snizek.ch

The first of our  two week journey to Croatia started in Kastela. This is a town located at the coast a couple of kilometers north of Split. We very much enjoyed the peace and quiet of the place as well as the Venetian stile beauty of the manyo old buildings. However, as there was soon nothing much else to do besides of eating ice cream, snorcheling and sleeping we went off to day trips to places around Kastela.

The Krka waterfalls are a place of stunning natural beauty. Being home to several endemic species of fish and amphibians the natural park is also important for bird migration in spring and autumn.

In July, however, the only ones swarming the place are tourists.

And on a side note this is where Winnetou was filmed in the 1960s and where Tesla built a small hydro powerplant to be the first to illuminate a city with alternate current power.

Sibenik belonged to Venetia until in 1797 Venetia was conquered by Napoleon and handed over to the Austrian-Hungarian empire. Nonetheless, the Venetians had enough time to leave their marks on the town which makes Sibenik a major tourist target destination today. The most remarkable building is the Cathedral of St. James with dozens of heads sculptured around the cathedral's wall. The heads represent the town's procurators.

Walking through the narrow streets set us off into ancient Venetian times. It let us breath the history of the place. 

Undoubtedly, because of the Venetian building style Sibenik was filming location for the fourth season of Game of Thrones. Unsurprisingly US English is heard all over the place.

Trogir is more than 2000 years old. The town's name derives from ancient Greek and means 'male goat'. Like Sibenik it belonged throughout the middle ages to the Venetians until 1797. Like in Sibenik they left their marks. Most notably once more is the cathedral with Radovan's Gate.

A two-hour ferry ride to the west is the island of Vis where we spent the last week scuba diving. Once arrived in the town of Vis we took the bus to Komiza where we would stay for the next nine days.

Undeniably, Vis as an island is for sailers and, to us more important, Komiza is for scuba divers. The underwater world is rich and beautiful with corals and gorgons and riddled with wrecks. May they be ship wrecks or World War II era bombers. Divers who love octopusses will be rewarded with sightings.

Unfortunately we took no underwater picutres. Many dives were quite deep and often a bit of a hassle leaving no time to take pictures.