We had agreed that, as our last day of the trip (not counting the long haul back to Columbus), today should be a “chill” day. And it was! We still managed to walk over 20,000 steps each, but it was very easy walking.
We started off by grabbing strudel at the little shop right next to our flat and then going in search of coffee, which we found outside the palace, but, nonetheless, being a place that was largely frequented by locals (older gentleman who all knew each other and were taking their time passing around a little tin of watches and bracelets and appraising them and trying them on).
After that, we donned our swim trunks and walked to Concrete Beach—literally concrete with a drop off (and periodic stairs) into the surf, which sounds weird and…is a little odd. But, it worked. We swam for a bit and then actually swam around a small point so that we exited the water on a more traditional beach and walked back around. Blue, cool sea water was refreshing!
We headed back to the apartment for showers and then walked down to the palace for lunch, followed by gelato, followed by a return to the apartment for a few hours of coding (Benton) and data wrangling (Tim…but also in the service of this site) before heading back out for dinner…and more gelato.
A chill day, but one that involved walking from our flat to the palace and back three times, plus a somewhat longer walk to a beach and back!
An interesting/memorable experience of the day:
Benton: the five middle-aged guys we watched from afar at Bačvice Beach absolutely go all out and diving in the surf playing a game where they tried to bat a ball around and just keep it in the air (I’d read about the game being popular). [Additional note from Tim’s Croatian friend, Robert Petković, upon reading this: “BTW, the game played on the beach Bačvice is called “picigin” (pee-zee-guin) and is rather popular throughout Croatia. the story says it has been invented right there at Bačvice and there are a bunch of guys who are playing it EVERY DAY! Each New Year we have photos in our newspaper of them playing the ball.”]
Tim: Watching Benton keep his streak alive of always making a turn at the bottom of the stairs and head towards the basement rather than opening the door and walking outside (we’ve been on so many higher floors during the trip with many stairs to ascend/descend, that his brain simply can’t adjust to a flat where we only need to descend one flight of stairs to reach ground level).