Perimeter Walk

There was a time in this world when all cities that had any means to defend themselves had walls. I don't mean like a token wall to define the boundary of the city proper or to distinguish the center of the city from the suburbs. I mean like a heavy duty, keep the bad guys out, tall and thick wall with battlements and large weapons. I mean like something fortified, scaling-and-assault resistant that was maybe behind a moat with large, big drawbridges at one or two gates which men with weapons guarded 24 hours a day to repel any sort of invaders or attackers. A city wall. Something formidable.

In most places today, those walls are gone, if they were even there in the first place. They are gone because quite simply there's just no need for them in today's world. Cities are no longer sieged by armies outfitted in chain mail with pikes and spears and swords and I guess in most places they were just in the way (the walls, not the pikes etc.). Maybe you can visit an historic city here and there that has fragments of the old city wall or in some other places it may be mostly intact. We found bits and pieces of the old wall in the city center of Barcelona in 2014 and we walked through centuries old gates in Marrakech just days before we traced the old Roman wall in Barcino. But most places? Completely gone. Disappeared. No chance.

"Most places" doesn't include the city of Dubrovnik at the south end of Croatia's Dalmatian coast. Dubrovnik is a museum piece of a city, a pre-medieval town that's evolved through the centuries into a densely packed stone town centered around a couple of broad thoroughfares and some important civic buildings. Its character has been affected by every empire it's been claimed by, from the Byzantines to the Venetians to the Ottomans to Napoleon's France. At one time in history it housed 6,000 citizens but today that number is about 1,000, if you don't count the hordes of tourists that pack the city daily and leave after they have seen what they came to see. 

That last category, of course, included us this year, although I like to think there's a difference between us and the packs that pile off buses from cruise ships docked just outside the city. Maybe I'm being a snob.

Dubrovnik is a manageable city for a visitor. I think you could probably walk most every street in a day if you tried, from the main stone streets worn smooth by millions of feet and sandals and shoes and flip flops over centuries of use to the tiniest alleyways with glimpses into restaurants and stores and people's lives. You'd certainly get a great workout if you do. Dubrovnik is hilly, with massive steps taking you from the main squares to the city's edge. There is so much history and food and architecture to find and discover, from the city's most important buildings to the tiny bars clinging to the shores of the rock that the city is built upon.

Oh...and they have a pretty amazing city wall. It's completely intact and it's all walkable. And it's spectacular.

The start of our wall walk. Tower of the Dominican Monastery and the Cathedral dome in the bottom pic.

We knew before we visited Dubrovnik that we'd find ourselves a city with a remarkable wall surrounding it. Even so, when the city first came into view from the back seat of our cab that was taking us from the city's ferry terminal to our hotel just outside the Pile Gate, I was astonished. It was honestly, and I know this is terrible to say (or write), like the real-life manifestation of the Las Vegas Excalibur Hotel. That was the first thought that popped into my head and I know I'm a better tourist than that but that's all I could think of immediately. It was the grossly oversized turrets and walls that went straight up capped by a crenellated wall top, I think. The cartoonish rendering of a castle on the Las Vegas strip I guess is based on reality.

Dubrovnik, of course, is way better than any hotel on the Las Vegas strip. It's real. There's history there. And there is a lot to see and study. The only thing that's better than walking in the city itself is walking around the city from the top of its most impressive wall. Towards the end of our second day in town, we climbed the steps at one of the entrances to the wall walk at the east side of the city and started walking. Counterclockwise. One-way ticket. You can't go the other way.

I'm not putting down Vegas, by the way. I love Vegas and the whole Vegas strip is every bit as good as Dubrovnik but in a totally different way. But one hotel vs. Dubrovnik...Dubrovnik wins!

I've already mentioned Dubrovnik is on a hill, right? So, of course, there's a workout aspect to the walls of Dubrovnik. Two kilometers or 1.2 miles. And obviously it ain't all flat. Wear some comfy shoes that you feel good climbing stairs in. You'll need them.

Headed towards the Minčeta Tower.

There are three access points to the wall in Dubrovnik: one just inside the Pile Gate (pronounced pee-lay, by the way, not pile) at the west of city; one near the Ploče Gate at the east side of the city; and a third just a bit south of the Ploče Gate near the old harbor. We picked the one near the Ploče Gate because we'd been told (if I'm remembering correctly) that it started you out on the upward slope (thus getting the hard part out of the way first) and that we would see the best parts of the wall first.

