With The Boss now working at the Vrboska Tourist Board and me running around covering Totals Split and Hvar, there has been a little readjustment in the household to cope with the care of our two little princesses. Nothing of course could happen without my fabulous mother-in-law, who really is the coolest grandma in town.
We both had to go to Split yesterday on totally different missions, arriving and leaving on different boats, and the only solution was to bring along the girls, dressing it up as a fabulous day out in the big city.
In the rain.
What to do with kids when it is raining in Split? It turned out that the girls had rather a fabulous day.
On arriving at 0930, I gave them three options to cover before my first meeting at 11am: a visit to the fabulous Nadalina chocolate shop, discovering what some claim is the smallest street in the world, or going to Daddy’s secret place. Not surprisingly it was off to the chocolate shop…
Next up was the ‘smallest street in the world’ which they had enormous fun with, racing each other to see who could run its length quickest – the winning time was two seconds. And then it was time for Daddy’s secret place.
The basement of Diocletian’s Palace is a kids dream. Apart from the main souvenir stands, there are some interesting rooms to the left – wide open spaces with plenty for the kids to explore, and a chance to let their imagination run riot. Apart from the dry attraction for the kids, the reason we went was to check out a very interesting gastro fair promoting the indigenous products of Croatia, which we all thoroughly enjoyed.
“Daddy, it is the biggest pizza in the world!”
Not a pizza, but a UNESCO-protected traditional dish from Poljicka, of which more coming soon in an other blog. It was delicious.
The tme for the first meeting was approaching, and I thought it would be fun for them to head through the fish market to see just how smelly it was, before our rendezvous at the fabulous Bajamonti, a great meeting place if you have kids – when the weather is good, Prokurative is as good a playground as you can find in the city, and when the rain is falling, the spacious and smoke-free interior (there is a small, separate smoking section) has plenty of room. And it has some GREAT hot chocolate for the kids, with a variety of flavours.
This being Dalmatia, I quite often bring the kids to business meetings. This is a cafe culture and business is done over espressos. The lady I was meeting was delighted, and she brought her six year-old, and the three artists were soon at work, occupied just long enough to allow us to conduct our business.
A phone call from Mummy and it was off through the palace once more to hand over the girls after a lovely morning, and wave them goodbye on the number 18 bus to City Center One, where the excellent Kids Jungle is a life saver for busy mums with shopping to do. A free play area for two hours was just enough for Mummy to get the shopping done, while I was already heading home on the catamaran, and was in position to welcome home the tired team off the last ferry, and into bed at 11pm.
A great day out for the kids, and a productive one for us. With a little preparation, it is possible to keep the kids fully entertained in Split, even in the rain.
