Croatia: The City of Split

Split is most famous for being the home of Diocletian's palace.  Diocletian is famous because
1. He was the most fanatical persecutor of Christians.
2. He was the only Roman emperor to ever retire.
3. He grew cabbages.

Oh, and he built this really big retirement palace not far from his supposed boyhood home of Solona.

Today, however, the palace is more like a city block defined by high walls.  Inside is a cathedral, bank, coffee shops, apartments, you name it.  The grandeur that was Rome is entirely missing. (Except for the basement. Sort of.  We'll get to that later.)

This is one of the defensive walls around the palace.  Walls like this always remind me of my mom because when we were in Roman walking alongside similar walls on our way to St. Peter's Basilica, Mom started weeded the walls.  No joke.  We've got pictures.

 See?  Here is mom weeding the wall:

 

Here a couple of other shots of the palace.  As you can see, time and random architectural changes have taken their toll.

The palace does still provide some straight lines in an otherwise convoluted pattern of streets….