Florence Y'all Days 49-50

The Duomo

The duomo again. The sky was SO blue that day!

Us in front of the fake David. You can't see his head but I guess that's not the important part of The David. The real David is in a museum but we didn't have time to make it there.

Statues outside the Uffizi. We had planned to visit the Uffizi but didn't realize how long the line would be. If you ever go to Florence buy your tickets ahead of time.

Beautiful view of the river.

We were attempting to walk up to Michelagelo's Square and we came across this sign. We still have no clue what it was talking about. We managed to make it up the path without being crucified.

View from Michelangelo's Square.

Four taxidermied pigs having lunch in front of a saugage shop. WTF??!!

Venice

Days 47 & 48: Venice
After a very restful night of sleep in our luxurious ferry cabin we arrived in Ancona. Getting to Venice seemed a little like being on The Amazing Race or something. After leaving the port we asked for directions to the train station. We thought the guy said three hundred meters but apparently he said three kilometers. We followed another pair of backpackers (hoping they were going to the train station) and eventually made it to the station. There was a train leaving in four minutes from the farthest platform (the next was 90 min later) so we ran with all our bags and caught it with two minutes to spare. After catching some much needed sleep on the long train ride we arrived at the station, just outside of Venice, closest to our hotel. Before heading to a new city we map out the route from the station to our hotel on google and take a picture so that we can access the directions easily once we arrive. We start following the direction and about halfway there we are both standing there, looking at the camera, saying this can't be right. Google maps walking directions has taken us up onto what looks like an interstate. There are no other streets to take so we head down the interstate. Thankfully there was sort of a sidewalk with a guard rail between us and traffic and there was a red light at the point we needed to cross the road to head down our exit ramp. We finally made it to the hotel, took a much needed shower and found the bus route to go into the city.

Our couchette on the ferry

I may have gotten a better nights sleep than these guys, but I'm not so sure.

Ancona from the arriving ferry

I love Venice! I love the narrow streets, all the little bridges over canals, the houses with doors that sit on the canals, the Rialto, St Mark's Square. the gondolas... It's all beautiful and I love the feel of the city. There's not a whole lot to do in Venice but it's a great city to walk the streets or sit at a cafe.

The Rialto

View from St. Mark's Square

After an evening of weaving our way through the streets we decided to take the waterbus from St. Mark's Square back to the bus station. It's not quite the same experience as a gondola ride through the little canals but it was a neat way to see the city from the Rialto. The houses and buildings were beautiful, with their lights reflecting on the water.

The Rialto Bridge

The next day we got to wander around and see more of the city in daylight.

Little bridge over one of the many canals.

The Rialto Bridge is in the background.

The Rialto

The square in front of the Venice train station.

After a great afternoon in Venice we headed to Florence.

Dorks Without Borders Contest

First person to correctly identify what this is wins a prize. The guy at the tourist office had no clue what we were asking about, but when Todd drew this picture he knew immediately.

Split Personality, Days 44, 45, 46

We started the day with a bus ride from beautiful Plitvice Park to Split. While waiting for the bus, we met Dave and his wife, Jee-Sun (sp?). They are from Seattle via Korea and are also travelling around part of the world. Dave has taught English in Korea and traveled extensively in India and SE Asia, and was a good source of information. During our 5 1/2 hour bus ride, we made several stops before Split, including one where there was an enclosure with bears. No signs or any indication of why the bears were in the cage. They just were and it was rather depressing, for us and the bears I think. 

 Sad Ol' Bear.

The inland towns of Croatia were not quite as nice or developed as Zagreb, but the sea side towns were nice. Split is on the Adriatic and has a very nice promenade along the sea. Kind of reminded us of Miami, but cleaner.

View from the Split promenade along the sea our first night in Split.

Split was initially a Greek settlement before it became part of the Roman Empire. The Roman Emperor Diocletian decided to build a retirement palace there around 305 AD. At times, 8000 people were thought to live in the palace. The old town of Split is built in and around the palace. There are still walls, roads/walkways, gardens, and buildings from the palace being used today.

 On one side of the harbor is the promenade and on the other is a beach area, although a small beach. Even though it was only 70 degrees F or so, there were people swimming in the Adriatic.

This is the beach side.

