Ancient Roman Ruins & other misc. fun

Today was another excellent day. The temperatures have dropped slightly and there was a perfect breeze. We started by walking 1.5 km to the local beach workout station. We first noticed these stations in Paris, where the majority of the population live in apartments and therefore, have no yards. To encourage people to be outside and active, workout stations have been set up. As we are preparing to conquer Everest Base Camp at the end of November (yes, all tickets have been purchased) David decided it would be a good idea to incorporate strength training into our weekly routine. He’s got us doing variations of push-ups, pull-ups, plank, rows and various other exercises. We get quite a few stares as we head over to the equipment as a family of 4. Hopefully the girls will be super strong as they do have to carry their own backpacks on the EBC trek.

Of course all this exercise made us hungry, but we also needed to get some homeschooling in, so we decided to head to a local coffee shop we wanted to try out called the “Cookie Lab.” The best part is, you aren’t permitted to smoke inside. Yay!! Unfortunately many Croatians smoke and smoking is permitted in all restaurants and cafe/bars. The freshly squeezed orange juice, which has quickly become my favourite, was delicious, and the almond croissants were so yummy. We will definitely be going back again.

This afternoon we took an Uber to Salona, a suburb of Split and about a 5 km drive from our apartment. We had read that there were Ancient Roman Ruins in Salona that dated back to 2 AD and at one point in time was home to 60,000 inhabitants. What we thought would be a quick 20 minute excursion (I mean how big could these ruins actually be) turned out to be a two hour adventure exploring an extensive ruined city, some of which we learned actually dated back to the 1st century AD, such as the necropolis. We explored the baptistry, several bridges, the amphitheatre, a smaller theatre, public baths and burial grounds. It was amazing and so surprising that such a site was in the middle of a suburb surrounded by modern day apartment buildings. I just wonder what life would have been like during such Roman times and what the inhabitants’ day to day life would have been like. Lots of opportunity to let our imaginations wander.

What was also surprising was that we could wander wherever we liked, except the amphitheatre and there was no cost to enter. The to end our fabulous adventure, our Uber driver, whose english was really good recommended a local fish market and recommended we order Cevaplici, a type of Bosnian kabab made of grilled minced meat, as we are renting a car tomorrow and driving to Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s update as we explore another part of Eastern Europe. I’m really excited about our day trip tomorrow as visiting Bosnia was never in our very, very loose plans and it will certainly be a history lesson for us all, as extensive fighting during the Bosnian war took place in Mostar...ClarindaRead more