Roots and Wings: Croatian City of Split

Monday night we arrived in the city of Split, Croatia. Initially, I was not impressed.

We had just come from these absolutely charming, medieval cities with incredible natural beauty.

When we arrived in Split it seemed to me a lot more industrialized - graffiti, traffic, business.

Everything I don't miss.

Everyone loved the apartment we were staying at, but I love gardens and rustic charm,

not inner city apartments

so I wasn't as in love as everyone else.

Steve had signed us all up for a bike tour so we were up the next morning to take a bike tour with Duje. He and a few of his friends own Red Adventures.

By the end of the tour, I was in love with Split.

Duje really made the tour.

He from Split, born and raised.

He is a lawyer, but got sick of it and now works at this business with his friends.

The best part about the tour is that Duje is both cool and intelligent.

He speaks excellent English with a distinctive Australian accent.

I had so many questions about Croatia that he answered for me.

He introduced us to the very best ice cream all the locals eat.

Told us cool places to eat.

And gave us a view of Croatia from the perspective of a local.

We toured the town, got the history and then he took us to this park.

Look at these views!

(Mom, the Island of Vis is visible from this park.

We didn't make it out there, but Duje said it is an incredible place.)

In the park there is an old Jewish cemetery from a Jewish population that lived here in 1573.

I am fascinated by the Jewish dispersion and gathering, so I loved this.

Duje told us about the rampant corruption in this gorgeous country.

This is the city hall. Workers used to occupy just the bottom two floors.

Now they occupy the entire building.

They have two people in ever office.

There isn't nearly enough work for them to do.

But why?

Padded pay checks.

Loads of paid vacation.

Excellent pensions.

Money laundering.

Every Croatian we talked to said that corruption is a huge problem here.

But why?

I think a lot of it is that this is the way it was when this was part of Yugoslavia.

Communism had a lot of rampant corruption and it is sort of part of the culture now.

I kept asking him, why don't people stand up against this?

Obviously no one likes it.

He told a story of a whistle blower.

At first, everyone applauded her.

But then she lost her job.

Was unemployed.

Started working for Transparency International - which he said is no longer in existence in Croatia.

He also said that the law is very arbitrary.

Keep in mind that the Balcans have been ruled by numerous regimes over the centuries,

some have been better than others.

But when they were ruled by communist regimes and facist regimes, they were very controlled in what they could and could not say.

And I would imagine that this has an impact on the culture of standing up for integrity in the government.

I will write more about freedom of the press in another post, but that is a very impactful factor as well.

Apparently Split, Croatia is an incredibly athletic town.

Their population is under 200,000,

and yet they have an entire boardwalk of Olympic medalists from Split.

When Ginette came to Croatia last time she was in Zagreb, Croatia when the city received its Olympic champions.

I remember her telling me the story.

Of course, she speaks no Croatian, but the energy in the city was electric.

She told me about the congo line the citizens made in celebration.

How the crowd went wild over the bronze medalist.

It was so interesting for her to think about how exciting it is for a tiny country to welcome their champions home.

The pride.

Apparently handball is huge in Croatia and they tend to medal in that sport.

In honor of her experience in Croatia after the 2012 Olympics, here is her by Ivano Balic's plaque.

Split has a beautiful city center with the oldest known Cathedral.

We got to hear some traditional Dalmatian music.

Deocletian's palace was here.

The palace is the main reason why Split became a meaningful place.

We also visited an archaeological museum.

The highlight of that trip for me was Dragon.

He was a man a little younger than my mother who gave us our tickets and talked our ears off.

He told us of how during communism, at least you felt like the government was looking out for you.

Now that they have democracy, it doesn't feel like the government is looking out for the people at all, but rather that they are trying to exploit the people.

He lives a simple life. His car is 37 years old.

The locals kept recommending that we see Solona.

It has ancient Roman ruins from this capital city.

It was pretty cool.

These are the ruins from an old coliseum.

The idea that Gladiators used to battle to the death here was something I didn't love, but that important fact aside, it was really interesting to see.