Swedish Health Muffins

Day 3 – Swedish Health Muffins (Mark and Tracey)

After a breakfast of honey croissants from the nearby bakery (40p each) and figs from the market (£1 per punnet) we explored more of the old town of Split.  Essentially this centres around the Diocletian Palace that was built by the Emperor Diocletian as his retirement villa.  Although the upper part of the villa is now in ruins the basements remain intact and replicate the floor plan of the upper areas exactly.  We spent a happy hour wondering around in the basements before surfacing again to explore more of the narrow winding streets surrounding the palace.  As we have yet to acclimatise to the heat we eventually succumbed and found a tree shaded café from which to cool down and people watch for a while as is traditional.

Having had great success with Michelle’s recommendation for somewhere to eat on Wednesday night we again followed her recommendation to visit a traditional Croatian restaurant for supper.  This took a while to find as the Riva (promenade) was closed for a ticketed ‘rave’ later that night which meant another wander through the narrow streets of the old town to reach the restaurant called Fife but it was definitely worth the effort.  There was a queue to get in which we thought must be a good sign and just as Michelle had described the restaurant was set out in family style with shared tables.  A space was quickly found for us and we joined a Norwegian couple who live in Trondheim.  To our shame we cannot remember their names but they were lovely and we shared conversation with them while we ate our meals. The husband was particularly interested in football but we soon reached the limit of our combined knowledge even though Mark tried his best to explain who Paolo d’Cannio was.

Next we were joined by a young Australian couple on their way back to Australia from having been in the UK for 2 years.  We tried to pretend we are still hip and trendy and asked them if they knew who was performing at the ‘rave’.  Matt informed us that it was someone who used to be in a group called ‘Swedish Health Muffins’.  We were somewhat surprised by this and sought further clarification only to discover that it was in fact  group called Swedish House Mafia.  How foolish (and old!) are we.  Our supper of grilled fish, squid and vegetables completed we bade them a fond farewell and headed back so the safety of our room in case we got caught up in the reveling.

Rubbing the Bishop's toe for luck

View of Split from the port