Green Market, Split Synagogue, and Archaeological Museum

This morning, on my last full day in Split, Croatia, I visited its Green Market, the Split Synagogue, and the Archaeological Museum. But first, a weather report.

The day started completely overcast, a first in my trip to Croatia so far. Up to now, I’ve had mostly blue skies. By mid-morning, the clouds started to break. And by the end of the morning, a mostly blue sky covered Split, with just some light clouds.

The forecast for the remainder of my itinerary calls for a few more mostly sunny, warm days, followed by a few cooler, rainy days, with one sunny day the day before I head home. But, of course, that’s only a forecast. Forecasts can be wrong. May the sun god shine His, Her, or Its bright countenance upon me for the rest of this trip. Amen.

Green Market

On hearing of something called “Green Market,” you’d think it’s a market that sells the sort of produce you can buy at a greengrocer. And it does. In part. 

The greengrocer part of the market is an open square where vendors set up their tables to sell mostly fruits and vegetables.

Surrounding that area, butchers, egg sellers, and the like occupy small enclosed stalls with food-safety-appropriate refrigerated cases.

But all that is just at the core of the market. Surrounding the market is a single protective layer of stalls selling hats, flip flops, other clothing, purses, and tchotchkes.

If you weren’t already aware it’s there, say, from being told so in a tour book, just for example, and you didn’t penetrate the protective layer because you didn’t think there was any more to it, you would have no idea that the greengrocer-type market lurked within. 

Split Synagogue

According to my tour book, Split’s synagogue is the third-oldest practicing synagogue in Europe. According to that book, synagogues in Prague and Dubrovnik surpass it.

I visited the synagogue in Prague on a previous trip. And I visited the Dubrovnik Synagogue on this trip. So I had to go to the Split Synagogue to complete the set. (Please, nobody tell me what the fourth through tenth or more oldest synagogues are. Who the heck has the time to visit them all?)

The Split Synagogue isn’t easy to find. It’s up a nondescript set of stairs off an out-of-the-way lane in the old town. There is a small sign on the wall beside the stairs. But the sign isn’t prominent. You might not notice it if you aren’t looking for it.

To enter the Split Synagogue, even during the limited opening hours, I had to ring the bell outside the locked door.

When I went inside, the woman there asked me where I was from and if I was Jewish. I responded, “Canada” and “Yes.” Hey, I might be non-practicing and non-believing, but I had the two main Jewish male rights. And I do self-identify as culturally Jewish.

The woman apologized for having to ask me if I was Jewish. “But,” she said, “with the current situation, well, …” Her voice tapered off without finishing the thought. The horrific Hamas terrorist attack on Israel occurred only a couple of days prior. I understood.

The Split Synagogue and the Jewish Community

The synagogue is quite small. It houses a row of women’s seats up a set of stairs from the men’s area of the sanctuary.

The woman taking care of the synagogue was happy to tell me, the couple of people who were already inside when I got there, and the couple more who arrived shortly after I did a little about the shul and answer any questions we had.

The curtain in front of the ark was closed, so I didn’t see it, but the woman said that the ark holds a Torah donated by the Israeli ambassador. A display case at the back holds an older Torah, “But it’s not kosher, so we don’t use it.”

According to the woman, Split’s Jewish community numbers about 100 people now. They are mostly Sephardic, but some are Ashkenazi Jews as well. Split’s Jewish community was larger before World War II, three hundred or so, but many perished in the Holocaust.

When the Venetians ruled Split, they established a Jewish Ghetto in the old town, but the ghetto lasted only during the Venetian era. In answer to a question from one of the other visitors, the woman said that the Jewish community doesn’t experience any antisemitism whatsoever in Split today. I imagine “none whatsoever” includes at least a smidgen of an exaggeration born of local pride. But it’s great that it’s largely true, assuming it indeed is.

Archaeological Museum

Split’s archaeological museum is not large. The permanent exhibits sit outside under a wide, porticoed walkway that wraps around most of three sides of a pleasant grass-and-trees garden. (I say “most of” because an entrance to the grounds cuts through the front portion.) The museum’s building sits on the fourth side of the garden.

The collection includes the usual archaeological artifacts: Columns and other structural pieces, statues, sarcophagi, tombs, headstones, and an urn or two. The statues in the collection are now all headless. Many are also armless. But, unless I missed a paraplegic or merely legless statue or two, they all have either zero (just a torso) or the usual complement of legs.

Inside the small building, one room on the ground floor held a temporary exhibit of ancient glass on loan from a Museum of Ancient Glass in Zadar, Croatia. In some of the cases, cards beside the pieces said, along with the century it’s from, either “original” or “reproduction” (or a synonym of reproduction). In many of the display cases, the cards didn’t say if the pieces were originals or copies. I assume if it didn’t say, then it was an original. But I’m not sure.

The card associated with the polychromatic glass piece in a photo on this page said “1st century, original.” The cards associated with the clear glass pieces in another photo on this page did not specify whether they were originals or copies, but they did identify most of them as being from the first century.

I suspect that the room that held the temporary ancient glass exhibit might normally hold some of the permanent collection when there isn’t a temporary exhibit. The museum’s website says its collections include stuff I didn’t see, like old coins and underwater archaeological finds. There is a second floor in the museum. But I checked. It houses only offices.

Lunch

I had lunch at a restaurant with tables on a charming pedestrian street a little outside the old town and leading up to the Marjan Peninsula.

As it happens, it’s the same street where the restaurant I ate at after walking down from Marjan Park the other day is. In fact, the restaurant I frequented today is the one I wanted to visit that day. Users of TripAdvisor highly recommended it. But it was closed then. 

Needless to say, the restaurant opened today. I didn’t break in and prepare my lunch.

In addition to wine, I chose buzara for my meal. According to the menu, it’s an “authentic dalmatian dish, see food, prawn, and mussels cooked in souce.”

Because prawns and mussels are seafood, I assumed the “see food” meant I could choose to also include any other food I saw. I was wrong about that.

And I didn’t know what “souce” is, but if it’s a local cuisine I figured I’d give it a try.

(The lack of capitalization on “dalmatian” was the menu’s, not mine.)

It turns out that “prawn, and mussels” are a qualifying phrase of “see food.” The only food I saw in the buzara were two prawns and some mussels.

The souce was a sauce of soup consistency. It was, tomato-based and flavourfully seasoned, with some other tasty minced stuff that I couldn’t recognize.

The buzara came with a small plate of simple pasta. It was all delicious.

I capped off lunch with an espresso. All things considered, a very nice morning, I’d say.