Tuesday May 14 turned into a beautiful sunny day with a high of around 22C.
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| Allan locking up the house |
We met up with the Free Spirit Walking Tour in a park just north of one of the entrances to the Palace. Our guide, Ivana, told us that Gregory of Nin, portrayed in the towering statue, was a Croatian Catholic prelate who served as a medieval Bishop of Nin and strongly opposed the pope. He introduced the Croatian language in religious services after 926 AD. Until that time, services were held only in Latin, which was not understandable to a majority of the population.
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| Ivan Meštrović, Statue of Gregory of Nin, 1929 |
Ivana gave us a short history of Croatia and then gave an overview of Diocletian's Palace which dominates one half of the Old Town. The Palace is a 7.5 acre limestone and marble retirement villa for the Roman emperor that started in 295 AD and was finished in 305 AD. As many as 15,000 workers, including Greek slaves built the Palace. The Roman Emperor Diocletian built this maze of passageways and courtyards to be not just his home by a military fortress. He was born in nearby Salona, the former capital of Dalmatia and wanted to live in Split for his retirement, which he did voluntarily.
Diocletian died fewer than 10 years after the Palace's competition. It was a retreat for Roman rulers before being abandoned for centuries. In the 12th-14th centuries, it became an ecclesiastical centre and then an Austrian outpost in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
It was UNESCO-inscribed in 1979 and still forms Split's active city centre where locals shop, meet for coffee and conduct daily business. According to Ivana, there are only 500 people that still live within the Palace walls. Many have moved out and their small apartments turned into Airbnbs. Poorer people lived within these walls. Ivana has an elderly great aunt who still lives in an apartment in the Palace grounds. She is 92 and still walks up and down the stairs from her apartment. Ivana said ownership is complex and, for example, while her aunt owns the greatest percentage of her apartment, a part is owned by a man in Italy. Very hard to sell.
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| Ivana explaining the background to Diocletian's Palace |
There are four gates to the Palace area which are now all open to the Public. In Diocletian's time, only the eastern gate was open to the public. Anyone can walk into the Palace grounds and see many of the attractions. A few specific attractions have a fee. The Palace area within the four walls is a mini-city of its own, full of stone-paved pedestrian paths. There is also a 16th century small synagogue within the walls and a lot of interesting shops and restaurants. The other half of the Old Town has some large squares and lots of shops and restaurants to explore.
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| Outside northern wall of the Palace-- the Golden Gate- the emperor's entrance |
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| Each Gate had an outer wall and an inner wall |
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| Inner wall--leading to many narrow streets within the Palace walls with lots of shops, hotels, restaurants and private residences. |
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| On the second floor is the Church of St. Martin, a very narrow church, that one can visit |
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| heading into the Palace area |
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Peristyle (the central square within the Palace--
lots of tourists- a number of columns were looted from Egypt) |
We stopped at the Cathedral of Saint Domnius. Ironically, Diocletian, who persecuted Christians, later had his Temples turned into Christian houses of worship.
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| The Klapa singers |
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| Another view of the Bell Tower |
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| Southern Wall and shorter walls where there were ceremonial rooms |
We then walked down some stairs to the basement halls of the Palace (known as the substructures). These are one of the world's best-preserved complexes from the era of classical antiquity. An interesting feature of the basements is that their floor plan mirrors that of the buildings and chambers above, making it possible to reconstruct the original layout of the residence, despite the fact that much of it has disappeared. The rooms were filled with garbage for many centuries, and finally cleaned out in the 1960s. Some key scenes from "Game of Thrones" were filmed here.
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| The basement substructures |
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| Tiniest street in Split |
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| Bapistery Entrance (old Diocletian Temple) |
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| Gorgeous Split cat |
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| Eastern Gate |
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| The hands of justice-- a court was held in this area |
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| Another small church on the second floor, not able to be accessed by the public |
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| Pjaca Square (People's Square)- just outside the walls in the other half of the Old Town |
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| The oldest bookstore in Split-1860 |
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| Medieval building with statue on the corner |
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| Clock with 24 hours-- Ivana said it was almost in time |
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| The owner of this building had this statue of a Saint erected, and had a statue of himself (smaller statue on the right) place next to the Saint (Ivana quipped that after all, he paid for the Statue). |
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| Statue of Marko Marulić (1450-1524) an important Croatian writer |
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| One of the remaining towers of the Palace |
As we walked toward the Riva (the waterfront promenade), Ivana pointed out a building with a plaque. It marked where Sigmund Freud stayed in 1898.
