Croatia, etc. Day #6 “A Hot Day of Touring in Split”

No break from the heat today. After breakfast we boarded the air conditioned bus avoiding the 86 degree temperature while we headed to a museum dedicated to the art of the famous Croatian sculptor, Ivan Meštrović. If you have not heard of him don’t worry you are not alone. None of our fellow tour members knew of the man. We might not have heard of him but others had, enough so to make him a rarity……. a wealthy artist. The works we saw were truly impressive.

The above work entitled “The Great Pieta” is very impressive but a bit wierd in my viewpoint since the portion that is meant to represent the Virgin Mary is a self-carving of the artist, the Jesus representation is actually his son.

The museum is located in what used to be the artist’s “Summer Villa”. It is huge and absolutely beautiful.

If you walk up those stairs and turn around, this is what you see. See below.

Like I said, this was his summer residence. Apparently he never returned after the Nazis occupied Yugoslavia.

After the museum we headed to what used to be a palace in Split. The tour was informative and interesting but the heat was opressive and I couldn’t wait for it to end. Interestingly, outside the palace we were shown this. See below.

After lunch we walked back to the hotel but we made a stop to buy materials to show my travelmates another magic trick. For the trick I needed to buy a postcard. I found one that would work and it cost .50€. We didn’t have any change and the smallest bill I had was a 10€ note. The woman at the store said she didn’t have change. I was a bit shocked. I definitely would understand if she didn’t want to make change for a 100€ or a 20€ but a 10€? So we went next door to a jewelry store and apologetically asked if the salesperson had change for a 10€ note. She said no initially but after Patrice told her we just needed 50 cents for a postcard the woman went into her purse and gave us .50€ in change. I didn’t want to accept this incredibly kind gesture but preferred to look further for the change but she insisted that we accept. I then reached in my pocket and offered her a USA one dollar bill as a gift from me. She seemed very pleased. It was one of those moments that make travel so very special to me. I have a modest interest in seeing “things”. What really gets me going is interactions with local people.

To further expand on this concept, an interesting thing happened at lunch. We were sitting at a window table and a young man sat just outside and for some reason I wondered where he was from. Patrice and I talked about it and I said, I am quite sure he is from Germany. I have no idea what made me think that but once we had the discussion I had to find out. I asked the waiter who I saw talking to him if he knew but he just gave me a shrug of his shoulders. Finally my curiosity forced me to act. I went outside and told the gentleman that my wife said what he ordered looked really good and we wanted to know what it was. He said the homemade pasta. I then asked “Where are you from?” To which, he replied, “Germany”, “Munich, Germany”. Now that is what I call magic.

I would write more, but I need to work on my magic trick. We are having a group dinner tomorrow and I don’t want to disappoint my audience.