After a lovely day on a tour of Trogir then some brief highlights of Split (with a break in the middle for lunch at a Croatian mill) it got to that sort of time to head back to the ship and await the sail away from the very first Croatian port we’d ever visited.
We don’t like to leave it to the last minute when returning to a cruise ship, even if we can see it – and we could from the waterfront in Split – because we’ve got no intention of ever wearing ourselves out with a route march or run in case the distance turns out to be deceptive (that’s happened before) or there are obstructions that turn a straight line path into something more chaotic (that’s happened before too). Memories of looking at phones and proclaiming “But there’s a road here on the map! Where’s the road!?” surface at times like this.
As it was, it was a very straightforward, gentle walk in the Croatian heat directly to the cruise port. No big distractions slowed any of us with a camera down (that’s happened before, and earned me The Look from my wife) and boarding involved barely a queue at all.
Every cruise blogger hears the call to take a photo of the bow of the ship in port. The sirens of the sea reach in and compel us to act this way.
We grabbed a light bite aboard and a drink to take back to our room – no really useful room service bringing you anything from the extensive drinks menu without costing an arm and a leg on P&O Cruises, sadly (one of our favourite things to do when getting back aboard a Princess ship after a day in port) – then sat out on our balcony to write up notes of the day’s excursion in Split, backup pictures, charge cameras and phones, but mostly just relax and read and soak in that feeling of being in your own little private space with daily changing sea views somewhere new and foreign. Cruising is better than not cruising. Just so you know.
Before Azura departed from Split we got to watch MSC Sinfonia depart before us as she had been in port on that day too. A very odd-looking ship with a certain appeal to us despite or, more likely, because of it. At the time of writing we haven’t cruised with MSC but that is about to change in the very near future.
The pilot boat approaching to shadow Azura signalled it was time for our cruise ship to wave goodbye to Split.
We stayed out on the balcony long enough for us to clear some of the shallower waters and start to pick up speed towards our next port of call, all of which coincided with an increase in blustery wind on the balcony. It had been lovely and hot ashore in Croatia but this was still April and not far off sunset time at sea so that wind had a bit of a bite to it.
Finishing off our very first day visiting Croatia is a quick look at the dinner aboard Azura that evening and some evidence that we decided to treat ourselves to a tiny cocktail each, as if you couldn’t guess that we’d done so already.
In the next post in this 2023 Azura Adriatic Cruise series of travelogues our ship will be docking in Trieste, Italy but we’ll be heading off to spend most of the day across the border in Slovenia, starting with a tour of its capital city Ljubljana.