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| Freud was here. |
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Not sure I knew Freud had spent time in Split---
our guide quipped there were lots of patients for him to see. |
Out last stop was the Riva, which the French designed after Napoleon took control of the city. In the evening, it is where everyone takes their post-dinner walk, or where people sit all day having drinks or coffee.
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| The Riva |
After the tour, we hoofed it over to the Fish Market (just about 2 minutes from the Riva), which is open from 6:00 a.m. until around 1:00 p.m. It is in a sparse building, but there were lots of vendors selling beautiful looking fish.
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| The fish market---- on Monday, we ate at one of the fish restaurants in an adjoining street |
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Busy fish market
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We got a sea bream (orata) from one of the vendors, who pointed out a man who would do the filleting.
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Filleting our fish
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We walked over to the other side of town- about a 10 minute walk, to the Green Market, where fruit and vegetables are sold. There were quite a few fruit/veg vendors in the middle of other vendors selling crafts and clothes.
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| We bought strawberries and cherries- both of which are in season |
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| Yay-- good looking green beans |
Another wall of the palace area on the east side.
Then it was time for coffee. We had read about D16, which has its own roastery. Our guide had also recommended D16. It was on one of the side streets within the Palace. One ordered on one side of the street and then could sit and have coffee in a room on the other side of the street.
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| Allan rounding the corner near the 11th century church in front of our Airbnb-- so quiet! |
After lunch, we decided to walk out along the seafront to visit the Meštrović Gallery, housed in the former summer home of sculptor Ivan Meštrović.
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| View looking back to the Old Town--- the bell tower acts as a marker |
The western part of the waterfront promenade contained 21 bronze plaques installed in May 2023. They honour all the medal winners from Split at the Deaflympics and Paralympic Games since 1948. Our guide had mentioned these plaques noting the high ratio of metals per capita for a city with a small population.
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| First plaque honouring a Split medalist from the London 1948 Olympics |
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| One of the plaques from a winner at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and the 1980 Moscow Olympics. |
After about a 40 minute walk through a very upscale neighbourhood close to the Adriatic Sea, we reached the summer home of sculptor Ivan Meštrović (1883, Vrpolje, Croatia -1962, South Bend, Indiana), Croatia's most famous artist. He was a sculptor, painter, architect and writer. He spent his childhood in the village of Otavice and arrive in Split in 1900 where he learned the trade of carver. From 1901-1906, Meštrović studied at the Academy of Fine Arts inVienna. Many of the works he created during the Secession and Art Deco periods won recognition and numerous awards. He also received a number of commissions for public monuments. Meštrović lived and worked in several European centres of art and culture (Vienna, Rome, Paris, London, Cannes, Geneva, Zagreb and Split).
In 1941, he was arrested and incarcerated in the Ustasha jail in Zagreb. He found refuge in Rome in 1942 and then Switzerland and in 1947 went to live in the US, the same year the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art in NYC put on a one-man exhibition. He taught first in Syracuse University and then Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana where he died. He is buried in the Meštrović mausoleum near Otavice, Croatia.
The Gallery brochure notes that the traumatic experience of captivity, deteriorating health and the incessant closeness of death were reflected in the works that Meštrović finished in 1946. In 1952, he bequeathed his family mausoleum, his Zagreb home, his summer villa (Meštrović Gallery) the religious complex of Cirkvine-Kaštilac in Split and 132 of his best works of art to the people of Croatia.
In the 1920s, Meštrović bought parcels of land in the western part of Split, to build his future summer home there. The villa was built between 1931-39. After his deed of gift in 1952, the conditions were created for the foundation of a museum institution and on September 9, 1952, the Gallery was opened to the public.
