I’m currently in the airport, waiting on my flight, finishing up the first part of my Croatian sojourn. How’s it going so far? Fine, I suppose.

Split is an oddly fitting name for this city. It’s bifurcated in a number of ways; between the Roman ruins and the Medieval city that sprung up around them, between the Medieval city and the modern industrial sprawl surrounding it, between the tourists and the locals, between the authentic history and the cheap trinkets being peddled by the souvenir vendors lining the streets. It’s a fantastic place to spend a couple days.¹ Of course, I’ve spent ten, which is … a bit much. It’s good to be moving on.

The city was founded by the Roman Emperor Diocletian in 305 CE, when he built a retirement palace² to spend the rest of his life after abdicating³ the monarchy. After his death the palace fell into disrepair, and over time the locals started taking over the place, building a Medieval city in and around the palace, incorporating the palace walls and buildings into their construction. Diocletian’s mausoleum itself was converted to a cathedral,⁴ with a bell tower added by the Venetians in 1100 CE.

The city in modern times turned into an commercial harbor, with lots of industry surrounding the historic core of the town and spreading out to the countryside.⁵ It’s been increasingly popular as a tourist destination, what with the temperate climate, azure-blue Mediterranean harborfront, and plethora of overpriced bars and restaurants serving seafood.

I’m staying in an AirBnB in the historic center of the city, outside the palace. The room is functional. It’s a studio apartment that exits directly onto the street.⁶ I’m not thrilled with it. It’s got a number of features that seem a little odd, although they’re not all that uncommon from my limited experience with European apartments. The shower doesn’t have a hook for the nozzle, so you’re required to hold it above your own head. The shower itself is in this weird raised platform a solid foot-and-a-half above the ground, with just a small tiled riser to help you get in. Good luck trying to gingerly step out while the ground’s covered in water and soap; I’ve taken to hanging on to the plumbing while I get out. Maybe most inexplicably, the toilet is attached to the wall at a height which means my legs are dangling when I sit on it.

Truthfully, though, this all doesn’t matter. It’s got a solid lock on the door and it’s a five minute walk to the town center. As it is, I’m spending most days poking at my computer, then knocking off early evening, wandering down to the harbor, grabbing dinner, and people-watching. It’s not a bad way to waste the evening.

The city — at least the historic core of it — is gorgeous. The streets are a ramshackle assortment of roads and alleys running every which way, lined with three or four story buildings. They’re not broad; the largest ones are probably just wide enough that you couldn’t stretch from one side to the other if you lay down and put your arms up. The narrowest you can’t pass two abreast. It’s a huge change from the Roman street plan. Most of their broad boulevards have been filled in by 1,300 years of buildings stacked seemingly at random. It’s great to get lost in if you have nowhere you need to be. Less so if you got a late start and are trying to find someplace before it closes.

Most of these streets are too small to get cars up and down (or, worse, are wide enough at the start but quickly narrow) so most of the street traffic is on motorcycle. You get used to ducking off to the side or in an alcove when you hear a buzzing noise approaching. Once you get to the very center of the city, along the harbor and in the peristyle,⁷ even the motorcycles are banned. It’s one of the things I appreciate the most of a lot of European cities; the pedestrian zones at the heart make an evening wandering around aimlessly quite appealing.

Of course, in Split, that’s mostly in service to tourists. I had the good sense to visit in the “shoulder season” where the height of the tourist crowd is gone but many of the businesses haven’t yet closed for the year. It’s less jammed with vacationers, but the truth is the real attraction here is people-watching, so you can sit in one of the outdoor cafés and sip a cocktail and watch the show.

It’s a pity that the food and the prices are so heavily tilted towards the tourist crowd. Dinner and a drink in one of the many restaurants lining the streets will run you 100kn, or about $16. That’s not far off what you’d pay in New York. And the quality is merely okay. Not terrible, not great. Part of the problem is Dalmatian cuisine in general, which basically every place seems to serve, and consists almost exclusively of meat and seafood. As a vegetarian, it’s a 50/50 shot of any given restaurant having something on the menu at all that I can eat. Sometimes there’s a vegetable lasagna, sometimes there’s a vegetable risotto, sometimes there’s a couple pizzas I can have.⁸ By the end of the week, I had mostly given up on them, and started eating at the noodle place down the street, which offered gyoza and a surprisingly decent pad thai.

I spent the weekend doing the traditional tourist thing. I bought a guidebook in an attempt to avoid the more obvious tourist traps,⁹ and spent Saturday doing a self-guided walking tour through the palace.¹⁰ The cellars are the most well preserved area (since most of them were jammed full of garbage pretty soon after the palace was abandoned) and now that they’ve been cleaned out you can wander through what would have been the lower levels of Diocletian’s residence.

They’re amazing, if you can dodge the many tour groups prattling on about Game of Thrones.¹¹ The basements run the length of the palace, half open to the elements after the ceilings collapsed, the other half still supporting the upper levels of the city. It’s where the local production of olive oil was concentrated, and contains the wells for the complex. Also, there’s cats who live down there, and keep the rat population down. It’s pretty great.¹² After that I wandered up to the peristyle and visited the Cathedral of Saint Domnius and the Baptistery of St. John,¹³ then headed back to sleep through the afternoon.

