Day 47 (Thursday) Split

Woke to bright sunshine for the first time in 10 days!! Not that we've had such bad weather - mostly just cloudy with occasional drizzle and the odd storm mostly at night but it was great to see bright sunshine and clear skies. Paradoxically, we went underground for our first excursion of the day!

Split (at least the old part of it) is built within the walls of Diocletian's Palace - much of the wall structure, gateways and some of the internal buildings/temples/courtyards/squares remain. Today we went underground to see the foundations of the palace which directly mirror the layout of the original buildings above. Quite amazing to see the way they put so much into just the foundations- it is like actual rooms with all the archways etc and the original sewerage pipes (interlocking stone). Given the size of the palace it was little wonder that took most of the morning!

Headed then for the "green" markets just outside the Eastern wall - a beautiful market area amongst shady trees where they mainly sell fruit and vegetables, flowers, meat (e.g. heads of piglets!!), as well as craft etc. Fascinating place - a couple more purchases to help with the excess baggage. Outside the western wall there is an antiques market which had and the extraordinary variety of stuff - great spot if you were a collector of just about anything.

We then had one of the most extraordinary experiences  - Andreja had said yesterday that the hotel would like to give us a "special gift" - a tour around Split. Fine, we said (and thank-you). It was arranged for this afternoon so we came back at about 3 and the guide turned up. The "guide" turned out to be the man in charge of the Unesco Heritage organisation and all restoration work within the city of Split!! Bevan of course has the MOST extraordinary knowledge of both the history of the city but also the architecture and was able to take us to all the key points of the city and explain in complete detail what it used to look like and how it all fitted together. Just a most extraordinary and unique experience and we still can't work out how or why it all happened!! Can't even start to give all the info here but wait till we get home!!!

trivia: Diocletian was a far worse persecutor of the Christians than any other Roman Emperor. He had thousands put to death - which makes it ironic that his mausoleum later became a cathedral dedicated to one of those he matyred!

Pictures:
*Roman sewerage pipes - in the palace cellars
*"Diocletian's cats" - in the palace ruins
*part of the "green markets"