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| Entrance to the Gallery |
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| Walking up the stairs to the gallery |
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| A number of works in the sculpture garden in front of the gallery |
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| Distant Chords, Rome, 1918- following WWI, a more optimistic mood entered Meštrović's oeuvre. Lots of women with musical instruments reflecting his longing for peace and harmony. |
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| Widow, Paris, 1908--- part of a sequence of sculptures called the St. Vitus Day Shrine, that was dedicated to the memory of the Battle of Kosovo Field of 1389. Although the sequence was never completed, 50 sculptures were created by Meštrović between 1908-1912 |
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| Persephone, Rome, 1946 -- through the myth of Persephone, held against her will in the underground, Meštrovic was able to speak of his own experience of deprivation of freedom |
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| Girl with cello, 1955, USA |
We then went into the Gallery. Most of Meštrović's summer home has been redesigned as a Museum, but Meštrović's original living room remains intact.
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| In the living room- painting by Gustav Likan- Ivan Meštrović, 1959; busts of Tvrtko Meštrović, 1961 and Marta Meštrović, 1939/40 |
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| Beautiful fireplace with imposing statues |
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| Vlaho Bukovac, Ivan Meštrović, 1908 |
We went up to the second floor where there were a number of room with his works. Also a fabulous view of the Adriatic.
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| View from second floor window |
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| Ruža Meštrović, 1915 (Ivan's first wife- he divorced in 1925) |
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| Girl with Lute, 1927 |
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| Woman in Prayer, 1917 and wooden carvings- Girl, 1914 and Boy, 1914 |
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| Olga Meštrović, 1935 (Ivan's second wife) |
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| Lovely harpist on the outside wall of the gallery. |
We then walked about 10 minutes further to Meštrović's Crikvine-Kaštilac, a unique religious and artistic complex created by his conversion of the former estate of the Split patrician family of Capogrosso. The Renaissance fortified estate and farm was built at the beginning of the 16th century as a refuge against the incursions of the Ottomans. During the 17th century, it was used as a workplace by textile and leather makers, and in the 18th century, it was used for the quarantine of plague sufferers.
Meštrović bought Kaštilac and the surrounding land in 1939 from the Split entrepreneurial family of Žagar. He greatly changed the original buildings. A courtyard was formed and a Chapel, the Church of the Holy Cross, was created. It houses the sculpture,
Large Crucifix (1916), and a series of 28 wooden reliefs that Meštrović started in Switzerland in 1917, finishing them in his studio in Syracuse University in 1950.
In his deed of Gift in 1952, one of the conditions of his donation of art and properties was that "the church be arranged in such a way as to be able to accommodate, when they arrive in the country, the wooden reliefs from the life of Jesus the Nazarene and the wooden Crucifix."
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Approaching the complex
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| Courtyard- at back wall, Author of the Apocalypse, Rome, 1946 |
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| View out the window to the beautiful turquoise water |
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The Large Crucifix in the Chapel and wooden reliefs on the walls
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| Jesus and the Samaritan Woman, Zagreb, 1927 |
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| Resurrection (Lausanne, 1943) and Do Not Touch Me (Lausanne, 1943) |
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| Another part of the Chapel |
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| Leaving the Chapel--- beautiful flowering trees |
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| Interesting Art Deco house on our walk back |
Our guide had told us that there were signs all over town supporting Split Hajouk, the soccer team. Apparently, they had started the season well, then lost two games to Zagreb, their rivals. A fight erupted after the second game and the team was fined and had to play their next two games without spectators. When they were next allowed spectators, they, of course, lost. The team hasn't won since 2012, but are much loved in Split.
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| The Split Soccer Team-signage all over town |
We walked back to the Old City and wandered around some more. We stopped at Nadalina, a small, but excellent chocolate store. They had a picture and signage of the fact that they had made the largest chocolate bar in the world in 2015 and won a Guinness World Record. The creation of the chocolate bar used more than 800 kilograms of dark chocolate (70%), which was ultimately eaten by locals and tourists. It was made to celebrate the firm's 25th anniversary. Very cool!
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Nadalina--- article about the chocolate bar and certificate in the window
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| Guinness World Record---- the chocolate bar was displayed in the main square of the Palace. |
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| Allan and the chocolate |
Before heading back to our place, we had some gelato/sorbet at Emiliana's, a recommended place. Allan had pistachio and I had lemon sorbet with lavender. Good, but the two Dubrovnik places we went to score higher, in our humble opinion.
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| Gelateria Emiliana's gelato/sorbet |
Allan made a lovely fish dinner with the orata (sea bream), green beans (that tasted like green beans), potatoes, a green salad and a glass of Croatian red wine.
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| Excellent dinner by Chef Allan |
It was a day filled with history and art!
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