.  Our time there was very well spent.  Thank you, Split, for being kind to 4 random American travelers and making us feel welcome 😍😘

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