Doing Splits with Zadar

Now we are in Trogir, a small UNESCO protected town about 40 kms from another UNESCO protected town, Split. Both towns are great. Plenty to see, great places to eat and drink and not too many tourists about, except for the Japanese tour groups who have come back on the scene and who faithfully trot along en masse to and from their buses.

Just to backtrack a couple of days. We spent a quiet couple of days exploring the medieval town of Zadar. This city has had a long history of suffering under armed aggression. The catholic Venetians talked the crusaders into sacking the city centuries ago and their last problems were in 1995 in the Yugoslavian wars. Consequently the city is not the greatest but the old town itself was worth a few hours.

In keeping with historical places in Croatia, the old towns are port towns and it seems that every boat ever built is here in Croatia. Water traffic is constant and most impressively, the walkways along the shores are great places for access to small beaches, swimming, cafes, marinas and accommodation. We felt very relaxed in these environments.

The Croatian coastline is much better than the French and Mediterranean coasts. The people are friendlier, there are almost no (obvious ) vagrants or spivs (Rupreck) as seen around places like Nice, St Tropez, Beaulieu sur Mer etc and the walkways and promenades are fantastic, spotlessly clean and very wide areas.

Last night we watched the Australian football team end its' World Cup campaign and prepare to head home. Then our phones started jumping with heaps of text messages (thank goodness we had just got off a local bus or there would have been some strange looks as mobile phones are not so common here) to say that Rudderless Rudd was on the skids. We knew Australians have giant inferiority complexes as reflected in desires for serious world sporting success, but we thought this action might be taking things a bit far.

But no. This morning we put the travelling computer online to the ABC radio to find that Bulldogs Full Forward really is the top dog and Kev O'lemon had kicked an own goal. The story has even made television news over here (not that it is in a language we can understand). The TVs over here are showing very serious segments from France and now Italy with national leaders and sporting ministers explaining to their political representatives their own national shame. So we hope Julia will welcome home the football team appropriately so we are not left with the same taste in the national psyche as we had after our inglorious exit from Viet Nam in the 1970s. We are learning in this part of the world just how far memories can extend if national troubles are not dealt with properly.