Split, Croatia I (5/2/2025)

Friday, May 2, 2025

We were not told why we sailed over 200 km/124 miles beyond Dubrovnik to Split, Croatia as our next destination.

Diocletian's Palace in Split is widely considered one of the best-preserved Roman structures in the world.

View from the stateroom towards the Old Town of Split

Next to the ship is an abandoned modern building

Southeast Tower of Diocletian's Palace (3C CE)

Diocletian's Palace (295-305 CE)

Over time, people built houses along the walls
and on top of Diocletian's Palace

A model of the original Diocletian's Palace, which the
Roman Emperor Diocletian had built for his
retirement residence; Diocletian had been born near here
in the Roman province of Dalmatia

A model of the Old Town that grew beyond the palace

When we entered Diocletian's Palace, we
turned right instead of left, entering the less
well-known section of the cellars, which
elevated the residence evenly on a slope

Consisting of 60 halls mirroring the palace
rooms above, the basement is now used as
venues for concerts and lectures after years
of cleaning out the space where garbage and
sewage were dumped through ceiling holes
over the years since medieval times

We are in a hall under Emperor Diocletian's dining room, and
is this really a marble table top that fell through the ceiling?

A photo of Antirrhinum majus/Snapdragons
also captured a bird in flight

Base of an olive oil press

Does this look like Diocletian's sarcophagus?

Fragments of sphinxes Diocletian
likely brought from Egypt; they
were probably damaged by Christians?

Columba livia/Rock Doves

The Game of Thrones television series was filmed in part in Croatia, and the cellars was where Daenerys spent time in her throne room and trained her dragons

Nadalina Chocolates table in the central basement

The chocolate maker, Marinko Biškić, was also the former
lead singer of Split’s first punk band: Fon Biškić &
Narodno Blago; so he made a playable record out of
chocolate, to which we were listening

Now we are out of the basement: St Dominic
Belltower (c 1100 in Romanesque style)

Fragrant white roses

Most of the palace rooms have been replaced
with dwellings built with rougher-looking
stone salvaged and cut from pre-existing
walls; people continue to live here
and they created gardens

The octagonal Mausoleum shows the refined
Roman building as compared to the later
medieval houses; the Mausoleum (305 CE)
was the final resting place of Diocletian; in the
7C the mausoleum was converted into the
Cathedral of St Dominic and the fate of
Diocletian's remains is unknown

The Ethnographic Museum is located in the
few remaining palace rooms

Arches have been rebuilt to show the size of
the original windows of the palace, which had
been filled in when smaller homes were built

Entry vestibule for the Peristyle ...

... where we listened to a klapa/traditional a capella group

Entrance to the Cathedral of St Dominic
at the Peristyle/central courtyard of the palace

Photo op Roman centurions

It is said that this black granite androsphinx (14C BCE),
having a body of a lion and head of a human, is original,
one of 13 Diocletian took from Egypt to surround his
Mausoleum as guardians of holy ground

Apparently no tables and chairs are allowed in the
Peristyle, so Luxor Bar set out cushions

A peek inside Luxor Bar, designed by 
Josip Kodl of Prague in 1941

Jupiter's Temple became the Baptistery of
St John (6C CE), and is fronted by a damaged sphinx

Kent in the one-way "Let Me Pass" passageway

Lion Head Fountain located in the former
Jewish section of Old Town Split

Mural or graffiti? This artwork (opposite the Lion Head
Fountain) is dedicated to Hadjuk, the football (i.e., soccer)
club of Split, by the fan group Torcida (1950), the oldest
organized supporters' group in Europe; the team also has
the blessing of St Dominic, patron saint of Split

Someone decorated his house with a
sphinx head of black granite

Nadalina Chocolate Shop

Church of St Martin (4C as a guardhouse over
the Golden Gate, 6C converted to a church)

Garden over the second arch of Golden Gate
belongs to a nunnery that includes the
Church of St Martin

Golden Gate (4C) was the main gate of Diocletian's Palace

Chapel of St Arnir Belltower (18C)

Sculpture (1929, by Ivan Meštrović) of
Bishop Gregory of Nin who opposed the Pope
and introduced the Croatian language in
religious services after 926 CE

Tamiko rubs the big shiny toe of
Bishop Gregory for good luck

Next Split, Croatia II.