In this episode, we talk about the last 7 weeks where we’ve been living and working in Split, Croatia.
We talk about the areas we liked (and those we didn’t), the general cost of things (including rent), and Lea brings back the Factoids segment with some facts about Split.
NOTE: This is following our new format of podcast episodes that are either about:
- WHY you want to live & work abroad (last week)
- HOW to live and work abroad (this one)
- WHERE to live & work abroad (next week)
Let’s get stuck in.
—
The roadmap we mention can guide you through the questions you need to ask before starting your own adventure.
Want to get involved? It’s completely free – just go to ASidewaysLife.com/roadmap.
—
As ever, get in touch on Instagram (@asidewayslife) or email asidewayslife@gmail.com. We genuinely would be thrilled to hear from you
The Transcription
Note: This is autogenerated so may not be 100% accurate!
Leanne
I’m not leaving and you can’t make me.
Al
Hello and welcome to A Sideways Life. This is Episode 74. And I’m Al.
Leanne
I’m Ian.
Al
And we’re here to talk to you about living and working abroad, as you probably know by now, but specifically living and working abroad in Split, which is in Croatia. And that’s where I’m right now, isn’t it?
Leanne
It is. We should maybe mention, because I think at the end of the last episode we talked about how we’re going to cover the top three visas for Europe.
Al
Did we say that?
Leanne
We did say that. But there’s a good reason for why we’re not. And that is we have managed to secure an interview with one of the biggest expert people in Croatia about visas, about everything to Croatia, but visas especially. So we thought we’d save that discussion until we can get that interview in the diary and then we’ll try and do some other stuff around that as well.
Al
That’s Sarahdyson.
Leanne
Yes, Sarahdyson at Expatin, Croatia.
Al
What’s funny is, if you Google anything to do with Croatia in terms of expat or digital nomad, her site will always come up as like, one, two, three. I remember we got the Simmer, the equivalent guy in Portugal, James Cave, who basically owns the search engine results page for Portugal. But yes, that’s really cool. We’re looking forward to that. So today we’re going to be talking to you about Split. And it’s quite prestigent that we’re talking because tomorrow we leave Split for three months.
Leanne
I’m not leaving and you can’t make me.
Al
Well, unfortunately, I’m not making well, I can’t make you, but our visa, or.
Leanne
The government can, the government might have to say about it.
Al
So maybe that’s the first thing we need before we go into west but is in fact no, let’s come back to that.
Leanne
Come back to why should we put a pen in that and we’ll circle back to it.
Al
So let’s talk instead of for those people who have never heard of Split or maybe just seen it and thought, is that really the name of it? Then should we start off in fact, do you know why it’s called Split?
Leanne
No.
Al
It’s after a flower. Apparently. There’s a flower called Splatonis maccalani. I don’t know. It’s a Greek name, but that’s apparently where they think it came from.
Leanne
Very good bit trivia there.
Al
So where is Split?
Leanne
So Split is in Croatia. Croatia is one of the countries in the Balkans. It is very near to Italy. It is bordered by Slovenia, Serbia, Hungary, Montenegro and the Adriatic Sea. And the Adriatic Sea, yes. And if anyone is a long term listener, and you used to enjoy Leon’s flat toys in the early episodes, here are some for you.
Al
Love it.
Leanne
So Split, population 161,000, ish within the city. It is the second biggest city in Croatia. Second, which is a capital, but it is the largest Croatian city on the coast.
Al
The third being riecca, which is not nearly as pretty as Split. Sorry, riecca?
Leanne
No. So, yes, it is in a very beautiful position. Weather is typically continental. Cool, wet winters, warm, dry summers, temperatures I don’t know, I don’t have that information to hand. But if I had to guess, averages maybe 25 26 in the summer, maybe like ten, 810 in the winter.
