The best time of the year to visit Croatia, at least for me, is sometime in May. The crowds aren’t too thick, the weather is just right and not too hot for this Seattle guy.

Definitely not too bad. I went to Split at the last minute to take advantage of a long weekend. The picture above was not at all the image of Croatia that I had in my mind when somebody on Twitter suggested I visit there for the weekend. One hour after Googling “Split, Croatia” and seeing some of the results on Google Images, I had my ticket and hotel booked within the hour.

I arrived in Split on Saturday morning and even before I landed, I knew I had made the right choice for a relaxing weekend.

I quickly realized after landing in Croatia that I would need some shades after having lost mine a couple weeks earlier. After finding the hotel (not the easiest task given the streets of Split), checking in and procuring some shades, I started simply wandering the streets of Split. I easily found myself basking under the blue skies both under cover and right on some stairs leading into the Adriatic Sea.

And that was really all I ended up doing on my first day. I was pretty tired from all that sun (oh woe is me) and passed out early in the evening only to wake up around 9pm and find someplace to settle down for some fresh octopus.

Day 2 was more of the same with the exception that I got up early intending to go for a run and ended up hiking through a park, finding churches set into cliffsides and relaxing on a beach.

I settled down into an afternoon pizza, relaxed some more and then checked out a sweet concert by the coast. The band, Kries, was very unique and the bagpipes were the most authentic ones I had ever seen.

The last day was mostly souvenir shopping, checking out the cathedral and the tower next to. Now I’m not usually prone to a fear of heights, but this rickety stairway up the tower definitely made me happy once I was back on solid ground.

You can check out more pictures of my Split, Croatia trip on Flickr.