Sunday I wandered into the modern half of the city, and visited the Meštrović Gallery, containing lots of works of the sculptor. I hadn’t heard of him, which is crazy, because his work is widespread and phenomenal. You’ve likely seen his works. He’s probably best known in the United States for the two giant equestrian statues of Native Americans in Chicago — they’re a little hard to miss if you’re passing by Grant Park — but for me the most impressive part of Meštrović’s oeuvre is how varied his style is. Some of his stuff is rough and expressionistic, some of it is Art Nouveau, some is anguished and gothic. It’s an impressive body of work.

There are two things I find a little unsettling about it, though. First, it’s pretty easy to tell when he doesn’t have a firm grasp of the meaning behind what he’s sculpting. Those giant statues in Grant Park, for example, are magnificent muscular bodies on horseback, but they’ve got basically nothing to do with Native Americans, as far as I can tell. He’s better when he sticks to domestic or Biblical themes, both of which he had a lot invested in. Maybe worse, it’s hard to ignore the fact that virtually all the men he sculpted are active or experiencing grand emotions, while virtually all the women are dancing or singing or taking care of men or children. It’s pretty obvious, once you notice it.

After the gallery, I walked back along the coast, spending some time watching the beach. Had I known, I would have brought my swim trunks — it was a beautiful sunny day, and the seawater was warm and inviting. I resigned myself to heading back to my room, hitting nearly every bar or café on the way, just reading and enjoying the last of the summer weather.

Yesterday the weather seemed to finally turn for good. It was cold and rainy most of the day, and the evening there was a definite chill in the air. Not a bad one, mind you, this is still the Mediterranean. But enough to be noticable. I spent my last night wandering around the city looking for a place I thought I spotted that had gorgonzola gnocchi on the menu.¹⁴ After that I had a drink and dessert on the harbor, and finally wandered back to the peristyle.

So I finished by sitting on the flat stone steps, drinking small glasses of cherry brandy, listening to a guitarist and watching a smattering of tourists off the cruise ships dance or wander around or get chased by waiters off the spots reserved for the café. It’s a nice way to kill an hour or so, maybe the best way to do so in Split. It was a good way to go out.

Next: Zagreb (ZAG) to Zürich (ZRH)
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Footnotes

¹ I’d nearly say required. The ruins are simply astounding.

² I would love to have enough money to afford a retirement palace. #lifegoals

³ The fact that he survived to retire is in itself amazing. Roman Emperors have a storied history of dying in office, sometimes of old age, sometimes from assassination, sometimes being forced to commit suicide. Diocletian abdicated following an illness and returned to his native Dalmatia to garden.

⁴ Particularly ironic, given his role in the late Roman Christian persecutions. The cathedral is dedicated to one of the bishops he had executed.

⁵ From what little I’ve seen of this part of the city, it’s every bit as charming as Communist-era-industrial-sprawl suggests it would be. The transition away from Communist rule has hit the industries in and around Split particularly hard, so many of the factories are abandoned and falling into disrepair.

⁶ A very common design around here. Vestibules seem to be a reasonably modern invention.

⁷ A courtyard ringed with columns which leads into a home. Here, it’s the main square which would have lead into Diocletian’s private residence.

⁸ Not surprisingly, given the proximity to Italy, there’s a lot of Italian food.

⁹ I’m referring here to Froggyland, which I resisted despite wandering past it nearly a dozen times. According to its sign, and perhaps obvious by its name, Froggyland features 507 taxidermied frogs. As the website puts it “[The artist] has managed to depict the everyday life of people to the smallest detail, and his exhibits include representations of a blacksmith shop, carpenter shop, tailor shop, school, circus and many other different life situations. This collection is truly a unique and exceptional example of the art of taxidermy which, together with its technical value, has the artistic value as well, and which intrigues and attracts people and leaves no one indifferent.”

I know. It feels like I missed out.

¹⁰ I am a huge fan of the guidebooks of Rick Steves. Most other guidebooks are either aimed at people with far less money than I have or far more money than I have. Rick Steves does a great job of splitting the difference: listing places where you’re better off buying food from a street vendor as well as places where the experience is worth dropping a little extra cash.

One of the things I particularly appreciate is his walking tours. Most of his books have a self-guided tour or two through the most interesting part of the city. I’ve never been disappointed by one.

¹¹ The basement of the palace was used as the place Daenerys locked up her dragons in Season 4. This seems like the location version of a walk-on part, since it’s just a bunch of stonework and only interesting once you know it was built 1,700 years ago. That hasn’t stopped any number of shops from loading up on Game of Thrones merchandise. If you need a shirt announcing your divinity overseeing tits and wine, or clarifying “I’m not a Princess, I’m a Khaleesi,” well, I know a place.

¹² I’ll admit I’m beginning to suspect the degree I like any place I visit is heavily influenced by the number of cats I see while I’m there.

¹³ As I mentioned, the cathedral used to be Diocletian’s mausoleum, but the Christians who settled here after he was gone evicted his body and consecrated it to one of the bishops he persecuted. The Baptistery used to be the Temple of Jupiter.

¹⁴ I found it. It was okay.