Al
I think we did look that up, actually, when we looked at comparing we had a Split versus Portugal drunken night one night where Portugal was on the table of where we’re going to go. And we realise that actually the weather is almost exactly the same, slightly more humid and slightly wetter in Split. But yeah, generally sort of like highs of well, average of 25 in the summer, you might be hitting sort of mid 30s, occasionally of 40, but mainly in the early thirty s. And nice lows of sort of 23 24, which is very nice indeed. I’m to be honest, because I think that my favourite part around here is May, because it just feels lovely when you go outside and it’s not too hot. The sun is just beautiful, there’s a nice cool breeze, you just don’t get too hot. And I thought it was lovely, mate. It’s great. And also, the tourists aren’t here yet. Well, I just arrived this week.
Leanne
They’re coming for you. I think when we spent Croatia, we spent sorry, we spent Croatia. We spent summer 2020 in Croatia and kind of peak pandemic. We were chatting to one of the hotel owners, how’s your season going? What’s this? And he was like, the tourists are always coming. The German tourists in particular are always coming. So, yeah, if you’re here in summer, it is going to be tourist town. That’s just the way it is. It’s on the coast. Of course it is. But yeah, those shoulder months are really quite beautiful, aren’t they? We’ve been in Split for April, May, and it’s just been just stunning.
Al
It is. And just in terms of the actual sort of architecture of going there’s kind of the main part of the split, which is the port, something called the Rever, which is the sort of promenade bit. I met a couple of lads just randomly, and we went for a beer down there and we ended up having six beers each. And he had a couple of Jack Daniels and they tried to charge 200 and something euros, and it should have been more like about €100 maybe at a push, maybe 80. Cheeky. And they basically put on rather than a 5% tip, they put on 30% tip. So just be aware of that. It is tourist town. You will pay tourist prices and you’ll potentially get ripped off.
Leanne
But potentially.
Al
Potentially. But if you just take a few steps and go further into the old town, there’s some lovely bars, some great restaurants, we’ve never had any problem down there. And just further out are we talking about areas now?
Leanne
Well, yes, let’s talk about areas because.
Al
We’Ve been to several different areas. One about maybe five or six kilometres from the centre of Split and I forget what it’s called.
Leanne
Visaco.
Al
Visaka. And it’s near the vista. Yeah, we did not like that. That was not a great area for us. It was near the city of what’s it called? The Mall. Split City Mall, yes.
Leanne
Split City Mall or something.
Al
Something like that. There’s two main malls.
Leanne
Joker.
Al
Yeah, there’s joker in that one. And so for us, that was not a great area. We looked at lots of different areas. The town centre, we looked at one apartment where he wanted €50,000 for the year. No chance that was going to happen. Excuse me. And then we found this place called Firuli, which is near Bachigi Beach. It is by the hospital, maybe 20 minutes walk from town.
Leanne
Yeah, about that. Let me get on the map. So I’ve got the map of Split up and you’ll see it’s like a peninsula, it’s like a horizontal peninsula, kind of the main kind of city centre of Splitting, the surrounding areas. And I think if you’re coming for a short break, then I think Old Town is the only real place to consider because you want to be near to everything. You want to be looking around, easy.
Al
Access, short being like two or three days.
Leanne
Yeah, like a long weekend. And the city centre, the Old Town really is as beautiful as the reputation kind of suggests. It is stunning. And on a sunny day, it is just it honestly takes the way. It made me a bit emotional the first day that we were in Split because it is just stunning. So, short trips, Old Town. Or if you’re perhaps wanting to get a bit more into the nomad scene, if maybe you’re single or young couple party on your mind, then the Old Town might be a good choice as well. If you have a car, driving, parking is a problem. It misses you. So, yes, that’s something to bear in mind. So if you’re in the map with me, go on. I’ll give you a second. Google it. Split. Split, yes. Split ratio. Got it. Okay, great. So you’ll see this horizontal peninsula. So you got kind of Split, Old Town, kind of yes, slightly in the middle site. So left you’re going to then see this green bit, which is called Varosh. Varosh is really pretty, isn’t it? It kind of has a couple of ports on there and it has this massive park thing, which is all pedestrianised.
Leanne
That is lovely for dog walks and the like. So I think Barash is a pretty good area, isn’t it? Going to be close to the centre, but maybe have a little bit more greenery.
