Snapshot from Croatia: Trogir and Kaštela

“He who does not travel does not know the value of men.” – Moorish proverb

At the end of September we received a very welcome invitation to visit our cousins at their holiday home in Kaštela for lunch one Sunday afternoon.

We all looked forward to it and rather than make the hour and a half trip there and back decided to stay a couple of nights, giving us the opportunity to visit nearby Trogir and lovely undiscovered Kaštela.

Kaštela is a group of seven small towns stretching about twenty kilometres along the bay between Split and Trogir. A perfect place to stay to visit either town but also to be visited in their own right.

Late in the afternoon we dropped Nada off to spend the night with her cousins while we dropped our bags off in a fantastic and incredibly cheap apartment in Kastela Kambelovac and head off to Trogir in time for a very late afternoon and evening visit.

Trogir is a very special town and as such has lots of visitors but seemed less crowded than Split, or it was on the evening we visited in any case. Here is the added advantage of visiting in off season, we have started to see the visitor numbers dwindle in Makarska and the restaurant and shops shut down. I believe beautiful Trogir would be open year round but was especially nice without the crowds.

Trogir has a long and interesting history, belonging originally to the Greeks, then Romans, later the Byzantine empire, Hungarian empire, the Venetian Empire and so on. But to us here for such a limited amount of time it was simply a perfect medieval village.

With no map to follow we made our way to the bell tower that we could see in the centre of the town. There, dominating the main square, we found St Lawrence Cathedral and luckily we were early enough for an inside visit.

My lasting impression of the cathedral is of the beautiful carvings. We spent some time looking at the wonderful, recently cleaned, biblical scenes and creatures carved on the Romanesque portal which were completed in 1240.



Inside the church we found the serene simplicity we so admired in the early Christian churches in Istria, though this church was from a later period. In fact it appears that the church has been a work in progress through a long stretch of history, with Romanesque, Gothic and Byzantine influences to be found.

We were keen to climb the bell tower to get a view of Trogir from above, but a sign stated that no one under 14 years was allowed to climb the vertigo inducing staircase. We thought this sculpture of St Jerome in the desert, which we found in the Renaissance baptistery adjacent to the towers staircase, just about summed up our disappointment.

Also in the main square we found a clock tower and loggia from the 15th century. The loggia was used as an open court house and a place to announce important news to the masses. We really  enjoyed the sculptures here too.

With night fast approaching we decided to find our way to the waterfront, not a difficult task when one is on a very small island. We found markets and restaurants along the promenade with many tour boats docked for the night and even a local swing dance group giving a performance.

As the sun started going down we wandered down to the Fortress Kamerlengo, just a shell now but great for getting a birds eye view. I decided to take a break while Rob and kids climbed the tower, calling to me so I could see them perched on crumbling walls.

With the sun going down we found a nice restaurant for dinner and while we ate we listened to the many and various accents of the other visitors to Trogir, definitely Trogir has found its way onto the tourist radar world over, unlike neighbouring Kaštela.

The next day we fulfilled a promise to the kids and planned a morning at the beach. The weather report promised 24 degrees (C) and the kids decided that having experienced such a cool summer 24 degrees sounded like beach weather to them.

As we had no idea which of Kaštela's towns would have the best beach we decided to drive along the coast and check them all out. Whilst we discovered that there is no coast road as such, we enjoyed discovering each of these treasures especially the castles for which the area takes its name.

We went in search of lunch and found castle after castle, such as this one above at Kastel Gomalica, also known as Kastilac, built by Benedictine nuns. Just like Diocletian's Palace in Split, the intervening years has seen the local population move in and incorporate their homes into the original fortifications.

This castle at Kastel Luksic appears to be much more renovated and had a small museum inside but we were much to hungry to stop and while we had found many cafes we still couldn't find somewhere for lunch.

We finally found ourselves at Kastel Stari, and along the promenade we found many restaurants and the best pizza I can remember.

Kastel Stari was lovely for a stroll the kids enjoyed looking for fish and even crabs in the water below the statue of a horseman that proudly charges into battle from atop a column on the seaside.

After lunch we were finally able to make good on our promise of a swim, thinking it likely to be the last for the year. Julian decided that it was way definitely too cold to swim but Emma was still keen.

Or that is she was until her toes touched the water, and then:

 And so we head off for a afternoon with our cousins, and language was no barrier to good fun.

 Again we enjoyed the hospitality of Rob's lovely family and counted ourselves very fortunate. Repeatedly we have acknowledged that it is the people on our travels that create the abiding memories.