This morning we
were met by Iris for a tour of Old Town Dubrovnik. The city was first founded as a Greek
colony. The main part of the old city is
the Palace of Diocletian, a Roman Emperor in the 4rd century AD. The palace is a mini-city with lots of narrow,
windy streets.
Because this part of
Split was laid out by the Romans it has two main street that cross in the
middle at the Peristyle Square.
And there were some dark Egyptian sphinxes on one of the walls in the square.
There was a beautiful bell tower at Peristyle Square.
And there are
four gates. We are by the Silver Gate.
The gate closest
to the harbor is the Bronze gate that opened out to the harbor area. There were tons of people here as there are a lot of restaurant here taking advantage of the lovely breezes.
Next is the Iron
gate (directly opposite the Silver Gate).
And the inland
gate, and largest and best preserved, is the Golden Gate.
The Golden Gate
came staffed with a couple of Roman Gladiators.
There was also a
statue of Grgur Ninsky, a catholic bishop from the area who introduced the
Croatian language into the catholic mass.
He lived in the 10th century and is something of a national
hero.
The city walls
appear to be pretty much intact.
Some of the
sights we saw were the palace Vestibule.
This had been a round, domed room that was the main entrance to the
central palace area. The dome has
collapsed so it now had a round opening to the sky.
The vestibule led
to the Peristyle Square, the main square of the roman city. And the place was crawling with tourists.
This area was the original residence of the emperor.
After the Roman’s
the Venetians took over Split for a few hundred years. Just outside the Diocletian city walls is a large plaza from the period.
And nearby was the Republic Square that has a very Venetian feel to it.
This little
square had a statue of Marko Marulic, a Croatian poet from the 15th
century.
In the afternoon we took the little sightseeing train for a ride along the coastline. We had nice views of the water and surrounding islands,
a beach full of swimmers,
and a pirate ship.
And we got a good view of Split from across the harbor as we came back into town.
In the evening we did some more walking around. The city is lovely a night when everything is lit up.
*************************************
More Split
*************************************