Split, Croatia: Diocletian's Palace

The Roman emperor, Diocletian, ruled from 284 to 305 AD, and built a nice summer home for himself (and about 1,000 others) in Split. In the central plaza (Peristyle) are columns and a sphinx brought from Egypt. There had been at least 12 sphinxes in the palace, but only one still has its head. The others were ritually beheaded by Christians who occupied the palace a couple centuries later and didn't like these pagan idols.

One of the defensive features of the palace was the double gate -- like an airlock. Once the enemy broke through the outer gate they were faced with a second gate to get through, and by that time the palace army could attack them from behind and above in the small space.

Our walking tour guide said that Split received more damage in WWII than in the civil war of the 1990s. In fact, when clearing the rubble, many old Roman structures were exposed that had been built over and lost to history. One of the artifacts was the mosaic floor from one of Diocletian's swimming pools.

In the afternoon, we walked to Marjan forest park: a 580-foot climb over a bit more than a mile, mostly with steps. At least Split is cooler and less humid than Dubrovnik. The views of the palace, the city and the harbor are fantastic. See the pirate type ship in the photo? Those are replicas of merchant ships.

Wandering the city before dinner, we ran across a performance of traditional music by a 15-piece string group. The instruments were guitars, stand up bass and and mandolins (or similar). Finished the day with a tasty pasta dinner in this city which has a lot of Venetian influence.Read more