Kastela, Croatia – A Fortress Fail

I SHOULD have trusted my instincts and taken a rest day today given how much I’ve been running around. I SHOULD have done my laundry or even finished the last two lesson plans so I could get my TEFL (Teach English as a Foreign Language) certification locked in…. but I didn’t. I had started to rewatch Game of Thrones last week and the various “Kastela’s” that are a stone’s throw and a few public buses away from Split, kept calling out to me.

There are a total of seven little towns that have Kastela in the name: Štafilić, Novi, Stari, Lukšić, Kambelovac, Gomilica, and Sućurac. They are all situated on the shore of the Kaštela Bay, between Split and Trogir. Kastela means castle in Croatian and I had hoped castles dotting the hills might be slightly more picturesque than the roman rubble or cobblestone hamlets I’ve been touring.

It costs 4 euro for an unlimited day pass on the local bus and Google Maps assured me that even though there were two bus line changes each way, I should arrive in Kastela Gomilica within an hour from my temporary home. What Google Maps had not counted on was the level of road construction on the route, which led to my first failed day trip.

I took the 18 bus to the Pazar, which is an open air market for tourists on the outer rows and locals within, as it contains the farmer’s market. From the Pazar I just needed to jump on bus 10 and then bus 37. I’ve learned that neither the published bus schedule at the stop nor the schedule on the Promet app are ever accurate. The Promet app includes a moving bus that tells you, based on your exact location, when the next bus you want will arrive. It never goes as planned. Bus 10 arrived 43 minutes after I landed in Pazar, so already well past the hour total travel time I was quoted on Maps. Four stops later, I sat again for almost an hour until a 37 bus arrived. Google said I could take either the 37 or the 38, but 38 would get me closer to the Fortress. After the second 37 bus passed, the Promet map showed the next 38 bus wouldn’t come for another 47 minutes, so I jumped on the very next 37 and figured I’d just walk the difference when I got off.

Road construction started exactly one stop after I climbed on. The 27 minutes and 15 stops listed on Maps took 1 hour and 6 minutes for which I stood the entire time. The bus was completely full of high school students on their way home from school. It was standing room only for every adult on the bus, regardless of handicap or age, because even though the students had just sat in school for 6-7 hours, all 40+ lounged in every available seat, and refused to look up from their phones at the few people who truly needed a seat. The construction included building up asphalt, so every bump and turn made the overpacked bus passengers sway into each other, which seemed dangerous for the ones using canes or in one case, leg braces on both legs. Given that most adults live in multi-generational homes until their late 30s or even 40, I thought the practice of giving a seat to an elder would apply, but even the students who sat in the HANDICAPPED seats, didn’t budge.

I’d already invested more than two hours at this point and was determined to see the “16th century fortress that had appeared in Game of Thrones” so I just made it work. The stop I was instructed to get off at, Katela Gomilica 1, could not come soon enough but was not what I expected in this one road town. All I could see was a grocery store and a tiny concrete church with a giant easter egg in front.

Otherwise, it just looked like a residential neighborhood. The sunny day I had left in Split had evolved into one that threatened rain or worse, given the sky above the store, so I had to hurry.

I consulted Google Maps again to figure out how much time I had before I needed to jump back on the bus to Split. What I had not captured in my screenshots the night before was that after the 4pm return bus, the next bus would not come until 7pm, and I couldn’t imagine what I would do for three hours here.

It was 3:17 pm and Google said I was 400 meters from the fortress, so I started to power walk down the road. I could see the sea peaking out between houses but wasn’t finding a road that I could turn left on. Luckily the first traffic light also had a very helpful sign for the fortress and I was on my way again.

Just under 3 hours after I started, I turned the corner and found this…

vs what I had seen online

Hmmm , maybe I turned too early, so I quickly power walked to the other side of the fortress and found this:

Not sure if the online picture was enhanced, if there were TWO fortresses in Gomilica, or if AI had hallucinated. There was no road to the fortress from shore and it certainly didn’t look like I could walk around the structure itself.

All I knew was if I didn’t catch the 4pm bus, I was looking at 10pm before I made it back to Split, so I accepted today was a fail. Luckily from where the second picture was taken, I found the top of the church tower with the giant egg, and I took a short cut through an empty lot to get back to the bus stop where I started.

Luck shone on me again when the 3pm bus, which I had assumed I missed when I first got off, was delayed and arrived to my stop at 3:47pm AND there were actually seats available.

I’m definitely taking a break tomorrow so I am rested for the “most beautiful natural attraction near Split”, according to every local guide and taxi driver I’ve met so far, Plitvice Lakes National Park. I decided to take a guided tour on Sunday so I know the round trip will go as planned.