Split

Welcome to my tour of the Adriatic. I arrived in Split on a flight from Zagreb at 9 am this morning. I decided to fly in a day early to see some of the sights as I have a feeling that my next two days are going to be a little busy with work. Sadly, because of my unexpected day off yesterday, I ended up spending almost the entire day sitting in my hotel room looking out over the Adriatic while I caught up on some work.

I did take a two hour break to go explore the city and it is magical. The center of the city has been built inside an old Roman Palace. When I heard this described before I arrived, I thought it was built on top of ruins, but no, the new is built right into the old. The Roman emperor Diocletian built his retirement palace here in 305 AD and it was designed as a large fortress 215m x 181m. In the 7th Century Romans from the surrounding countryside moved into the palace to protect themselves from invading Slavs, and basically they stayed and new generations continued to build in and around the palace. Today it is a fascinating neighborhood and a hodgepodge of architecture from the ages, polished marble streets, little winding alleyways, interesting art galleries and apartments.

Ironically Diocletian was known for his persecution of early Christians and it seems some of those discriminatory views still exist in the city (see photo of graffiti below).

I had been told that it would be at least 10 degrees (Celsius) warmer here than in Zagreb, so I packed accordingly. Well, it is freezing here today. It was extremely windy – to the point that I ended up wearing half the flakes from my flaky and delicious cherry pastry that I munched on as I strolled around. I decided to go to they gym to warm up (and wake up) but instead discovered a beautiful looking gym with not one piece of equipment that works! The internet access that is claimed by the hotel is also non-functional (I’ll have to post this in the office tomorrow). I’m not sure whether I’m having an unlucky day or whether it’s an indication that the hotels are not quite up to international standards just yet.