Our Kids Claim We Are On Vacation Instead of on a Mission: Today They Were Right

This past weekend we traveled from Sarajevo to a senior missionary conference in Slovenia. Along the way we spent a day in Split, Croatia. If you google Croatia and start looking at images of the country, you will quickly find gorgeous images of Split. Imagine our surprise and delight to drive just 4 hours from the mountains of Sarajevo and find palm trees along the Adriatic Sea.

Split does not have a great swimming beach in the city per se but it has a wonderful old town right along the coast line. When we visited there were 5 small cruise ships in town!

In the center of old town is a literal castle with parts that date back to the Roman era. Inside the castle walls is a sprawling complex of restaurants, shops, ruins, apartments, rooms for rent, churches, and court yards all connected by a maze of alleyways which twist and turn in all directions. We stayed the night in a little room in the middle of the castle.

One of the courtyards inside the castle walls.

Our daughter, Briel, has an app that tracks wherever her mother happens to be. She looked at it during the day and posted this picture wondering what her mother was doing sleeping in a literal castle. 

"What are you doing sleeping in a castle?"

We spent much of day wandering the old town and the castle grounds. Although we did go outside of the castle area for a Dalmatian style dinner.

Split was busy but not crazy like it is in August (peak tourist season).

One downside to living in Bosnia is that it is a landlocked country and fish is relatively more expensive than other types of meat. So we were excited to eat some fresh seafood in Split. 

Dionne ordered the shrimp but decided it was simply too much effort for the amount of food she got. She thought about "sucking the head" to get a little more meat...but only for a few seconds.

We left old town and decided to climb about a million steps to a hill that borders the city. There is a nice cafe on the edge of the hill and so we relaxed for quite a while before we came back down.

Old town is to the right...love the red clay brick roofs throughout the Balkans.

I have written about the beauty of the floral quite often. Split was no exception. This wall of flowers adorned a wall just outside of the city.

You would never guess that we are several weeks into Autumn. The flowers have retained their luster.

Another interesting feature of Split is the stray cats that wander all over the city. In Sarajevo it is dogs; cats in Split. We saw food laid out for them so somebody is clearly feeding them. And they act like they own the joint.

Found hundreds of cats all over the city.

Dionne and I have been trying to take selfies but I have found that I am not that skilled snapping the picture. They never seem to turn out that great. Unlike a bus load of Asian tourists we saw who were snapped pictures with their selfie sticks every 20 seconds or so.

Behind us is a Roman ruin which you cannot see because of my selfie skills.

Anyway, it was on to Slovenia after visiting Split. I am sure we will be back sometime soon. In the meantime, just wanted everyone to see how much more expensive gas is here than in the U.S.

Little over half a tank of gas (of course it is Kuna)