I guess the logic behind the best parts of the wall being counterclockwise from the Ploče Gate entrance was that you would reach the iconic Minčeta Tower at the northwest corner of the city quickest from that entrance. There is no doubt that as far as parts of the wall go, that stout circular corner tower is by far the star of the show. It looks like the most impenetrable part of the wall and it's more of an identifiable object in the round than any other place on the wall. It's also the highest point in the city and has the most sweeping views. And yes, you can actually climb to the top of that tower from the wall. There's no doubt it's impressive.

But best part of the walk? I don't know about that. After having circumnavigated the city just once, I have a few spots that I thought were better.

Three towers on the Dubrovnik skyline (top); Onofrio Fountain (middle); and the old Dubrovnik harbor (bottom).

To me, the best part of walking the wall was not looking at the wall, it was looking from the wall out over the landscape surrounding the city or inward to the white-walled, red-tiled buildings that are packed within the heavy donut that is the wall. There are some views along the walk that are spectacular and which are far superior (in my opinion) to the Minčeta Tower. For my money, the best part of the walk was along the southern side of the wall. 

That part of the wall starts at the west corner of the city with a picture postcard view of Fort Lovrijenac, the 11th century fort built in three months by the people of Dubrovnik to guard the city from land or sea attacks from the west, and it ends at the eastern corner with a close-ish up view of the island of Lokrum, site of a medieval Benedictine monastery and a fort built by Napoleon's troops in the early 1800s. In between those two points you get unbroken views of the gorgeous waters surrounding Dubrovnik and looking back towards the city, you can see the entire place laid out before you as you look back up the hill towards Minčeta Tower. Yes, I realize I just pooh-poohed the conventional wisdom of Minčeta Tower being the thing to see on the wall. But I guess I really do agree, but I prefer to see it in context of the entire fortress that the wall creates. The place to do that in my opinion is from the southern side of the wall.

There are two other reasons why I loved the southern side of the wall the best. First, the profile of the wall along that edge dips and climbs and is narrow in parts and thickens in others. I can tell you there's no way I'd want to be stationed on the wall along the section just east of the western terminus; it is so thin and unsheltered. There was nowhere to hide on that portion of the wall. You'd be a sitting duck for any well-skilled archer.

Second, one of the cool things about walking around Dubrovnik today is that there are one or two tiny doorways in the sea-side wall for people to sneak through and either access the water or hang out in one of the bars that is clinging to the rocks at the base of the city walls. Not only does the south side of the wall get you great views of the city and of Fort Lovrijenac, you can also spy down on the people hanging out in these tiny watering holes.

And of course, it should go without saying that I don't really want to be on any sort of wall during an attack with missiles of any sort. But there...I just said it anyway.

The front wall of the Church of St. Ignatius.

But that's not even the best part of the wall walk. For me, my enduring memory of Dubrovnik is that it is a city of towers and domes. The wall walk emphasized and reinforced that impression and got me a different perspective on the city to preserve that memory.

Dubrovnik is incredibly homogeneous as a city. It's white stone and red tiles. I know I've already said that a couple of times. 98% or 99% of it is that simple. It is stone buildings crammed inside the wall with the minimum circulation space between buildings necessary for a city to function adequately. When you walk around the city or look down on it from any point on the wall, mostly what you see is red and white. Even the streets are paved with white stone.

But then there are a series of towers that rise above all that and serve as landmarks and guideposts to pull you through the city. Enter the city through the Pile Gate at the western edge of the city and your anchor tower is the belltower of the Franciscan Monastery (construction started in 1317). Standing at the other end of the town's main boulevard is the City Bell Tower (originally constructed 1444) to draw you into the city. At the Bell Tower end of the promenade, you can head north to the belltower of the Dominican Monastery (established in the 16th century) or south to the dome of the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (12th century, but mostly destroyed in the earthquake of 1667 and rebuilt). The Cathedral is the most important church in the city but it's not the highest point on the south side of the city. That honor goes to the sculpted facade of the Church of St. Ignatius, which from the wall, becomes another iconic high point in the city fabric without actually being a tower.

