Sunday Night At The Palace.

golden tree-fungus in late afternoon light

Good news on the medical front

I have been sparing in the use of my blood glucose meter in Europe - not good practice for a diabetic soul, though it does increase the comfort of my fingertips, which need to be pierced by a disposable lancet each time I want a blood sample to measure. I have not known whether the lancets or the test strips (which do the actual testing, and can be used only once each) can be bought over here. I only have so many with me.

If any city on my itinerary is likely to have such supplies, it is cosmopolitan Split, so yesterday I worked up the courage to try the pharmacy across the street from my digs here, taking along my glucose-meter-kit to help explain things. The pharmacist spoke english, was actually helpful, recognized the equipment instantly, provided two wheels of strips (ten per wheel) and a box of lancets on the spot, and promised more strips by Thursday!

Enough to make a man dizzy. The nice lady also said that propanalol, which stands between me and hospitalization, is available; come by with the prescription when I need it.

Yrs Trly is a happier and less worried traveller for the experience.

Meanwhile, back in Split

This cheerful soul is a tenth-century churchman named Grgur Ninsky, known in english as Gregory of Nin. Looks like a real old-testament prophet doesn't he, calling down doom and destruction on anybody unfortunate enough to own something that his people covet. Actually, Grgur is remembered here as a Good Guy. He wanted to conduct church services and publish bibles in Croatian as well as Latin, so that the target audience could actually understand them both. The church was having none of it, and Grgur Ninsky was eventually burned as a troublemaker.

Nights at the palace

Where do I start explaining the Palace. I've mentioned before that Split's old town lies inside the walls of (Roman Emperor) Diocletian's retirement palace. (since 304 AD) In the 1950's - 70's, the neighborhood was the Tenderloin of Split, abandoned to the hookers, pimps, pushers, the poor, the low-life - little visited by honest or prosperous citizens, or the cops.

Today the place is safe,
riddled with gentrification and tourist traps. There are bank and real-estate offices in refurbished old buildings, caffe-bars everywhere, a few restaurants, two four-star hotels and a three-star, and lots of shops selling jewellry, souvenirs, designer fashions, and Overpriced Stuff That You Don't Really Need.

This is fascinating?!? Mommy, has Jeff really lost it? Well... the palace is big. The maze of medieval and later buildings within and among Diocletian's old walls is almost fractally complex. Some of the alleyways have unpretentious cafes filled with locals rather than turistas. The one I am at now has an easy-going, mostly twenty-ish clientele and free wireless.

Look closer as you wander the maze. There are doorways unnoticed among the glitzty display windows. Low profile alleys without shops or signs, save the occasional placard for sobe (rooms). Roman-vintage stairs lead to passages with anonymous, well-weathered doors.

Look up. Those upper floors - third, fourth, fifth. These windows are broken and abandoned. Those others have shutters, curtains, lights and furniture. In courtyards and alleys laundry hangs drying proudly in the breeze like flags flying, in cheerful coexistence with outdoor cafes and cool pizzerias. People live in here, amidst it all. (Especially old women with cats.) Who are these people? How do they get these places? Some areas are obviously gentrified and expensive. Some look like the sort of marginal neighborhoods that retired folks and middle-class hippies have always sought out.

Right at this moment, a marginal-but-comfortable dwelling in the walls of the most surreal neighborhood I've seen,... that would be the coolest place to live if I could swing it.

Clock tower at night framed by lower buildings

Not yet of course. The are lots of places to explore first between here and, say, Samos or Selcuk. But I am in no hurry to leave Split.

Dang, I need some living daylight people-pictures. These Sunday night images make the old city look dead.

The season is late and the latitude high. There is rarely enough daylight down in the maze for satisfying photos, and I am not always awake in time to get what there is. But the night-time lighting makes for some fun images. The place is not as empty as it looks here. Especially not the back alley cafes where the locals hang out.