Tuesday 17 October 2017. We sail into the port of Split in Croatia. I won't be covering it at all, but for the next couple of days we are in or near some of the main locations for the TV show Game of Thrones. No dragons will be harmed during the course of our visit...
Again we are just walking into the town which is only a short distance from the port. It takes about 15 minutes of walking to get to the town and you are walking through a very public port with plenty of people around from crew members looking for their favourite wi-fi hotspot, to ferry passengers heading to one or other of the many Croatian islands. The motorized sailing boat, Sagena takes upto 18 passengers in eight cabins and was built in 1991, being renovated in 2006/7.
We reach the town but are still outside the city walls as yet. The town is based on a Roman palace and the fortress-cum-barracks that protected it. It was built for the Roman Emperor Diocletian in 305 AD (or CE as seems to be taking over - CE=Common Era, BCE=Before Common Era. The years are held to be the same as BC and AD but it is now becoming widely accepted that Jesus Christ was born in 3 or 4 BC). Split took over as the Roman capital of the Dalmatian region after the ancient capital - Salona - was overrun by the Avars and Slavs. By 650 CE it was filled with Roman refugees and under Emperor Justinian the Great became part of the Byzantine Empire.
We make our way round to one of the gates - as a Roman military design the walled city was oblong and had four gates in the centre of each wall.
Once through the gate and having descended down a few steps to Roman ground level, we are walking on the original Roman paving with Diocletian's Palace on our left. The low octagonal tower and colonade on the left is part of the palace. At this time the old Temple to Jupiter was converted to Christianity and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The remains of Saint Domnius, patron saint of the town (then called Spálathos) were brought here. The bell tower in the background was built in 1100.
The Peristyle of Diocletian's Palace; an open square leading to Diocletian's own entrance to his palace. "Who are all these people???" he would say, waving selfie sticks away.
The centre of Split within the fortress walls is pretty much traffic free. Streets are narrow and, as the morning wore on, fairly crowded.
One of the main squares in Split. The Roman aqueduct that brought water from the Jadro Spring nine kilometres away still fulfils its role today. There are a few different influences in Split. Once a seat of the Western Roman Empire, the Goths took over in the 6th century, but the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire also governed for a while and the city passed through the hands of Slavs, Croats, Venice, Hungary, Austria, Italy (at the time when Italy itself fell under Napoleon's armies) and Yugoslavia. Croatia gained its independence in 1991/2.
The fish market. We knew we were approaching it well before we saw it! It lies just outside the city walls on the far side from where we entered. The number of seagulls sitting on its roof, waiting for an opportunity was quite impressive!
The modern street on the edge of the opposite side of the walled portion of the city to the gate we entered by. The building on the right with it's mirror-like windows almost disappears into the sky!
There are plenty of street cafes and bars. A string across one street had a row of boots and shoes dangling from it. Close by was a shoe shop. When we turned round the lingerie shop down the street had done something similar...
Outside the walls on the inland side of the fortress we find a wider street, but the behaviour of pedestrians and the cycle taxi driver seem to suggest that traffic is not a problem.
We head back into the city, doing almost a figure of eight round the four quarters of the street pattern.
At one point we come to a large square with verandas to the sides. This is the Prokurative, dating to the brief rule of the French Empire as a tribute to the porticos of St Marks Square in Venice.
We came out of the city again by way of the gate we had entered. This brought us to a vegetable market and then a general market with just enough fridge magnets to sustain Fran's interest! Walking back to the port, Marjan Hill had been a place for recreation and culture since the days of Diocletian. We walked through the port, finding Tomas sitting outside a cafe taking a chance to talk to family back home.
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