Splitting Split

ABOUT: Leaving Split and getting to Zagreb, written in a Zagreb hotel about 9:30pm

*Travel Stuff (soft-core)*

I was up quite a while before 10am. I packed, made sure my electrics were recharged and sat on the little terrace outside the flat reading my Brookmyre book "Boiling a Frog" (a short title for him). I popped down to the internet cafe and disturbed a chap reading Toronto University internal pages to get a file I made last night after posting with Zagreb hotel details in it (for some reason I couldn't Gmail it).

At ten, the lady who owned the flat turned up, the non-english speaking daughter of the guy who met me off the bus. I still managed (I think) to tell her I liked her flat, I liked Split and I was grateful.

The train "tilted", which was wierd when there was a great view and we suddenly leaned away from it. At one point I looked out the window and saw a house wall at a very odd angle, until I worked out it was us at an odd angle - it was straight.

I found myself sitting next to Ben, an architect from Plymouth, who was with flame-haired Rachel who'd planned the trip, Laura and (I think) Janet. They'd started in Milan before hitting Florence, Rome, Naples and then
across Italy for a ferry to Dubrovnik, up the coast by bus to Split. A quick change in Zagreb and off to a Lake in Slovenia, then round the top of the sea to Venice before flying home. A busy schedule that they've compounded by standing in queues for museums and galleries - something I won't be doing. Nice people, and good luck to them.

I've been learning things during my travel so far. I'm not 20, I'm 43. I wouldn't have liked to arrive in Split to find all the hotels full and playing Russian Roulette with youth hostel vacancies. I arrived in Zagreb and walked out of the station into the hot late-afternoon sun. I had no appetite for walking round the city asking at hotels.

Yesterday evening I looked up the top city-centre hotel's locations, rates, availability and phone numbers. I rang the hotel Dubrovnik then and there to check availability, took a taxi and went there. I had to take rack rate (£78) as the front desk wouldn't entertain the internet rate (£49) or anywhere near. Either they thought it was a "distressed purchase" or they have no flexibility. Either way, I caved.

Behind this are a few issues. If all someone wants is a hostel or a rock-bottom hotel (and one doesn't mind spending time and shoe leather) then one can just arrive and start looking. If I just want to get into my hotel, chill, and then go for a stroll without my bags, then I really need the hotel arranged in advance.

These days that means using the internet (at least w.r.t. towns of any size and outside of Tibet or Sierra Leone - and I may be doing those a disservice).

Using Internet cafes is OK, but it's a lot like launderettes. They were fine until I could afford a washing machine for myself. I'm starting to think that mobile internet access will be a prerequisite for my "world tour".

But is booking hotels ahead spoiling the whole experience? How many researchers did Michael Palin have on his televised travels? What is it I'd be looking for in "seeing the world" as a (reasonably solvent) 40plus-year-old?

*Travel Stuff (harder core)*

The Hotel Dubrovnik is right on the "main" square of Zagreb, "Bana Josip Jelacica" (beware missing accents and various abbreviations). This is the pivot between the historic "upper town", formed from the formerly-warring villages of Kaptol (the Eastern hill) and Gradec (Western). Once reconciled, they proceeded to outgrow their original market and the aforementioned square took on the role.

Between the Square and the Station is the "lower town". South of the station is "new Zagreb" (and you can guess what that means).

Some of the tourist books imply that Zagreb has been a "capital in waiting", a centre of culture, science, etc. Under the Hapsburgs the capitals were Vienna and Budapest. Only after Tito and the breakup of Yugoslavia did Zagreb come to the fore. The guidebooks say that culturally Zagreb looks to Vienna, and I can feel that here. Split felt much more like it looked to Italy (cuisine) and the Mediterranean generally (lifestyle) - a big difference for a small country.

The view from the train was interesting. Population density was amazingly low for almost the whole journey. Split didn't have a "large town" feel (in British terms) and we only passed one town of any size on the way to Zagreb. The countryside, by turns, reminded me of Italy, Austria, Scandinavia, Scotland, Australia and England. There was at least one point where the surrounding forest switched from deciduous to evergreen at a single line, and back again almost as quickly.There were no "industrial zones", just countryside with the occasional cement factory (at least three).

For dinner I found a reasonably pleasant outdoor restaurant just north of the Tourist Information Centre, full of locals. I took the waiter's recommendation on wine (from a non-cheap list of all-domestic bottles) and the wine formed 65% of the final bill. I didn't mind, but it does indicate food and wine costs here - beer is a different, more reasonable matter.

*Itinerary*

I've now worked out my schedule for the rest of the holiday, so I can simplify my previous table:

From	To	Ref	Dep	Arr	Dur
LGW N	Split	BA2888	15/8 16:20	15/8 19:50	2:30
Split	Zagreb Glavni Kolod	IR522	17/8 10:53	17/8 16:17	5:24
Zagreb Glavni Kolod	Belgrade	R741, R419	19/8 09:00	19/8 15:33	6:33
Belgrade	Sofia	D293	20/8 21:00	21/8 06:25	8:25
Sofia	Istanbul Sirkeci	D491, D499, D81031	22/8 19:30	23/8 08:24	12:54
Istanbul T1	LHR T1	BA0677	25/8 17:25	25/8 19:25	3:00