Day 21 – Tour of the old town of Split

A tour of Diocletian’s palace and the old town of Split was on the agenda today. We started the tour after having our first breakfast out since leaving Dubai – on the main promenade overlooking the harbour of course! Then we quickly made a stop at the local fish market to buy fish for tea. The walking tour was once again very informative – and great to have a real person as a guide rather than Karla going blah blah blah for the bits in the tourist brochures that are un-pronounceable.

The walking tour took in the walls of Diocletian’s Palace – which is a UNESCO world heritage site – completed in 305AD. It covers 31,000 square meters – so it’s certainly not small! We went through the basement halls – which were originally under water and only discovered and preserved 17 years ago. They are remarkably intact – probably because people didn’t know they existed and didn’t have a chance to destroy them. We heard some local singers while we paused in the vestibule – a circular domed shaped building that is incredibly well preserved. The acoustics were fantastic. We saw some ancient mosaics and the remaining ruins of the roman baths amongst other things (don’t want to bore you all too much!!!).

After the walking tour, we went to see some additional sites. First on the list was the Ethnographic museum with a great collection of traditional costumes and a statue of a greek athlete (Apoxyomenos) that dates from the 2^nd to 1^st century BC, making it at least 2,000 years old. We were amazed at the story of it’s recovery from the ocean and how it took 3 years to restore it to its former glory. It is actually more impressive than David (in our humble opinions) – and the bonus is that there are no crowds in the museum – and you can take photos! From there we took in the Crypt of Santa Lucia and the Cathedral Treasury which contains VERY old churchy things like fragments of garments from 1099 and 5^th century books.

Then Neil and Karla couldn’t resist but walk up the St Domnius Bell Tower (60 meters high) - see photo on the left. The tower was originally constructed in the first half of the 13^th century and contains great views over the city (see first photo). By then we were famished and stopped for a quick bite of pizza (at a very reasonable 10 kuna per piece!). Next stop was a visit to Gregorius of Nin (a 10^th century Croatian bishop) to rub his toe for good luck.

We took some time out at our local bar to watch a couple of large cruise liners leave port. Then the plan is for fresh fish for dinner!!!