Al
And then Ferulie is sort of where we are right now by the hospital. I think we are one row back from the beach. And bear in mind it’s a pebble beach, although Bachelor beach is sand, but it’s most of Croatia’s coastline is pebble, but it’s absolutely beautiful. And you walk out in the morning, we go for a dog walk and I still can’t believe that you look across the sea and see the mountains of further down, sort of Mutsky and that kind of thing, just in the distance and you see Bratch, the island. It’s only 20 kilometres away and it’s just stunning. So really, for me is the place. Varosh is definitely a good place to look at. These are obviously a little bit more expensive. If you really are on a budget, then maybe the Mall of Split, if you’re looking for a longer term, you can get stuff for €350 up there, but you will be kind of high rise, one bed apartments. Whereas for ruling the price do we honour the prices yet?
Leanne
Not quite, no. And I think you can get some very, very affordable places in Vascula. But as we said, it’s an area it’s not we didn’t particularly enjoy it in the area and we’ve spoken to other people since who explored the area and agreed with us. I think if you’re looking for kind of something a bit quiet, beachy fruit is a bit more pricey because it’s close to the town. Cheque out. A place called Jeanian, which is Zed, is a little hat. N-J-A-N. There’s lots of new builds around, there lots of airbnbs, really beautiful beaches. It’s under development, isn’t it? There’s lots done, but there’s lots that needs to be done as well. So it’s not quite as polished as like your fruit or batch feet, say. But it’s great. Particularly you have a dog. Brilliant. So many dogs around there. We actually spoke to somebody and they gave us a really good tip, didn’t they? Remember the lady that you met in the dog park? And there’s a road called let me just get my map again.
Al
Just literally like an old woman looking a map.
Leanne
Polychka sister is kind of the main road that runs kind of intersplic parallel.
Al
With the beach, with the sea.
Leanne
Yes. Parallel seat. And she kind of said, anything under that is fine. It’s generally cool, it’s great. Anything above that can be a bit more hit miss. So, general of thumb, stay under that main road and you’ll probably be right.
Al
So I think if you’re listening, you’re going, well, how many places you going to tell us? Well, our favourite is forruli Firule. The next sort of district along is called Back Toe. I’m sorry, that’s probably not the right way to say it, but it’s Bacvice and you’ll see it’s literally next bit along. And then Varosh, which is Varosh with the S with a little hat on it, is the other third place. So those are top recommendations if you’re looking for a longer term place in Split.
Leanne
Yes.
Al
And so let’s talk about prices. So we’ll tell you what we paid for our airbnb for two weeks. Talk about it for every week we’re in split because we’re in short term. So we did airbnb. So we did five weeks in one place and two in another. And proper old school noise.
Leanne
Just remember that, oh, someone’s getting a message. If you are under 30, you won’t probably get that.
Al
Apparently that little noise here is more of code for SMS, really. And that’s like the network going, there’s a short message service, SMS.
Leanne
Another great bit of trivia. You’re on fire today.
Al
So those are three areas in terms of pricing. We paid about the same for Vysocca, which was horrible, and for ruling, roughly about the same, which is about £900 a week. Is it?
Leanne
No, about 500 a week.
Al
It’s only 500 a week. We only paid 500 to be a year.
Leanne
We’ve been here for two weeks. We pay 1000 to be here two weeks.
Al
Okay. But we found out that we found a guy who was wandering around who lives here. He’s Australian, and he said that he pays 950 euro for now, we’ve got a one bed here. One bed garden apartment, which is garden is a polite way of saying in the basement. It’s not really the basement, it’s just that we’ve got a little garden outside. It’s lovely. But we only have one set of windows in the whole building, so his two bed is about €950 a month. So we’ve always said that if you look on airbnb, roughly what they charge a week is roughly what you’ll pay a month all year round. I mean, that doesn’t really apply to winter, sorry, but just sort of spring. Summer what they’re charging me. Not August. Forget August, because August is always ridiculously expensive on airbnb. But roughly, if you look at June, how much they want for a week is roughly what you’re paying a month.
