Birthday -- Belaying -- Beaches

Today is Sophie's birthday, and given that she loves climbing, we were happy to indulge.

We woke up early, enjoyed some crepes and headed to Split's local crag -- Marjan Park. A prominent hill in western Split overlooking the azure Adriatic and giving a stunning view of the Dalmation coast. The crag is is about as convenient as climbing gets: the approach is a drop off at a local beach, walk up a hill, past some hermitage caves built into the cliff face -- maybe 300m total walk.
The climbing was great -- we only managed two routes. the rock was solid, lots of variety. Despite that, it was the view that was outstanding. Seeing all of the boats on the water, from large to small, and looking down at the swimmers in the water.

It's unseasonably hot here, we topped 28C today, and the wall is south facing, the rock was too hot to climb by 11:30, and we packed up the rope, and had to settle for the beach. Kasjuni beach was lovely, and the clear blue water cooled us off.

The next stop was Luka's ice cream and cake shop to celebrate Sophie's birthday. It was delicious, the cake was basically Ferrero Rocher flavoured. We finished the afternoon by walking through old town -- it's old, dunno why Europeans are obsessed with keeping all these old buildings. Think about it: how could you build essentials such as drive-throughs or big-box stores with old half-ruined high density buildings in the way.

We ended the day with a sunset at Bacvica beach. All in all, I think an excellent birthday for Sophie.

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