As you walk around the walls of the city, all five of these towers (I'm counting the Cathedral dome and the front wall of St. Ignatius as towers here...) stand out boldly, get hidden and then reveal themselves anew before being concealed again. There are spots on the walk where you can see all five, but usually at least one is out of sight here and there before popping into view between buildings or when you turn a corner. After the southeast corner of the wall walk, it's a game of hide and seek with the City Bell Tower, Cathedral Dome and wall of the Church of St. Ignatius. It is difficult in a city as dense as Dubrovnik to get good looks at these pieces and parts of these most important structures in the city from the ground level. The wall helps get a different perspective on these things. There are some glorious suprises as you walk the wall.

South wall of the city (top); dome of the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (bottom).

One of the other things you notice as you walk is that you are clearly transiting past places where people live. Sometimes you might see a couple on an outdoor porch of sorts having a drink or get a glimpse of some garden furniture or a string of laundry hung out to dry. We visit places like Dubrovnik and are astounded by their history and utter contrast with the places we call home; we forget sometimes that these places we spend a week or a few days of our lives are places other people call home. Getting views into their lives as we as tourists tramp around their neighborhood is almost voyeuristic but I have to think it would be cool to have a place to live inside Dubrovnik's city walls. Althought I definitely wouldn't want to contemplate moving furniture in or out or even carrying groceries back home. There's no cars or garages inside the city wall. It's all on foot with bags of groceries. Or furniture.

Some people, by the way, have strung laundry lines from the walls of their homes on one and have used the city wall as the other end. The anchors they have placed in the wall are more than ten or fifteen feet high in some spots. I guess if you have no dryer you have to do this.

There's one other spot on the wall worth stopping and watching and that's near the Pile Gate at the west side of the city. Just inside that gate there is a fountain called the Large Onofrio Fountain. It's not a fountain in the sense that I think of fountains, meaning a large open pool of water with some fancy sculptures and spouts of water shooting everywhere. This one is a large round structure with ports around its perimeter to allow Dubrovnik residents access to clean water. It's purely functional but it's of course not just that because it was built in 1438 and so it's adorned with sculptural elements around the water dispensers and columns equally spaced around its perimeter. It's also topped with a masonry dome which is cool to see. 

The difficulty in viewing the Onofrio Fountain from the streets of Dubrovnik is that you can't take all of that in from ground level. But you can from the wall. From the wall, you can appreciate the whole thing. And do some people watching at the same time if you want.

Walking around the city wall is hot and thirsty work, especially with that Mediterranean sun beating down on you. You might want to fill your water bottle at the Onofrio Fountain before setting out on your two-kilometer hike. There's no doubt you'll need some sort of hydration at some point on that circuit. If you forget to fill up, or if you forget your water bottle entirely, don't worry. There are rest stops along the wall where you can get a drink of water or maybe something more adult. There are actually four bars along the walk, and validating my asseriton that the south side of the wall is the best, two of the four are along that side, with a third being awfully close on the west side near the old harbor.

We didn't stop at any bars along the way. We hustled. We got onto the wall late in the day and knew we'd have to move to cover the whole thing before they kicked us out. We also were getting hungry and had a recommendation on a good spot to get some cuttlefish risotto. All told, our complete walk took us about 65 minutes, with stops at least for a few moments at every spot worth stopping. I'm sure you could take way longer. 

Bars with views. Lokrum Island in the bottom picture.

One of my fondest memories of Dubrovnik (and Croatia in general) were the sounds of the bell towers. The City Bell Tower in Dubrovnik has sculptures of two dudes that actually sound the bell. Their arms pull back and they alternately strike the bell with their hammers. I guess we didn't realize that when we were in the city, but on our last stretch of the wall, we came around a bend and were faced with those two sculptures in that tower about as close as you can get.

The next night we were sat eating dinner in a spot where we could see the hammers hitting the bells at the top of an hour. We might not have watched if we hadn't realized how that worked. We wouldn't have known that if we hadn't have walked the wall. We spent just three nights in Dubrovnik. Every minute was packed. But the wall walk pulled everything together for me and gave me a series of photographs that will help me remember all three days we were there. 