Leanne
Yeah. And that does seem to have worked here. It’s worked in Spain. So it’s a rough kind of thing, then. Yeah, that’s the thing. Airbnb is expensive in Croatia in general, it’s particularly expensive. And split, it’s not a very cost effective way of doing it. So if you’re here longer than I would suggest, definitely getting back the other side of the day, boots on the ground. Talk to people and get to the agents, talk to locals. Yeah, short stay, we can budget for that. But long term, you need to be going local.
Al
There’s a great time. If you’re from the UK, think sort of exchange mark. No, not exchange mark. What’s the marketplace now? Ebay. That’s our ebay. Then there’s something kind of equivalent over here called I’m sorry, for Croatian speakers. I’m going to butcher this nuance. You spell it Njus and then Kalon.
Leanne
Is that the same site? We found it.
Al
Now, bear in mind, this is all in Croatian, so I recommend you use chrome where you can translate the screen or translate the web page into English. But we found our first place on there and it was, I think we told you before, it was on for quite a bit more than we paid for it. So just look around and you’ll find hopefully you’ll find somewhere decent in for ruling or the area you want to be on that website.
Leanne
Yeah, and I think in terms of areas as well, what’s really nice about Split is somewhere to be is it’s quite a good place to explore kind of Dalmatia from as well, particularly if you’re interested in the islands. I think we’ve had episodes before dedicated to Branch. We’ve talked about coach there before we spent a bit of time Java. It’s a very different pace of life, but it is beautiful. And there’s so many direct ferries and car ferries from Split. So it’s really good place to explore the Dalmatian Islands from as well.
Al
Definitely. So you can probably tell by now that we are in love with Split. We will be coming back in September 1.
Leanne
I’m not leaving, you can’t make me.
Al
We will be coming back in September and we’ll be looking in forruley as the area I think we’ll be looking at. So what else we got to talk about in Split?
Leanne
One of our talking points of culture you put that one down. Do you mean like culture? Like potential culture shock or what?
Al
Generally it’s like I think mainly just what is it like living in Split? So we can compare it to, for example, if you want to live in Zagreb, that is very city like. If you ever lived in a city like Manchester, it’s kind of similar. There’s lots of things going on. Whereas the Dalmatian sort of lifestyle or culture is very much more relaxed. They’re canny when it comes to business, and they know that their business is tourism and they also know they’ve only got about 20 weeks a year where they can really make some dollar. So you will see things happening, popping up for the tourists. But in terms of the actual culture, it seems very much that very Mediterranean people will go and have coffees in the morning. They might sit there and that’s. The other thing which is weird is that you can order one coffee for about twelve kuna, which is about £1.30, maybe about €1.50. And you can sit there all day. All day. You can sit there for like 2 hours with that one coffee on the beach, reading your book or checking your emails or whatever. And you do see a lot of people doing that.
Al
There’s a lot of dogs we’ve seen which tend to disappear around August just because of the tourists that are not really allowed on the beach any time. Everyone ignores that. And then in August they’re not allowed on the beach. But the culture generally is very laid back, I think. Would you agree?
Leanne
Yes, I would. It is very laid back. I’m not sure it’s quite as laid back as if you’ve ever spent time in. And Lucia, it’s not quite a Manhattan situation is a bit more hustle than that, but I think it seems quite balanced. And if there is kind of a tilt, it goes to more towards life than work.
Yeah.
Leanne
But yeah, and I think, as well, it seems very kids friendly. We don’t have kids, so I don’t know, but I’ve seen a lot of them around and they look fine. I’m sure it’s kid friendly. And in terms of Nomad scene, the nomad scene here is active. Nomad split group on Facebook is brilliant. You get lots of different tips in there. There’s loads of meet ups, loads of things going on. Yeah. I think you’ve mentioned before there’s coworking spaces that do regular events. I think one in particular that we went to let me just get it up. There is a post on Instagram, by the way, if you don’t follow us on Instagram, rude go. But there is a post on there where we talked about other things. But, yeah, in terms of the coworking spaces, smart space, which is in the old town, has loads of really great events that we met a couple of people at. And there’s also another new colleague in place called Scale Up Office, which is worth checking out.
Al
If you’re into football, then you’ll know that Croatia is big on football, mad on football. And there’s some really decent players that probably I think some in the Premier League isn’t that they’ve come from Croatia.
