For the afternoon we met our guide Sandra who first took us for a delicious lunch and then guided us through Sibenik. The town is over 2000 years old and is famed for it’s over 2000 steps to its summit at St. Michael’s fortress. We ascended the ancient road past an abbey to a fork where the poor people lived on the right fork and the wealthy on the left. Sandra showed us how to differentiate the housing based on the moldings of the house. We passed several small churches and arrived at a beautiful garden next to St. Lawrence. Then on to St. Michael’s Cathedral, started in the mid 1400s with a 105 year construction until completion. It is renown for its baptistry whose ceiling is carved from a single stone which also forms part of the floor of the apse. As well the exterior is decorated with 71 heads thought to be of local residents at the time. Notice the bullet holes in the bronze doors from the war of 1991-1995. In medieval times the town thrived with 15,000 residents until the plague virtually wiped it out with only 1500 inhabitants left alive. Part of it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
2000 steps??? You need new sneakers now?
Not yet! Soon though