This is the promenade side.

Diocletian also built several parks and gardens. Marjan, a large hill next to the palace was one such park. It is still used as a park today and has many hiking trails and a zoo. It is a fairly short, but steep hike up the hill from the city's promenade.

Part of the pathway to the top of the Marjan Hill.

(Note from Steph: While marble stairs and streets are beautiful, they are very slippery when wet! This is especially bad if you are wearing sandals with no traction. On a positive note, it did allow me to take the stairs a flight at a time on the way down.)

View of the Split promenade and city from the Marjan Hill.

View from Marjan Hill of a tanker in the Adriatic.

There was a wall running around a large area of the hill with paths around the entire perimeter. Even after I had a look over the wall, I am not sure what was on the inside. It may have been a very old cemetery with very small tombstones. Or not.

Near the bell tower stands one of the two black granite sphinxes from Egypt dating from around 15 BC that originally flanked the entrance to Diocletian's mausoleum.  Diocletian's body was here for 170 years until it mysteriously disappeared. The building was later converted into the Cathedral of St Domnius and a bell tower was added.

The bell tower.

The bell tower and the octagonal cathedral to its right.

View from the bell tower looking down the stairs. It was an interesting climb, particularly when you had to pass other people going the opposite direction.

But the view was worth the climb. That is Marjan Hill in the background.

An arch of the old palace and narrow pathways through.

The streets of the old city are also narrow. No cars, only bikes, motorcycles and scooters.

And these things, which are Split garbage trucks that fit (sometimes barely)  through the alleys.

There are several squares throughout the city onto which the narrow alleys will open. This one is called the People's Square and is where our room was located.

While most of the old city appears to be a tourist area, there are still parts where people live. Such as this one where people hang their laundry and flags. 

There are several markets downtown each day selling everything: vegetables, fruits, meat, purses, sunglasses and seafood. That is an eel on the left between the two bins. 

We saw a seafood delivery to the market. The guy in the orange pants brings a cart down to the promenade and meets a guy in a small boat. You can see his head to the left. The cart is loaded with buckets of fish from the boat. Very fresh.

 We finally left Croatia from Split by ferry to Ancona, Italy. The ferry ride was about 11 hours overnight. We sailed on the Marko Polo, that's how it's spelled in Croatia.

You can actually see our boat in this view from the bell tower. It is a part of the Jadrolinija shipline. Pope John Paul traveled on this ferry several years ago and the company is very proud of this, thus they have several pictures of the Pope from the time of his voyage.

Such as this one. Looks like his Holiness had a rough trip.

Split from the back of the ferry as we leave port and head to Italy.



Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia Days 42-43

Plitvice Lakes National Park is one of the most beautiful places we have been so far. There are 16 lakes at various altitudes and tons of waterfalls ("slaps" in Croatian) that run from one lake into another. When we got there the first day we only had a couple of hours of sunlight left so we headed for one of the shorter trails. For the most part the trail was a wooden path that sat just inches above the water. The water was very clear and a beautiful greenish blue color. There were lots of tiny waterfalls all around us. On day two we headed out on a much longer trail and went to see the big waterfall. We were able to hike up to some of the higher areas around the lakes and get some amazing views. We ended our day with a hike around the biggest lake, which was surrounded by a beautiful forest. The lakes are separated by natural dams of travertine which is deposited by the action of moss, algae and bacteria. The encrusted plants and bacteria accumulate on top of each other, forming travertine barriers which grow at the rate of about 1 cm per year. There are SO many pictures that we love from the hike but here are just a few.

  

The big lake. This lake was in front of our lodge. Most of our hikes either began or ended with a boat ride across the lake.

Another lake, you can see one of the higher lakes in the background.

Beautiful view from the top of one of the hills.

One of the smaller lakes with a small waterfall.

Us at the big slap with lots of other tourists.

There was no WC close by and Todd needed to go.

View from the the top lake.

Next to one of the smaller falls. The wooden path was so close to the water (you can see it next to Todd's head). Very neat to walk down!

View of the lakes and path from above. The water was SO blue!

The big slap from the other side of the valley.

Does this mean no dancing at the lake? Someone should have told us sooner...

Another picture of the amazing view from above.

 

The woods around the big lake.