Split, Croatia

The first time I heard about the city of Split came through basketball. The Chicago Bulls in the 1990s were moving heaven and earth to acquire someone named Toni Kukoc, who came from Split and was part of the city's fine basketball heritage. Kukoc did just fine in hoops on both sides of the Atlantic.

But there's much more to Split that hoops, naturally. It's the second-biggest city in the country, with about 160,000 in the city itself and almost twice that in the metro area. Split dates back more than 2,000 years, and several flags have flown over it as the years have gone by. Relatively recently, it was part of the Austrian Empire after the Congress of Vienna started drawing new lines around 1815, and stayed that way until World War I. It was on to be part of Yugoslavia from there, and then changed hands several times during World War II. Split eventually became part of the new Yugoslavia after the war, only to join Croatia in 1991. Got it?

Tourism is big business here, as about one million people turn up per year. The location on the Mediterranean is a beautiful one, and keeps it cool. Most of those visitors probably never get too deep into the city, staying to see the historic sites along the waterfront. We were such tourists, although it might have been nice to see what the inland territory was like. 

Oh, and there's a nice view from a hill overlooking the harbor if you don't mind climbing a couple of hundred steps. That's it in the photo above.