S**t, I thought, I really should have skipped that last glass of wine at
Slavko's. Gradually, gingerly, I discovered that the flashes were
coming from outside my window, from the slate blue clouds rolling in
from Italy to the west. By 9 o'clock, just as we went down to the Riva
to catch the catamaran to Split, the sky had opened it's gates wide, and
water was flooding down the white stone stairs.
In Split, we dawdled damply in the first cafe we ran across, drinking
cappachino and waiting, watching tourists caught in the rain. We had
put everything in Julia's suitcases in plastic bags the night before,
Julia had an umbrella, and I had a 99 cent disposable rain pancho, so
eventually we gave up waiting and went on some errands, later catching
a city bus to Trogir. Trogir is a UNESCO world heritage site, a tiny
medieval town which was originally founded 2300 years ago by Greek
colonists from Vis (Greek: Issa), who were themselves colonials from
Syracuse, itself a Greek colony of Corinth. The rain stopped, and we
wandered winding, narrow stone alley-canyons, past ancient churches,
mythical stone carvings, 1001 souvenir shops and eateries of various
sorts. The town museum of sacred art had some wonderful, luminous egg
tempera on wood paintings of Mary and various saints from the 1300's.
That night we stayed in a new apartment only a mile from the airport.
Very nice: bedroom, kitchen with table and chairs, living room with
t.v., bathroom with shower for 40 Euros.
At 3:30 a.m. we rose. The owner of the apartment house gave us a lift
the short distance to the airport. By 5:45, Julia was through the
security and on her way and I wandered out to the main road and caught a
bus to Split. By 11:00, I was safely back in my island home. The house
was strangely quiet. I listened hard for the faint clack of the laptop
keyboard upstairs where Julia had worked for the last month, thinking
perhaps her departure had been a dream.
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