By Brandon
August 21, 2020 • 3 min read
Once our required self-isolation was done, we started exploring the recommended sights around Split, starting with the beach 2 minutes from our Airbnb. The host lets her guests use her kayak free of charge, so we took advantage and kayaked around the beautiful bay.
On the other side of that bay is the small tourist town of Rogoznica (c in Croatian is pronounced like s), which we visited to finally have some culinary variety. Croatian cuisine is apparently a "cuisine of the regions," and the coastal region has a lot of Italian/Venetian influence with lots of pizzerias and olive oil. Croatia also seems to have no shortage of restaurants with outdoor seating, which happens to be conducive to both social distancing and enjoying a waterside sunset.
In Split proper, the roman ruins are a quick and easy low-cost excursion. It's fascinating to us the length of Croatia's history and the various ancient civilizations contributing to their modern culture. The simple fact of something being described as ancient that's just down the street from a mall is mind-blowing to me.
An even more impressive example of this is Diocletian's palace. It's often at the top of lists of sights to see in Split and with good reason. Built during the fourth century for the Roman emperor Diocletian, it's a UNESCO world heritage site and one of the best preserved Roman architecture monuments in the world. Walking through its streets feels like being in an ancient city populated by modern inhabitants working their shops and living in their apartments in the outer walls. It's a surreal experience. If you're a Game of Thrones fan, then we highly recommended taking the GOT tour. They walk you through the palace and nearby cliff-side fortress, showing you all the locations filmed for the show. I may write a dedicated post just geeking out about all the GOT locations throughout Croatia.
To see some of Croatia's natural beauty, everyone recommends visiting Krka National Park. You can follow a 2 km path that shows you beautiful scenery along the Krka River and ends at the breathtaking Skradinski Buk waterfalls.
Split was originally just the most convenient city to fly into and isolate for two weeks so we're really glad we had the chance to explore it and learn a great deal about its rich history and unique culture even when compared to other regions of Croatia.
January 25th to February 20th After our brief stay in Singapore, we more or less spent the next month (from January 25th to February 20th) on various Thai islands. It was a blast and a really unique experience. Looking back on it I'm probably struck the most by how different the experience was on each of the islands. We also had some interesting experiences getting to and from the different…