Sibenik to Split - May 28

Straight after breakfast we headed off on an hour long guided walk through the white walled old town of Sibenik. There are 20 churches within the walls but many are no longer in use. There are a further 6 outside the city. At one point in history when the locals were about to be invaded by hordes of Ottomans, they built the walls.... in 56 days! Amazing effort. Much of the walls of St Michael's fortress are still standing and in parts, modern buildings have been joined to them. As we walked through a park, they were setting up for their Spring festival. Loved the umbrellas in the trees.

There were pretty little lanes in all directions. The cathedral of St James is Unesco listed. We were able to go into the small baptistry. The ceiling carving wass beautiful.

Back to the ship, after a very quick shopping requirement, and we set sail out through the narrow passage we came in through, and on our way to Split. Nice time for reading up on deck, and checking out the scenery at the same time. There were a couple of dolphins seen near a lighthouse, but my camera didn't pick them up, so you just have to take my word for it.

Lunch becomes a rowdy affair as a new couple want to sit with us, and thinks our travel stories are hilarious. The NZ couple have again sought us out to sit with so unsurprisingly we are last to leave the table. The dessert was Tiramisu served in a wine glass. Our table was last to be served, and Mario, the waiter gave both Julie and I two desserts! I couldn't finish one, so ended up giving the 2nd one to Yorkshire 'Fang' (he's a short roly poly man with only about 2 1/2 teeth in his head. He was most grateful! Mario is also very good at keeping us in white wine during meals so Julie was happy to re-enact her bottle draining expertise!

We arrive in Split and berth alongside 2 other ships that had beat us to prime position.We go on the guided tour of the Diocletian's Palace. Built by the Roman Emporer Diocletian for his retirement in 305 AD, the Old Town of Split is contained within its walls, making it the only Roman palace in existence that has been continuously inhabited since Roman times.

We have decided that we don't want a big dinner tonight, so after the guided tour, have a wander until we stumble upon a little supermarket and stock up on cheese and chippies. We also buy some strawberries from an open air market stall. Walking back to the ship we can see what a really busy port it is. Had to stop and take a photo of the black giraffe chandelier as I know VJR will be impressed! Every place we have stopped at seems to have more than its fair share of plastic yellow duck shops. They aren't cheap at around 10 Euro each, and I don't understand the attraction for them. As the story goes, on a stormy January night in 1992, out in the Pacific Ocean, 29,000 plastic yellow ducks, blue turtles and green frogs fell from a cargo ship and were lost at sea. Since then, these durable plastic bath toys have been floating around the world, passing the site where the Titanic sank, landing in Japan, Alaska and Hawaii and even spending years frozen in an Arctic ice pack. Why so popular across Europe? So, why buy one? Do you send it out to sea or keep it in your bathroom? If you are ever wondeting what to give me for birthdays, Christmas, etc please remove 'plastic yellow duck' from the list. We are now spending the night in our cabin, eating junk food and watching a movie. This is the life!