Dubrovnik to Split & Back: Day-4 and 5 in Croatia

The next day, after a nice breakfast at the Hotel Komodor in Dubrovnik, we got into the Peugeot 308, and off we went to Split. I had Google Maps showing the way, and the route took us over the Dubrovnik bridge, and followed the beautiful Adriatic coastline.

Driving along the coast.

With hills on one side, and the turquoise sea on the other, this turned out to be one of the most spectacularly scenic ride that I have driven on. We soon came up to the border checkpost, at Neum. Vehicles slowed down here for passport check. We made it through without any hassles, and were now driving in Bosnia. After about 10 km, we stopped at another checkpost, where again, our passports were checked and stamped. Now we were back in Croatia!

The roads widened into a expressway soon, and we were doing good speeds. We reached the hotel in Split - The Radisson - just in time for  lunch. At lunch, there was an old waiter who kept apologizing for the delay. We finally got our food - great food with hearty portions, as usual - and called for the check. It was 180 Kuna, and we intended to leave 200 Kuna as "keep the change". What we actually did was leave 200 Euros as "keep the change"! The old waiter burst out laughing, and joked with us, "Whats this! I'm rich!" Of course, he gave us the Euro back, and we paid the right amount in Kunas.
After this, we headed out to the "Diocletian Palace" - the main tourist attraction in Split.

Diocletian Palace - Split.

The "palace" is actually a small city-fortress, right at Split harbour. It was built during the Roman times - around 4th century AD - as the retirement home for the Roman emperor Diocles. Diocles was from Dalmatia - the Adriatic cost of Croatia - and that's why he built his retirement home here.

Diocletian Palace is a square fortress, with four gates in the four cardinal directions - named the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Iron Gates. We entered by the East Gate (which was named Silver, I think). All along the entrance are several small shops, selling mainly summer clothes, lavender, and other souvenirs. We entered and joined the "Red Umbrella" walking tour of the place, and our guide (a lady whose name I forget now), told us about the history of the place.

Inside Diocletian's palace

Inside is a small square, with a cathedral and bell tower to the left (these were later additions to the Roman palace), a narrow lane leading to museums and the Temple of Jupiter on the right, and the crypts straight ahead.

The whole place has a very touristy feel to it, with bars, cafes and restaurants all around the narrow lanes. However, one can still get in touch with the history of the place. There is an Egyptian Sphinx at one end of the square. Our guide explained that this was one of the surviving Sphinxes of many that Diocles had got from Egypt.

The Sphinx - one of a few that remains relatively undamaged.

The cathedral is also Diocles' mausoleum. It was converted to a cathedral in the 5th century AD. The legend goes that this was the ultimate revenge, as Diocles severely persecuted Christians during his rule. Our guide claimed that it was Diocles' son-in-law who persecuted Christians, as Diocles himself was too sick to rule during this time.

The Bell Tower - added in the 13th century.

Directly above the crypts, is the area called the "Vestibule", which is a room with a large hemispherical dome. This was part of Diocles' royal apartment. The acoustics of the place was demonstrated by a group of choir singers.

Inside the Palace.

Several places had Roman-era tiles and motifs. Our tour guide also showed us one gate which was decorated with what looked like Indian swastikas, and Shiv's dumru.

Roman-era mosaic tiles.

Swastikas and Dumru design on a gateway

These designs did look very much like the Hindu Swastika. It may have been Indian influence in Greek art after Alexander's failed invasion of India. Our walking tour took us from the Silver Gate to the Golden Gate, or the northern entrance of the city. Here there is a later statue of Bishop Gregory.

Statue of Bishop Gregory - no connection to Diocles or his palace.

After the tour ended, we visited the museum, and then climbed up the Bell Tower for a splendid view of Split harbor.

View of the harbor from the Bell Tower.

We still had not seen the cathedral/mausoleum or Jupiter's temple, as both were closing down for the day. So we walked around looking for a place to eat. There were a whole lot of restaurants and cafes to choose from.

Cafes all over the place.

 While we were walking around, the waitress from one of these restaurants guessed what we were looking for. "We have WiFi", she said, and that was what clinched the deal! However, the food was pretty good there too.

Leg of Ham at the restaurant.

After the dinner, we headed back to the hotel, and spent a while on the beach. It was a moonlit night, and the moon reflecting in the water made it a perfect night. Pity that my iPhone camera was not great at capturing this moment.

Moonlit Adriatic.

The next day we spent the morning at the beach. The Adriatic is lovely here, and the Radisson has a very nice private beach. However, the beach is extremely rocky, and we found it very difficult on bare feet.

The beach!

There was a jetty with a ladder reaching down to the water - I found this a better option than the beach. This way one could get right into deep water without walking over the infernal pebbles. After the swim in the sea, we continued with a swim in the hotel's pool, followed by lunch.

 In the afternoon, we headed back to Diocletian's Palace to visit the cathedral and the Jupiter temple. First stop was the cathedral, which was the converted mausoleum of Diocles.

Inside the cathedral

As mentioned before, this was actually the mausoleum of Diocles, which was converted to a church later. The building is octagonal, but the inside is circular. One can note the relics of it's Roman past.

Note the Roman-esque Eagle.

 There are eight two-storied pillars inside the structure, and carvings on the pillar heads and between the two stories.

The two-storied pillars inside the cathedral.

We then made our way to the Temple of Jupiter. The statue of Jupiter is (in my opinion) not very imposing. It is certainly not towering or awe-inspiring. He also looks very weak and feeble - almost mendicant-like!

Statue of Jupiter

 I had imagined that Jupiter was to Roman mythology what Zeus was to Greek mythology. In this context, the statue of Jupiter was quite disappointing.

Carved entrance to the Jupiter Temple.

Now we had seen all of the major sites in Diocletian's Palace. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the lanes, and the souvenir shops. Some of the Game of Thrones episodes were also shot here, so there were GoT souvenir shops too. The place is full of narrow alleys, but you dont get lost as it's not a very large place.

Alleys in the old town

We then walked out of the south gate, to the harbor. There are rows of cafes here, where we had a few drinks. We also picked up a quirky looking rolled-up pizza, which seemed to be very popular here.

That's me holding the rolled-up pizza-wrap.

 We ended the day with a visit to some of the souvenir shops. The next day, we drove back to Dubrovnik. The only difference was that this time I was driving way over the speed limit, as we had a plane to catch back to Zagreb. We managed to reach Dubrovnik, return the car, and take a taxi to the airport just in time for our flight back!