Split, Marketplace

The old town of Split was most interesting. We found a place to park, then I climbed the staircase up the old stone tower to look over the city. In the outdoor market below, most everything is available, from food and clothes to handmade craft objects, and even a few fleas. The market covered a large outdoor area. Thick concrete slabs placed like tables, serve as booths in the Split marketplace. Some of the elderly women had just a few items to sell, and others had their table full of fruit and other food items. Emmy thought the brass containers they used to weigh the fruit in the Split marketplace would make a nice flower pot, but no one would sell her one.

I stopped for a shoeshine. The man said he was a capitalist, in Yugoslavia no less, and had six bambinos at home. As he tied my shoes, one lace broke. I said that was how he made his money, and he laughed. When I asked how much for laces and shine, he said $50, then wrote 700, so I gave him 1000 dinar, about $3 in 1985. Inflation was terrible, in 1988, our last visit in Split, the same cost in dollars would have been about 42,000 dinar.