Skip to main content

Split, toe and sun

Split/Plitvice 31/08/2010

We stirred from dreams surrounded by our belongings which we had neatly strewn around the camp. After collecting the chaos the road called once more. A short drive brought us to Split and the Roman Emperor Diocletian's retirement home. His palace has been built on, in and around over the centuries and makes for a curious, amalgamated piece of architecture. We ate breakfast (byrek) and stumbled upon a giant man with a well worn toe. Gregory of Nin was a man who had some affiliation with a place called Nin, er...that's all I know. I do know that his big toe is reputed to bring luck to the rubber. After the calamities of the previous day a simple stroke of a digit was a superstition worth indulging.
The day had brought precisely zero auto incidents thus far. But that is not how we roll so Mike smacked the car into a kerb upon entering a tunnel and we were only saved from a head on collision by his excellent driving (note, part of this statement is b*llocks). We came to the conclusion that his remaining behind the wheel endangered our lives, those of the road users around us and our rental car deposit, plus we didn't have another spare tire. Therefore I should give it a bash. It turns out that I am an excellent driver cruelly deprived of a license by one way street facists. My time in the driver's seat was the safest on a road all holiday and Mike agreed. There is a roadside memorial roughly every 30 centimetres in Croatia, obviously not all have been gifted with my skill. We pulled into Plitvice in the early evening, located a campsite and cracked open a bottle of dreadful red wine. By faint, flickering candlelight I gave a masterclass in the game of blackjack, Mike you owe me £50.
Labels:
Location: Plitvice Lakes National Park, 53231, Plitvička Jezera, Croatia

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts

The Duke

Pub review They say: "We came for a skittle on a Saturday night and they were very welcoming but you know how you hear about lizards ruling the world, the barstaff had a very lizardy look. Make your own mind up!" --Craig Savage 4/5 I say: 'The place where everybody knows your name' The claim is painted onto the wall and doesn't seem so outlandish on this chilly Tuesday night as there is no-one in the pub to know my name or not. Dry January? I can't imagine that's a thing around these parts. You don't keep over 30 pubs in business with virtuous gestures like that. It might be a Tuesday thing. Per usual I try to find a quiet corner with my beer, surely an easy task in an empty pub? Not so. Speakers hang from every nook and carpet the space in a thick fog of sound. It isn't even the usual autotuned pop/R&B dirge being vomited into my ears. That stuff I can confine to a background hum. Instead it's the pre-match commentary for the Brighto...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sisyphean Airlines

Day 56 - Panama City We nearly didn't make it into this slip of a country. Cruel fortune had us standing in the queue for the only Panamanian border officer who had read and decided to adhere to the rules. "Return ticket?" bugger.  His steely, uncompassionate gaze was unmoved by our desperate explanations of our travel 'plans'. Bribery also failed to move him to endorse our entry so our bus driver, with infinite generosity, offered to relieve us of another $36 to write up a return ticket to San José that we would never use. This finally satisfied the entry requirements and the stamp thumped down. The country is divided by a synonymous strip of water down which floats a not insignificant quantity of the world's goods. Though our initial plan was to dive the canal, renovations kiboshed that idea and we had to settle for the traditional topside view.  On initial viewing the city itself seems built on the wealth its transoceanic connection brings.  Buildings soa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Angkor Whaaaaat?

Day 5 - Siem Reap With the water festival finished we has one more place to visit in Cambodia. Angkor Wat is an indisputable wonder of the world and the largest religious monument ever constructed. It sits within a temple complex covering 400km², the scale of which is impossible to adequately describe. Its towers seem to rise organically from the ground, the stone flowering from the earth into wonderfully symmetric form. Only modern capitalism and totalitarian hubris seem to inspire similar architectural endeavour as the gods did in the past. I don't necessarily agree with any of those ideologies and their human cost but religion's diminished power permits me a less coloured appreciation of its monuments. In the stone of Angkor Wat you see reflected the same desire for, and defiant belief in, permanence that runs through our species. I see it in the chiselled signage above the entrance to long dead banks and businesses in the City of London. The owners thought the gilded lobb...
Post a Comment
Read more