Well, it could be worse; I could have made a banana joke. We are back from our three days in Venice, and now I can resume our story.

When I last wrote, it was Thursday, and we were in Split, Croatia. It is a truly beautiful walled city. Those Romans certainly knew how to build. We had a great time on Kathleen’s first day out after her time in food poisoning jail.

We both got off the ship and had a nice walk around the center of the old town. Of course, I took a lot of photos. You can see all my Split photos below. But before I post them, I want to mention our day onboard. We had a great room service breakfast (because Kathleen was still in food poisoning jail). But right after breakfast, the doctor called her and set her free, and we were off to see Split.

That evening we decided to give The Restaurant dining room another chance. We were given an excellent table in the far aft of the dining room where we could see the wake of the ship. It’s like the best place to eat in the place. But again, our service was sporadic. At the start of the meal, things went as usual. Not offered a wine list, one bread basket for six people until we finally got more. Then I made the mistake of saying I liked the breadsticks, and all of a sudden, we had three baskets of nothing but breadsticks. We asked for more “regular” bread, but that never did show up. We asked for more butter, but that didn’t show up either. But when my brother asked for olive oil and vinegar, it appeared in less than five minutes. They went all the way to the buffet to get it. Do you see what I mean about sporadic? It just went from good to bad service and back again all evening.

We got our appetizers in a hurry, and then the entrées took a while, followed by dessert a few moments later. I should add that the desserts were excellent, but not so much the entrées. The prime rib I had was close to raw, even though I had asked for medium rare. Since I had seen people at the tables near us getting it before we ordered, I specifically asked for much closer to medium. But that was not to happen. And a number of people at the table ordered the lobster thermidor because they saw the HUGE lobster tails coming to the tables nearby. But when they got theirs, they found a huge lobster shell with about three tablespoons of Thermidor in it. Once again, the dining room kind of failed us. They provided an adequate meal, but as my brother pointed out on our last, if this were a restaurant we went to at home, we would probably not go back.

The same cannot be said for the buffet. We love pretty much everything we have had from that venue. It has been amazing. This is very unusual for us because we can’t remember a previous cruise when we have eaten dinner in the buffet more than once or twice in a cruise, and then only when we were returning late from a shore excursion. This buffet is the epitome of class. You never have a second when your glass gets less than full, or they are whisking away your dirty plates. Just a fabulous experience.

We also tried Mamsen’s, which is a great little Scandanavian snack bar (but so much better than a snack bar). We have had breakfast there twice. They make extraordinary, ultra-thin Norwegian waffles that come with yogurt, berries, and some very interesting Norwegian cheese. Put it all together; it is wonderful.

I went there for lunch a few days later and had a superb open-face smoked salmon sandwich. It was truly delicious. Kathleen had open-faced roast beef that she liked just as much.

Enough about food, here are the Split photos (below). Come back tomorrow for my Venice pics and report. My pre-dawn photo walk around Venice was everything I was hoping for and more! Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Sailing into Split with a gorgeous sunrise.

I love the light on side of the cathedral.

I wonder how much this shipping line had to pay to use these cartoon characters on their ships.

Is this the UGLIEST yacht/boat you have ever seen.

Heading into downtown Split on the promenade. They had a lot of VERY welcome benches.

Outside the walls of the city.

One way into the old town is through this underground tunnel.

Very cool down there

And you can come out of there into a square dominated by this clock tower.

Which is guarded by these…

two…dragons?

And a sphinx.

The square is a very busy place

In many of these ancient cities…

you see guys like this dressed as Roman (or Greek) soldiers to pose with tourists. I liked the smile on this guy’s face.

Once you walk though the city, you come on to this tower and statue just outside the gates.

This guy is pretty fearsome looking.

The back gate of the city.

Another shot of the tower.

The side gate of the city. Much easier to get out of.

Kathleen doing the Split