One last note to close this post. Dubrovnik today is a peaceful, calm city on the water along a beautiful coastline. It would be easy to think that the city's wall hasn't kept invaders out in centuries. But that's not true. As recently as the early 1990s the city was shelled by the Serbs after Croatia seceded from what used to be Yugoslavia. Those perfect old buildings were under attack 30 years ago by mortar shells. Things can change so quickly. Appreciate where you are in times of peace and calm. It wasn't always that way. In some places really recently.

City Bell Tower, Dubrovnik. 

Early Retirement

Sometime around the end of the second century C.E., the Roman emperor Diocletian made a decision: he wanted to quit. He decided he was done with being in charge of the Roman empire and instead of seeing his emperorship last until the time of his death, he just wanted to retire. So, to that end, he had a fortress that could be well-stocked with soldiers from the Roman army custom-built for him on the Dalmatian coast and on May 1, 305 he left Rome and sailed off into the sunset. 

Metaphorically speaking, of course. Dalmatia is east of Italy so if he did actually sail, he couldn't really sail into the sunset and get to Dalmatia.

Now, I didn't know this was a thing. I guess I assumed when you became emperor of Rome that you were in that gig until the end of your life. Apparently not, although admittedly there were not many who filed their retirement papers early and spent their later years doing something less stressful than running the empire. Diocletian was the first and there were not many after him that did the same thing.

Reading the list of how Roman emperors met their ends, by the way, it seems to me that Diocletian made a smart move. Lots of murders and suicides with some torturing by the Praetorian Guard, a few blindings / exiles and at least one rumored death by being forced to swallow molten gold. Not all as glamorous as it sounds, this ruling Rome stuff. And that molten gold thing...ugh! Can't imagine. Why do we do this stuff to each other?

The northern or Golden Gate of Split being "guarded" by some "Roman soldiers".

When he decided to hang up his sandals, Diocletian was around 40 years or age or maybe a little older and he lived out his life in his custom-built Palace to the age of about 68. It seems to me that a 68-year lifespan wasn't bad for a time when I am sure the average person's time on this planet was way, way shorter. And 68 is approximate but close enough, right? We don't really know when Diocletian was born because birth records back then were not that precisely recorded.

Now, before you go off and think that Diocletian seemed to be set from birth for a long life of luxury because he was born to royalty, think again. He wasn't. He was born in Dalmatia to an otherwise ordinary family (it seems his father may have been some sort of civil servant) and joined the Roman military early in life. I guess he was successful at leading men in battle and killing opponents on the battlefield because he eventually rose to the position of leader of the cavalry force that directly served the emperor Carus in the year 282. 

When Carus died in battle against the Persians, rule of the empire was split between his two sons, Carinus and Numerian. Numerian died (read: likely assassinated) during the army's withdrawal from Persia and the troops declared Diocletian emperor right there on the spot, an honor which Diocletian accepted. A few years later, after armed conflict between forces loyal to Carinus and Diocletian, Carinus' men turned on Carinus and finished him off too. By the end of 285, Diocletian was in charge of Rome. The whole empire, not just the city.

The interior of the Cathedral of St. Dominus, Split.

By most accounts, Diocletian was a fairly effective emperor. He largely brought peace to all of the areas of the empire by making sure its enemies negotiated peace treaties after being soundly defeated by Rome's forces. He also brought order and structure to the administrative aspects of running the empire and levied higher taxes to raise money for the continued success of the empire and whatever it needed money to get accomplished.

He ruled as an autocrat but also delegated effectively to allow others who reported to him to rule parts and pieces of the far-flung empire. He built the military in a way that perpetuated future success and all of those things set the empire itself up for continued prosperity for the next couple of centuries.

If there was a knock on Diocletian's initiatives or action plans while he was in charge, it was his failure despite his best efforts to get that pesky new religion called Christianity eliminated from Roman-held territory. I say "despite his best efforts" because Diocletian was the last Roman emperor who focused significant effort on persecution of Christians. It's odd to think today of Christians as being persecuted but back in the third century, there was a lot of that going on. I also mention it because there is for sure some irony coming later in this post.

And I'm being sarcastic about Diocletian's "failure" to wipe out Christianity. I'm all for freedom of religion as long as it's not hurting anyone else.

What's left standing today of Diocletian's Palace's east or Silver Gate.

