Wednesday 10th October 2018
Croatia’s second largest city, Split is the product of 17 centuries of building, renovating and remodelling so that the new of today, meshes with the old of yesterday. At the core of this sprawling cityscape is the Palace that Emperor Diocletian built at the turn of the 4th century, surrounded by an intriguing warren of narrow cobblestone streets.
This morning berthed in Split, another lovely day of amazing weather, just delightful. This is part of the Dalmatian coast, Dalmatian dogs originated here, none about today though!
Planning for just a walk round the old town today, no excursion today.
Leisurely breakfast then off ashore to catch the shuttle bus to town. Another short distance, but the bus certainly took a long way round to get there.
The main destination in the town is Diocletian's Palace.
The first part to visit is the underground part, the palace basement now full of shop stalls forms one of the main entrances.
For our “Game of Thrones” fans the basement was used as a filming location for a dragon scene apparently. There is a shop dedicated to the show just round the corner.
Then to find the fondly remembered Roman mosaic floor, this just outside one of the souvenir shops within the Palace. The mosaic now protected by an iron fence, last time we were here it was just a part of the pavement giving access to the shop with absolutely no protection, everyone walking on the mosaic.
Continued with our walk round, up down, in and out, all sorts of archeological remains, many buildings, a cathedral and a bell tower. The whole palace complex within impressive stone walls, with defensible gateways.
All rather in ruins, many patches and reinforcements, even so, local people have built homes into the walls etc and they are still there.
Time for an ice cream, very good, but not up to a nice Italian Gelato.
Time then to walk round for some photo's around the harbour and a panorama of the city from the top of the Bell Tower, quite a climb but well worth it.
Back to the ship for a drink and some sun.
Dinner in the Lido.
Then off to the theatre for the Samantha Jay, she playing four instruments, piano, violin, oboe and saxophone, playing a real mixture of music genres, classical, pop and stage.
Then time for the Big Quiz with our dinner companions, another good effort but still no win. The “professionals” again won.
No comments:
Post a Comment