Decrepit But Not Abandoned

Walking on Marjan, the high hill-park here in Split, I have walked past this fascinating spot a number of times.



It's rare, in the States, to see glass greenhouses anymore - and rarer still to see one in such a wonderful state of organic funk. I wondered what this was for ages before I went to investigate.


I found that it was the Botanički Vrt, or the Botanical Gardens, a largely futile exercise in signage, as it is crumbling and seems to have very little in the way of exotic plants. There are several greenhouses, of which this is the largest (the others seeming to be a poor storage area for a motorcycle and a bunch of cast-off window-frames). The gardens are tiny and pretty, but this greenhouse held my imagination. Walking around it was an exercise in mysterious snooping.





After I'd been there for awhile a guy came out of one of the buildings to smoke a cigarette. He looked at me curiously, then asked me a question in Croatian. After awhile I realized he had unlocked it for me, so I went inside, to a scene of curiously domestic disintegration and decay.




Proof positive that it's always worth investigating...