So why is all this stuff about Diocletian important enough for me to write paragraph after paragraph in this blog of mine? Well, quite simply, Diocletian's Palace eventually formed the nucleus of the center of the city of Split, Croatia, which was the first stop for us on our recent trip down the Dalmatian coast before hopping on a plane in Dubrovnik and heading to Athens, Greece for a few days. Diocletian's Palace is a core reason why we ended up in Split. It's pretty much what we went to see. And I know I've mentioned Dalmatia a few times here but Dalmatia is in Croatia. And yes, that's where the dogs come from.

The city of Split today pretty much fills the peninsula upon which Diocletian's Palace was built. As the population has grown, the town expanded way beyond the original perimeter walls of the Palace and filled the entire piece of land around the old Palace. It's a real city that has grown organically over the centuries. But it's not like Diocletian's Palace isn't still there because it is. Not the whole thing intact as a museum piece, but you don't have to go hunting for bits and pieces of it here and there like we had to do years ago while searching for the tiny bits of the old Roman wall in Barcelona. You look at Split and you see what Diocletian had built. You walk through the city center and the main public spaces are the main spaces of that palace. There's no question that its presence is clearly visible.

Rendering of what the original Diocletian's Palace probably looked like.

The Palace of Diocletian measures about 225 meters by 175 meters, which results in a rectangle with a ratio of about 5:4. The Palace is tilted maybe 30 degrees or so off of true north-south to match the original coastline of exactly where the Palace was constructed. When Diocletian lived there, the Palace could be entered through a gate in the center of each of the four walls, with the approximate north, east and west gates being entered on land and the south facing directly to the water (today, the area to the south has been filled in, creating a promenade called the Riva which is filled primarily with restaurants). Around the perimeter of the walls of the Palace were a series of towers (presumably for defense). Three of those towers are still in place at three of the four original corners. 

Look at what used to be the Palace today from the north, east or south of the city and you see that Palace. The walls are largely intact and the start and end of each face of the old wall is clearly visible. The east side is more ruined than the north and south but the perimeter wall is defined as clearly as it must have been back when the Palace was first completed. For what it's worth, you'd be able to see the western wall as clearly as the other three if there weren't so much stuff in the way.

You can also experience what it might have been like to enter the Palace. The double walls that created the sallyports at the north and west are still there. You can walk through the original gates in both of those locations. The actual gates themselves are just missing. Not so much at the east side. That gate lost its definition sometime in the centuries after Diocletian moved in. It's a little more, shall we say, not there. If Split were under siege today, the east side of the city would definitely not keep anyone out.

The four gates to the city are named after metals. Going clockwise from north to west, the four gates are the Golden, Silver, Iron and Bronze Gates.

The old south wall of Diocletian's Palace, added to and changed over the centuries. No more water either.

I expected that when I arrived at Split, that we'd be able to identify the perimeter of the old Palace. When our airport transfer dropped us off outside the Iron Gate, I was not in the least surprised by what I saw. When we stepped out of our driver's car, we were faced with an ancient wall as an architectural palimpsest showing the city's history dating from today all the way back to the original construction of the Palace. There are bits and pieces of walls, columns, windows, balconies, shops, fabric tent structures and much, much more bearing witness to how everyone who has lived in and around the city has used and adapted it throughout the centuries.

After we got our bearings and were met by someone from our hotel, we followed him into the city through the old Iron Gate that used to face the water. I didn't expect to be blown away when we stepped through the Iron Gate. But I was. There's just no other way to put it.

Diocletian's Palace substructure, leading to the Peristil.

When Diocletian moved into his new digs in Dalmatia, he lived in the portion of the Palace to the south along the water. I mean, why not? That part was probably the easiest to secure and the views of the water must have been killer. Where else would he have chosen for his private suite? To get to an audience with Diocletian, you would have (and I'm assuming with an advance appointment here) had to enter the city via a land gate; pass by or through the north side of the city which was a giant troop garrison housing 4,500 Roman soliders; and enter into the main public square of the city which was called the Peristil. From the Peristil (and I'm assuming there some interface with some sort of handler at that point), you'd proceed up a small set of stairs into the circular vestibule of Diocletian's Palace proper. 