Leanne
Oh, yeah. And in the league, or as well, some great players.
Al
So you’ll see, there’s a local Split team. If you don’t know what that’s called, then I’m not going to tell you, because the second you arrive in Split, you’ll see it spray painted on someone’s on a wall somewhere. And also it’s got the oldest cathedral, the oldest cathedral in the world. The oldest Catholic cathedral in the world in that palace, which is I never know how to say it, deletes palace. Is that right?
Leanne
Sure. Let’s say yeah.
Al
Yeah, that’s the one where they preserve. And also, the other fun fact about Diocletian’s Palace is that there was a lot of artefacts, and from Roman times preserved because it was preserved in shit, because they used to put that was basically the sewer was under it, and so they just toss all their business down there. And so there’s lots of things that are preserved in ships. I wouldn’t want to be the archaeologist, had to dig that out, but yeah, interesting fact.
Leanne
Yes. I’m really worth doing a walking tour as well. I can’t remember the name of the company that we use, but if you just Google, like, free walking tour split, it’ll come up. Unusual thing with free walking tours. It’s free, but you give a generous tip at the end. So, yeah, really worth doing about an hour and a half and showed you all the good sites. And I think the cool thing about the old town as well is it is very like sundays are a big thing, isn’t it, the Catholic country? It’s summer in Spain, but Sundays are a thing. People dress up, people promenade. Yeah, it’s just a really nice place to sit, have a better lunch. And what’s nice about it, it is a tourist city, but it’s also a working city. So some really great markets. The fish market is really cool. Green market, like, the big vegetable and flower market is great. That’s one of my favourite dates, was kind of spending the time wandering around there. It’s just a really cool city. I just love it. I just love it. I can’t leave and you can’t make me. No, I can’t leave.
Leanne
I have to leave.
Al
I think you’ve said it enough.
Leanne
Getting grumpy now.
Al
So what else we got on our little note list?
Leanne
Food.
Al
Austria. Coming from Austria, where it’s very close to Italy, that the border to Italy is only sort of 60 kilometres away, then the food does tend to be quite tallied. It’s either pizza, pasta or chavapapi. Kind of like your only options, really. I mean, that’s unfair to Istio because there’s some great places like that. Agro tourism place that we went to was fantastic, and there is some, but predominantly you go to your local bar and you don’t need to see the menu because you know what it is. Whereas Split, what do you think?
Leanne
Yeah, I agree. I think what ISTU is amazing for is, like produce. Like, you can buy the most amazing produce and you can go and have the little canoe like family run restaurants and have really simple dishes that are done really beautifully. Well, things like truffle pasta, just grilled fish and things like that are really great. But in terms of like fusion or gastronomy or that type of thing, it is quite traditional in Austria. Whereas Split does seem to be a bit more contemporary and a bit more playful with their food. So you will see restaurants like Artichok is one of our favourites, that just kind of take Croatian food, but given a bit more of a modern twist or a bit of an Asian twist. I do a bit of fusion things. And, yes, some of the best food, garb included, actually, for me, we’ve had some of the best food in Croatia and Split.
Al
Absolutely. And wines, I mean, Israel is famous for wines, but they tend to be a lot of them are Malfazzia grape, which is lovely, really fresh, lovely wine that you want to be drinking in the sun. There’s a lot more red around here down measure, particularly from the islands, but if you like white, then Cortula has the posh ship grape, which is very famous and really, really nice. We were in Cornwall five weeks ago and tried it. We tried lots of different parties, they were great. There is the Gracievina, there’s lots of different white wines over here, which are fantastic. Come on.
Leanne
Got an email. Honestly, the lack of professionalism shocks me.
Al
Sorry, just turned my phone over.
Leanne
Yes, I think you’re right and I think the wines are great. Anywhere in Croatia, you’re going to have great wine. But, yeah, in terms of food, I’m not sure whether it’s just there’s more kind of a youth culture, perhaps, in Split, than there is an issue, even place that there’s a great restaurant called Baccara that we’ve been to a couple of times. Great food, but also on a Saturday night, like Friday and Set, they have a DJ in the restaurant and it’s not like, really loud, but it has a bit more of an atmosphere to it. Feels very kind of like urban and cold, isn’t it? Whereas it’s a bit more kind of quaint and cute in this year. We talked to you before in the podcast, that we kind of wanted to try Split because we were lacking that kind of bit more business and that bit more hustle and energy, and I think we’ve certainly found that in Split, definitely.
