All Saints Day in Split

flower sellers under umbrellas on a crowded sidewalk

3 black&white dalmation cats on a bleached white marble block

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.

statue visible through arched window over stone gate

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,

stained glass window in white stone wall

cat statue silhouette against arch & sky

long, relatively straight narrow street between tenements

fragments of carved Roman frieze or lintel

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.

teenage girl squatting to photograph friend

young girl jumping in golden late daylight

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?