Split

For our full day in Split we started by walking from our really cool apartment down into the town. We made our way through the street market which was just opening up. A lot of these stalls had clothes, underwear, and socks, which was sort of weird. But others had sausages and other meats, cheeses, fruits and veggies, nuts, and of course rakija, a Croatian fruit brandy. We bought some prosciutto for the kids to snack on from the woman who was slicing it right there for us and a bottle of strawberry rakija which warmed us right up.

The town of Split has the giant Diocletian’s Palace in the center of the old town, which was built in the year 305. The town has grown up around the Palace, but it is crazy to see many of the Palace buildings still intact and welcoming visitors.

The maze of streets that surround the Palace are all within a walled area of the town with gates at all four sides. The kids really liked wandering around these narrow cobblestone pathways, especially the ones where they could touch the walls on both sides.

The north gate of the walled inner city is called the Golden Gate, and outside of it is the statue of this huge guy (Gregory of Nin) with a book. Because of the light I couldn’t get a great picture of him, but his big toe is a shiny golden color, meaning people touch it all the time. Apparently if you rub his toe then your wish will be granted, so of course we had to do it too.

The center of the Diocletian’s Palace holds several notable places. First is the museum, which we went through. The key pieces here (at least for the kids) were the picture of Madonna and Child, which everyone thought was really weird because of the size difference between Mary and baby Jesus. I would agree—this is one of the oddest Madonna and Child paintings I have seen that has the worst proportions. The kids also liked the metal bust of the bishop, but the best part is the metal arms where Ronin is convinced must have powers like Thanos infinity gauntlet. He also likes the big church books. He pretends they are giant books.

Outside the museum is the Peristyle, the center of the Palace. This has one of the Sphynx that were brought from Egypt in the third century. Twelve were originally brought to Split, but only one remains intact. It was pretty cool seeing something so old out in the air and not hidden away inside a museum. The big archways are in front of St. Domnius Cathedral, which has a bell tower to climb.

We climbed up the bell tower, which provided great views of the city and the bay. The initial steps were really large and Willow had to practically climb up them. Once in the tower the metal stairs wound around to the very top of the tower.

St. Domnius Cathedral is the oldest Catholic cathedral in the world, which was created in the 7th century. I really liked the beautiful thick doors, but I am a sucker for pretty doors. The kids were very taken with the Jesus on the cross. In churches Willow likes to find the Jesus on the cross, but this one looked very emaciated and had welts that looked like cigarette burns all over him. This was a lot different than most of the Jesus’ we see in churches. We went below the church to see the crypt, which was much. There was a big hole in the ground, but not much else other than some empty alcoves. Finally, the baptistry was right around the corner. Although this was originally the Temple of Jupitar, which was then changed to a Christian baptistry around the 6th century. It was interesting trying to explain to the kids how buildings can change from a pagan temple to a Christian building.

To the left of the cathedral is a rotunda that is open to the elements. When we were in here we heard a tour guide talking, and he said that he remembers playing soccer in the rotunda when he was little with the alcoves being soccer goals. Underneath the rotunda is an underground cavern that has shops and a museum. This was also a Game of Thrones filming site. As we made our way out of the old town we passed the Game of Thrones museum. We looked into going into the museum, but the museum was tiny for the cost and we didn’t think it would be worth it to pay for the kids when they wouldn’t appreciate it.

We made our way out of the south gate of the old town and down along the Riva promenade. This walkway has a beautiful view of the Adriatic Sea and is lined with palm trees and colorful buildings. On the western end of the promenade is a rock beach, which the kids got to play in. After their shoes started to get pretty soggy we let them take off their shoes and wade into the water, but of course they got completely drenched by “falling” in the water.

From there we walked up Marjan Hill, which has another great view of the town and the bay. On our way down we saw the fishermen cutting up some minnows to use as bait, and Zoey found this cool topper of a post.

To finish our day we made our way back through the Peristyle where we saw some performance art. First was two women who took turns doing handstands, and there was also a guy going up and down a ladder. We sat in the square eating our gelato and watching them for quite a while, which was a nice end to a fun day.