Today was my first full day in Split. After yesterday’s long bus ride, I was happy to have a quick look around town last night and then explore it more today.
Split’s old town is centred around Diocletians Palace. A roman palace that was bult around 200AD. There is not much left as with many roman ruins, However a lot has been preserved with roman columns and arches dotted around the old town. It is definitely a lot quieter here than Dubrovnik, mainly because Split does not have the beautiful intact walled city that Dubrovnik has. Still most of the ferries for the Croatian islands leave from split, so many people come and go via Split to visit the islands.
Split
Much to many peoples shock, i’m not visiting the islands. Time is short and while i’m sure they are amazing, I’m here for history and not getting skin cancer on some pebbly european beach somewhere. Then again a lot of people smoke here also, so why stop at lung cancer when you can get skin cancer also.
I also climbed the bell tower here. It starts with a small stone passageway with only room for one person to either ascend of descent some quite big marble steps. After many issues with oncoming traffic, I make it to a terrace area below the clocktower. Of course that was the easy bit. Climbing the steel stairs up the rest of the tower was much more a kneewobbling experience for me. If my feet feel firm I can handl heights. But on steel steps i can see through…. Not so great. I had such a tight grip of the handrail, that if i feel the stairs were coming with me. I did make it to the top and hastily snapped some photos and descended quickly before my knees buckled.
View from the tower
Split also has a great waterfront, but most of them are cafes and sell drinks only. Its a shame, because it would be a great place to eat food also.
Tomorrow, I’m going to visit the roman ruins at Solin (Solona) and then to the town of Trogir, which is meant to be more Venetian than Venice is now, so much so most TV shows that need to film scenes in Venice, come to Trogir, expecially for the closeup shots.
Split street with roman ruins