![Flower market flower sellers under umbrellas on a crowded sidewalk](pix/2008/img_6741.jpg)
All Saints Day is a
significant holiday in devoutly Catholic Croatia,
eclipsing both Halloween
and Day Of The Dead
(which apears to be known in Europe, though I've always known it as
Mexican).
All Saints Day
affected me. The sidewalk flower
market between my digs and downtown was a real zoo on the
holiday. It made for some entertaining people-watching, but I
finally gave up trying to pass, cutting through the more spacious fruit
market nearby.
The fruit market,
surrounded by a more general
flea-market
(interlaced with tourist schlock) sprawls across the 100
yards or so between the train tracks and the Silver Gate, east
entrance to Diocletian's palace, guarded by the
fearsome dalmatian watch
cats.
![The Golden Gate statue visible through arched window over stone gate](pix/2008/img_6820.jpg)
Silver Gate!?
Hmm... Yes, there is also a Golden Gate, the
north entrance to the palace. The Golden Gate, overseen
by the towering bronze image of Grgur
Ninsky,
separates the
palace interior (the pimps' and hookers' turf a generation ago) from
the
park on the massive Venetian-era battlements (their turf today). Why the battlements? Turks. Lots of them,
![random corner in the maze stained glass window in white stone wall](pix/2008/img_6828.jpg)
![on the cover of the roman stones fragments of carved Roman frieze or lintel](pix/2008/img_6777.jpg)
Some teenage kids
who chatted with me
- t'was they who told me about
the park - were surprised to learn that San Francisco also
has a Golden Gate. I think they only partly grasped it.
FWIW: the west and south entrances to the roughly-square palace are the
Bronze and Iron
Gates,
respectively.
![The Riva, Caligari-view cafe tables and storefronts](pix/2008/img_6895.jpg)
![seeing and recording teenage girl squatting to photograph friend](pix/2008/img_6882.jpg)
![Kids too little kid helping littler kid](pix/2008/img_6896.jpg)
![Evening view from the Riva lights reflectiing on harbor water](pix/2008/img_6954.jpg)
![evening light young girl jumping in golden late daylight](pix/2008/img_6866.jpg)
![Reflection of harbormaster's office reflection of floodlit building](pix/2008/img_6998.jpg)
![Night life moved in and up. bar & apts on roman wall](pix/2008/img_6992.jpg)
In Diocletian's time, the sea came
right up to the south wall. Today they are separated by a
wide promenade called the Riva,
lined with outdoor cafes, bars, and
restaurants, many of them built up against, or even into. the emperor's
old walls.
The Riva by day and evening is great for watching the harbor, the
ships, the kids at play, the people seeing and - sometimes very
deliberately - being seen.
Curiously, my camera exaggerates the goldenizing effect of late
afternoon light.
At this northern latitude, winter sunsets are slow affairs, and I have
a lot of time to experiment with golden-tinged photography.
At night, the outdoor bar action moves indoors and upstairs, where it
keeps going as late as this elderly non-drinker has ever bothered to
check on it.
After
two weeks here, Split remains a major candidate for returning to at the
end of the current exploratory phase of this adventure.
I'm leaving Split tomorrow, with a clear, if very flexible,
picture of my itinerary as far as Dubrovnik,
the end of Croatia,
three or four weeks from now. A couple of Islands, then Dubrovnik
itself.
I toyed with a side-trip to inland Mostar
(Bosnia-Hercegovina),
to which tourism has returned, but eschewed it in favor of the southern
Dalmatian islands.
After Croatia,
the crystal ball becomes very hazy indeed, save for my emergence in the
Aegean
sometime well before next high season.
Montenegro? Leaning
toward it. Albania?
Hmm... maybe not. But jeez, when will I have a chance to actually see freekin'
Albania again?
Peleponnesus?
Maybe skip it now, and come back in the Aegean (and Croatian) high season?
Athens?
Major hassle
big city polluted dangerous expensive yikes! Um... can you avoid
Athens? Will I regret it if I do?
Contents Copyright 2012 Jeff Bulf