Days 48 & 49, 26th - 27th May. Blue Caves and Split

 Day 48, 26th May Bisevo -Blue Caves to Split

Up this morning after a good sleep – my spider bites are still looking angry though, so I am putting antihistamine cream and then antibiotic cream on as well. A couple of them are looking quite dark in the centre and we have seen some disturbing photos of what spider bites can do to your skin, so I want to really look after them!

We had to be up and ready by 7 am, as we have an early start to Bisevo where the famous blue caves are, and our tour director said we would be back within half an hour for breakfast – lovely 😊. You can only go into the blue caves if the ocean is quite still as the opening for the boat to go into, is only about a metre high and you all have to duck down. How lucky were we – and we were the very first boat in there for the day. 

We have seen when we were back in Split, advertising for the caves and it is a huge drawcard with dozens of boats going out every day, so we beat the crowd. The blue light inside is amazing – it was actually discovered by a guy who came in a different way, a small hole in the rock higher up that he had to crawl through, but they have blasted out a small opening for rowboat sized boats to go through since. There is white sand there that reflects the sun, which just happens to come through the hole in the rock, especially in the morning. Given that most of the beaches are stone, this is quite a phenomenal and the blue is an incredible colour. The boat driver was a really funny young guy and obviously enjoyed his job.

Back to the boat for breakfast, then we mooched around for a bit and read our books – I think Graeme has read 5 books while we are away, which is true testimony that he is relaxed! I am on my 3rd book and we swap them as we go along at the different places, so it’s really good. Didn’t swim today as it was a bit cold after lunch and just keep reading. Then we packed our bags up as we headed back to Split. It is a bit of a cheat really as the first and last day of your cruise is just sitting in the harbour, which is rubbish, given the cost.

We got back in to Split about 2:30 pm, and quite a few of the group went on a walking tour of the Diocletian palace, but we have already done it before so just stayed on board and finished up our packing. We wandered off and into the city later – very hot and muggy tonight when it was still 29° at 5 pm. We wondered around aimlessly as we have seen everything before, but then stopped at a restaurant as Graeme wanted to eat and had a cold beer and mojito to cool ourselves down and then walked back to the ship and stopped up top and chatted with some of the passengers. We have all got to know each other really well and very few of the Scandinavians don’t speak English so we have been lucky. They are such lovely people. One of the Swedish guys, who is a fire chief back home was funny. He was getting into the water at one of our swim stops, and I was standing waiting to get in. He asked me if I had seen the white whale and I said no, and his wife started saying ‘Nien, Nien’ but he ignored her, smiling, so I knew something was going to happen – next minute he down trou’s ….so now I call him, Mr Moon!

Day 49 - 26th May - Back in Split

We set the alarm as breakfast was early this morning at 7am then bags out at 9am - better than big cruise ships where they have to be out the night before. We stayed up and chatted with everyone as it was goodbye day - I have Janet and Mike from Manchester and Mona from Norway added on fb, so we can keep in touch. Mona looks so much like Judy Dench only prettier ☺️. 

Said our goodbyes then waited until our bag pick up at 9:40am. The company Kompass provide porterage but its only one guy, so you take the other bags yourself anyway -well we do as it would be too much to take them all. Graeme has decided to put some gear in our soft duffle bag to lighten the load in his suitcase. He feels its too hard to lift when we are getting on and off things and the duffle can be slung over your shoulder, but means we have 3 big bags and our small backpacks. Will see how we go.

I had done some googling and saw there is a bus that takes you to the big shopping centre 1/2 an hour out of the main town. The times were out from the advertised schedule so we had an extra hour to wait after dropping our bags to the same hotel we stayed in pre cruise (would not recommend Kompass though as they are very set in stone with quite a few things and dont budge for anyone, plus the accom is ridiculous being up so many sets of steps (80), with no elevator when everyone is on cruises with suitcases). 

We decided to walk down and check out the ferry terminal so we know where to go tomorrow night. It was pretty hot today so we wandered very slowly - have learned to walk like locals! We sat on a seat under a tree for a bit to just people watch then found the SNAV terminal office that will take us from Split to Ancona. Just as well we did, as it is tucked away at the very far end and around a corner where you would never see it. The lady there said its not busy tomorrow so to arrive and board around 6pm, ready to sail at 7:30pm. We have an outside cabin with dinner booked.

That done, we went back and waited for the bus - it is free as well so that’s great. We got talking to an English couple who live in Windsor borough in London, so they get free entry into the palace anytime! We had a great talk as they were chatty. She is Indian and we talked about having travelling parents still :) . The bus arrived - has an open roofed back so we sat there and enjoyed the ride- showed us a different part of Split. It has great mountains bordering it- quite impressive…people all live in apartments here. The porterage guy today was telling me that a lot of people live on their summer income in winter, because its very common to inherit a family property, so they can afford this lifestyle. Although he also said there are corrupt legal people who allow say, 1 brother to sell a property that he owns equally with his other brother, from under his feet without knowing and the police are corrupt too, so you cant do anything about it. Would hate to live under a system like that.

Anyway we wandered around the shopping mall for a couple of hours- the floors are dedicated to similar stores- 2nd floor all sports shops for instance. Graeme found a couple of t shirts he liked, so got those then sat down for a bit as we were pretty hot and tired- had walked well over 10,000 steps again today. We bought a fresh sandwich each and went to sit in the upstairs food hall which has an outside balcony. There are a lot of smokers everywhere in Europe but we were lucky and got a seat outside, with the mountain vista to look at.

Went to the cinema to see if anything was on, but there was only fast and furious - probably number 107 or something! But it wouldn’t finish before the bus returns o Split, so we went and sat down outside a cafe- a guy appeared out of nowhere and so we got a beer each- kinda weird feeling that you can buy alcohol anywhere pretty much!

Back onto the bus and the english couple were there too as they had had enough of walking. We chatted all he way back, lovely the people you meet along the way in life hey?

Up to our accom to cool down as its very hot and we have both had a lot of foot and ankle swelling due to the heat, then out for dinner after catching up with writing this blog! We walked around for quite awhile, looking where we might go for dinner and came back down to a huge, square where you could sit outside under the large sun umbrellas – very pleasant. We had a lovely meal, Black Angus, steak burgers! and then back to our room, not far away.