A Day in Split

A Day in Split

Saturday 17 June 2017

A boat trip was scheduled for today to go to the island of Brac (pronounced Bra-ch) but it wasn't due back until 2.30, and I thought I might be too exhausted by then from wandering round Brac to spend any time in Split. So we elected not to go to Brac, and caught a bus down into Split instead.

Split harbour is currently full of expensive boats. These are the cheaper ones!

We were both anxious to see Diocletian's Palace, so we headed there first. The Roman Emperor Diocletian built the massive palace in preparation for his retirement in 305 AD. The word palace is a bit misleading as it is absolutely massive and in fact  resembles a large fortress: about half of it was for Diocletian's personal use, and the rest housed the military garrison.

After the Romans abandoned the site, the Palace remained empty for several centuries. In the 7th century, nearby residents fled to the walled palace in an effort to escape invading Croats, and the palace has been occupied ever since. People  made their homes inside it and and started businesses in the palace basement and built inside its walls. Most of the palace was demolished and rebuilt over the intervening centuries, but even today shops and restaurants, and some homes can be found inside the original walls.

This process of turning the palace into the town of Split destroyed much of the structure of the residential part of the palace, but the basement halls, which reflect the structure of the palace above, have been relatively well preserved. The emperor's halls were partitioned, rebuilt or demolished during the medieval period, but the basement was filled up with rubble and rubbish. Excavations here began in 1956, and the majority of the basement has now been cleared and gives you an idea of what was originally above.

There are shops on either side of the main walkway in the upper part, which is the part most in use.

The photo below gives a good impression of the main hall in the west wing. 

I think it was in fact used as a set for 'Game of Thrones' with the addition of a set of steps at the far end where what looks like a window is in fact a door.

There are various sarcophagi from Roman times, and the occasion medieval artefact.

This is a medieval olive press. 

While we were exploring this underground part I suddenly heard marching feet, and a troop of Roman soldiers marched past at the end of the passageway. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get my camera out sufficiently quickly to photograph them, but later we saw a couple of them outside in the peristyle.

It was a very hot day, so I didn't manage to photograph them both with their helmets on. One of them kept talking his off.

A monumental court, called the Peristyle, formed the northern access to the imperial apartments. One side was nice and shady, so we sat on the steps at one side to eat our picnic lunch.

The peristyle also gave access to Diocletian's mausoleum on the east - it's now the Cathedral of St. Domnius. We visited that later. On the west side it originally gave access to three temples. Two of these are now lost, and the third, originally the temple of Jupiter, has become a small baptistery, which we also visited later.

Outside you can see some of the homes which have been built in to the palace walls. These ones have been heavily restored.

The bell tower of the cathedral can be seen here in the background.

Some of the homes have not been restored.

The roof of this one looked as if it was about to fall down, and I'm sure it must leak!

We visited a small folk museum, which was built into part of what had been a nunnery, also built into part of the palace. Quite a bit of this museum was given over to the history of tobacco growing and cigarette production in Croatia. I had not previously realised that tobacco was grown in Croatia - we haven't seen any growing - but it was apparently an important cash crop. 

Other parts of the museum had old costumes from the 18th and 19th centuries, and beautiful rugs and painted chests. There was also a loom, and this beautiful old river boat.

Inside it are nets, a basket on a stick which was for catching crabs, and two fish traps.

After that, we returned to the peristyle and went down a passageway to the erstwhile temple of Jupiter, which was turned into the baptistery of St John the Baptist in the 6th century AD.

It is just one small rectangular room, with a barrel vaulted ceiling. The statue is a modern one of John the Baptist, by a Croatian sculptor, Ivan Meštrović, who died in 1962.

We crossed to the east side of the peristyle to go into the Cathedral of St. Domnius. 

This is as you might suspect, Baroque.

It's a astonishing symphony of marble and gold. As I am too polite to take photos while people are praying, I had to wait quite a long time to get this photo. There are a lot of devout people in Croatia. 

We spent some time wandering round the old town at the far side of the palace. It's a fascinating area with very narrow cobbled streets and thankfully there is no room for cars. This is one of the squares.

Some of the buildings have a renaissance air. The one below looks almost as if it had come directly from Venice.

It has been heavily restored of course, quite a lot of the old town has been restored like this. 

I was very tired so we stopped for an iced coffee in order to give me the strength to go and find the bus stop and tackle the 15 minute walk from the bus stop to the hotel. The day was very hot and sunny, well over 30 degrees, and it was a relief to be back in the air-conditioned hotel room.

Tomorrow we are up early again to set off for Dubrovnik.