Split was our starting point for a road trip south along the Dalmatian coast, ending in Dubrovnik. As an introduction to Croatia, it set the bar impossibly high.
What makes Split unlike any other city in Europe is that people actually live inside a Roman emperor’s retirement palace. Diocletian built his vast complex on the Adriatic shore around 300 AD, and over the following centuries the walls filled up with houses, churches, bars, and apartments. Today the old town is the palace — a living, breathing neighbourhood where you might find a café tucked into a Roman colonnade or laundry strung between ancient stone arches.
The peristyle, the main ceremonial courtyard, was heaving with visitors on a hot summer morning. Just off the courtyard sits the vestibule — a circular domed antechamber to Diocletian’s private quarters. The dome has long since lost its roof, leaving a perfect circle of sky above.
Step away from the palace’s main corridors and the crowds thin quickly. The lanes of the old town are narrow enough that you can touch both walls at once, lined with honey-coloured stone buildings draped in green creepers, shuttered windows painted in faded blues and greens.
The Narodni Trg, or People’s Square, opens things up just beyond the western palace walls. It’s a proper public square, broad and white and animated, with the city’s old clock tower presiding over one corner. The statue of Gregory of Nin — the medieval bishop who championed the Croatian language — stands nearby, his outstretched thumb worn bright gold from years of visitors rubbing it for luck.
The Riva, Split’s long seafront promenade, is where the city exhales. The grand pink-and-cream building of the old harbour authority looks out across the water, and the Croatian National Theatre — a fine yellow Neo-Baroque pile — anchors the landward side.
We spent a couple of days staying near Split before heading south.