Al
So let’s just think about the people who would really enjoy Split, people who are maybe our age, which is the 31, I think.
Leanne
37, but thank you.
Al
And I’m 45. So if you’re sort of expats, then varied. Yes, there’s plenty to be going on there’s lots of parties and stuff, which obviously we’re in bed before. Are you going to tell the story of the name?
Leanne
So, last weekend, because the apartment block we live in, we’re getting a couple of airbnb. I didn’t actually ever lay eyes on them, but I assume there are kids, because they sounded noisy. But, yeah, early 20s, sounded like there was a shed load of them. But am I open? Four, but, yeah. Girls, boys, party music, loud drinks, chatting, singing and it’s sweet. It’s a Saturday night, like, whatever, have a good time. I remember those days and it was glorious. And then I was sat having just a little nightcap, as someone would say, and it just went quiet, just dead quiet. I looked at my watch, it was like four to eleven. How respectful. Isn’t that lovely than what beautiful manners these young people have? It was only when I was walking to bed on a Saturday night at five to eleven that I was like, Oh, fuck, they’ve gone out, haven’t they? They’ve just gone out. They’ve just left their night. And I’m not sure if I felt more disappointed in myself and more old than in that one moment was that.
Al
In consolation, I was already in bed. I went to bed with a halfback tail on a Saturday night, because, just bear in mind, if you are living here, sorry, I was going down my route. So, in terms of young people we don’t know, we can’t tell you we’re old, but seem to be. We saw a big group of maybe sort of 25 year old lads today, about 15 of them sitting in a beach bar and a great time drinking alcohol. So there’s clearly that there’s lots of beach stuff, there’s lots of nightlife in town. But for people who are older, I think the only people it might not suit longer term, the people who like who want somewhere quiet and peaceful. If, for example, you like to sit out at night and just hear I want to say Cicadillas, but that’s some Spanish. But the grasshopper, the crickets, you want to hear those and nothing else, then this is not the place for you. Definitely go to Austria. That’d be a great place.
Leanne
Or one of the islands.
Al
I was going to say Java or maybe some place in Branch. But yeah, in terms of I think it would appeal to most people who are looking for something to live. A city. It’s a city. So take from that what you will. So where are we up to next?
Leanne
So, next we think we’ve covered a lot of it. Now, we’ve talked where it is. We’ve talked weather, we’ve talked, we talked food, we talked areas and islands. We’ve also talked about the nomad scene. We talked about the cost of rent, cost of other things. I find Croatia a bit unpredictable when it comes to costs. Like, I’m never sure how much something is going to be. Food is generally on the prices side. We’ve been places where it’s been more expensive. I find Slovenia more expensive for food, like groceries type food.
Al
Give us an idea of, say, for example, chicken or milk or something like that.
Leanne
Well, no, because I don’t take notes because I have no money. But in terms of weekly shop, we’re probably talking about 150 quids. Whereas we’ve spent other places where it’s been kind of 25% less than that. But then, at the same time, services are really cheap. Like taxes here. Well, I’ll rephrase that. Uber is here and bolts are really cheap. When we were kind of out of town, it must have been about 15 minutes driving to town. I think we paid more than five, £6 for a taxi, inn? From where we are now, it’s like €4 to get into town.
Al
But if you take a taxi, we were stuck in town. Because one thing to remember to bear in mind is if you’re coming here to split and you got the Uber app, is that Uber aren’t allowed in some part of the city centre. So where most of the taxi ranks are, Ubers aren’t allowed. So you have to go to a little bit further out. So really, if you look for what’s that pub called? The I can always forget it.
Leanne
Fabric fabrik.
