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It was an early start on Tuesday, as Dale and I left Crikveniza shortly after sunrise on our way to pick up our friends Beks and Tim, who were flying into Split that morning. I programmed Tomtom with our destination and we followed the directions south along the traffic-less winding coastal road. We knew that the quickest way to Split was to travel down the coast to Senj and then cut inland to meet up with the A1 motorway. But Tomtom had other ideas... After we had been travelling south for around 45 minutes we received instructions to turn left. Not sure whether this left turn was the Senj turnoff, we trusted Tomtom and turned left. The road began to wind up into the hills, as we expected it would. But as the minutes ticked by and the road continued winding through the empty hills, I began to feel less certain. Half an hour later and the road narrowed to a single lane, yet Tomtom was adamant that we were on the right track. Further on, the sealed road became a gravel one... Now we were really starting to worry (and I was thankful that we had put in a full tank of petrol before leaving Crikveniza). Dale asked me tersely whether it was time to turn around and retrace our path to the coastal highway, but I thought we should go a few more kilometres to see if there was a sign or other indication that we were heading in the direction of Split. There wasn't, but the road once again became a sealed one and we began to see signs of human habitation. If we hadn't been so stressed about Tomtom's sense of direction, the drive would have been very scenic. Overgrown country lanes, tiny stone cottages nestled on distant hillsides, and valleys planted with fruit trees and grape vines. This was as far off the beaten track as we have ever ventured in Croatia and the banjo theme song from 'Deliverance' was beginning to play through my head, when we finally reached an intersection which had both a road sign and white lines on the road dividing one lane into two. The fact that the road sign bore place names we did not recognise was inconvenient, but Tomtom firmly directed us to turn right. So right we went, encouraged by the sight of other cars at last.
In the end the road did join with the A1 and Tomtom did get us to the airport, it just took us an extra half hour than we had anticipated. We met Beks and Tim, who were tired from having only a couple of hours sleep the night before and were both suffering from colds caught from being drenched by too much rain in soggy England. Needless to say, they were pleased to see us and even more thrilled by the cloudless blue sky and the heat - already 29 degrees by 10am.
The plan was to drive down the coast to the holiday town of Baska Voda, where we had rented an apartment for 4 nights. But first, we all needed refreshment, so we drove to the nearby medieval heart of Trogir. Trogir was once a fortified town owned by the Venetians. Parts of the city defences remain standing and the narrow streets reveal tightly packed buildings in the Venetian style. In the main square stands a white stone church with impressive tower facing a grand looking public building with a large clock on the front. There is also a wide cafe-lined promenade along the water where we found a place serving coffee and pancakes.
Feeling revived, we walked back through the town and along a canal, on the other side of which a market was underway. We bought cold drinks and fruit to sustain us for the next leg of the journey- which turned out to be much more straightforward than the morning's scenic tour.
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