Al
So if you look for fabric on Google Maps, then you can get an Uber there, but you can’t get it anywhere else. Not anywhere else in most of the place in town, so we absolutely throwing it down. One night, we were drenched, the dog was drenched. We got in a taxi, like a normal taxi, and I watched him, he pressed the button, he pressed it like four times. When we got in there, I was like, Oh, this is going to be pricey. And we got back and it was something like 30 quid, was it?
Leanne
Yes.
Al
And on a new but it would cost about six for the same journey.
Leanne
And I did some things when I was in the odd town, going back to where we were out of town, I had those shopping, I thought I’ll just jump in a taxi. I think that cost me about 20 quid. Super expensive. And I hate to say it, because it is better to go with kind of some people think it’s better to not go with larger companies, et cetera, et cetera. But we’ve spoken to a lot of the tax drivers that are Uber and they are local people and they are working hard and they’re very nice and lovely. So, yeah, and then other services that blew my mind. I went for my hair during the other day, got my hair did, I had a half head of highlights, toner, a cut and some kind of conditioning.
Al
Treatment, £64, which to us, fellas, sounds quite a lot of money, but even.
Leanne
In Spain, I don’t think I can get that done for kind of less than €150. The UK is probably about the same and I was in there for hours. It is such a good job.
Al
Services are really cheap here, so I think you’re fine. Just to give you an idea of just your everyday stuff. So a beer usually about 25 Kuna, which is about €3.02 pound, 80, maybe about $3. I would imagine they’re all parity, isn’t it, between European dollar at the moment, if you want a glass of wine, then about the same. Well, it depends, because I was drinking wine, if you go to some of those sort of slightly more local places. I was drinking some really nice white wine last night, 200 millilitres, and it was, I’m sure it was 20 Kuna for 200 millilitres.
Leanne
That’s good.
Al
Whereas we just paid 25 Kuna for 187 litres, 187 millilitres or something. So it does depend where you go, but generally speaking, you’re going to be looking at sort of three Euro beers for 500 millilitre, carlovacco or Ojuosco, which is the local beers. Stick to the locals if you don’t want to pay more, because the imported stuff, like how nickel would be more coffee, about twelve Kuna. That will give you like a macchiato or something, maybe a bit more for Cappuccino, maybe for 14 Kuna. Compare that to Austria, for example. It might be more like seven or eight Kuna. And the Austrians are very particular about down here, down in Damascus. Oh, it’s so expensive. Because it is sort of 50% to 80% more for coffee. But we’re not talking massive money here.
Leanne
No. And in terms of eating out, you can go to a canoe or which is like a family run restaurant or independent restaurant. There you can get a decent meal for two with a bottle of wine for somewhere between 14, £50. And then the nice places that we’ve mentioned, like Artichoke and Baccara, we’re probably not talking more than £100. £120 for kind of two courses each, a nice bottle of wine, a cocktail and a night out. Really. It is an atmosphere. It’s an event in these places, which I like. It’s reminiscent of Spain. Dinner is an event.
Al
Definitely. So I think we are kind of coming to the end of it now. So what else do we need to say? Leah?
Leanne
Split cool with Ace. I love it. I can’t wait to come back. It just for me, has the great balance of quietness business, country, local, cosmopolitan. For me, it’s just a really nice mishmash of the two.
Al
Yes, totally agree. We’ve been to lots of places in Croatia and for me, Split is number one. Absolutely. Love it. Devastated to be leaving tomorrow, but we’re back in three months. The second we can get back in, we’ll be back in.
Leanne
It will be exciting. We’ve got some places to travel to over the next couple weeks on the.
Al
Road somewhere in Spain.
Leanne
Luxembourg.
Al
Yes. That’s a bit strange. Then we’re into Belgium and then probably northern Spain for a bit of wine. We’ll tell you all about it. So the episode might be a little bit sporadic over the next few days, the next few weeks, because we are travelling quite a lot, but we’ll get as much as done as we possibly can. Look after an interview with Sarah Dyson, which is coming up very soon.
Leanne
Yeah. And keep an eye on our Instagram if we’re a podcast and there will be activity on this.
Al
Absolutely right. So I think that’s all that needs to be said. So if you’re not following Instagram, go to Instagram, search for Sideways Life. We will see you next time. Bye.