If you entered the city via the Iron Gate from the water (and I'm not totally sure anyone did but it's a reasonable enough assumption), you'd pass through the Palace's substructures which were used for storage (primarily of food; it's cooler down there under the Palace); up a set of steps into the Peristil, pull a U-turn up the stairs and into the vestibule.

Here's the thing: other than the garrison, all of that stuff is still there. The Peristil, the vestibule and the substructure. All of it is still intact. And it's all incredible. When I stepped through the Iron Gate when we first got to Split, my thought when I stepped across the threshold and into the Palace was something along the lines of "Oh my God. This isn't shell of a Palace where everything inside has been cleaned out and replaced. What was here 1,700 years ago when the Palace was built is still here." And in case you missed it the first time, it's all incredible.

We happened to be staying in a hotel in the location where Diocletian's private quarters used to be, so our entrance into the city with our backpacks (no other luggage on this trip; backpacks only here) was through the substructure, up a set of stairs to the Peristil and through the old circular vestibule. Our introduction to the city sequence couldn't have been better. It was like we were headed to see Diocletian himself. And that arched brick and stone and mortar substructure that's in place after all those centuries of use is so impressive. It's honestly awe-inspiring. It takes you back to the times of ancient Rome immediately. It's so atmospheric and convincing, probably because it's actually the real deal original thing. Just ignore the souvenir stalls on both sides of the walkway.

The Peristil looking north (midday) and south (early morning).

The Peristil is even better than the substructure. It's a perfectly preserved Roman town (or in the case, palace) square. I am pretty confident in saying that it is virtually identical to how it looked when it was built, although I'm sure there were a few more Roman soldiers around back then. Check out the two in costume in the top picture above.

The Peristil today serves as the center of the city and the main access to the Cathedral of St. Dominus, whose belltower dominates the entire town of Split today. You can see the top of the belltower from pretty much anywhere in Split today and you can get some awesome views of the town and the surrounding countryside and water as you ascend to the top of the tower.

The belltower is not from Diocletian's time (it was built in the 12th century and substantially re-built in the 20th century), so I have deliberately not included pictures of it in this post (although there are some here and there incidentally in the pictures I have chosen). However, the Cathedral is original to the Palace. I know what you are thinking...didn't I just say that Diocletian made sport out of persecuting Christians? Why would he build a cathedral? And you'd be right. The Cathedral wasn't built for that function; it was built as Diocletian's mausoleum to eternally hold his remains after his death. It still does, but it's also used multiple times per week by the people he tried to drive out of the Roman empire worship the God that Diocletian tried to destroy. The ultimate irony is the building is the oldest Christian cathedral around in the entire world today. Take that, Diocletian!!!

In the middle of the day, the Peristil is chaos. There are people lingering and gawking and trying pass through all at once along with some who are paying the two dudes dressed like Roman soldiers for pictures and swordfights. Towards the evening, things calm down a little and the restaurant on the west side of the square sets up cushions and tables (which are really more like trays) around the space and hosts live music performances. 

There's also a gem of an artifact in the Peristil towards the southeastern corner: an Egyptian sphinx made out of black granite. This is actually the oldest thing in the city of Split. It's almost two full centuries older than Diocletian's Palace, forcibly relocated from its original location after the squashing of an uprising in Roman-held Egypt in the late third century. If this thing was in a museum, it would be surrounded by ropes and festooned with "Do Not Touch" signs. But no such thing in Split. It's just out there in the open for anyone to see and get as close as they want to and touch if they really feel the urge. It's pretty special in a town that's effectively an entire museum unto itself that there's something even older and more precious than the town itself.

The sphinx in the Pertistil and the north wall of Diocletian's Palace.

As special a space as the Peristil is, it wasn't my favorite part of Diocletian's Palace. That honor goes to the vestibule. But before I get to that, it's worth noting a couple of other glimpses of the original Palace that can be had in Split.

Besides the gates, the exterior walls, the substructure, the Peristil, the vestibule and the mausoleum-turned-Cathedral, the majority of the original Palace is no longer there. I know, the list of spaces I just rattled off seems like a lot (it actually reminds me of the "what have the Romans ever done for us?" part of Monty Python's The Life of Brian) but it's by no means close to the entirety of the interior of the original Palace. Outside of those spots, the rest of the original Palace has been repurposed, cannibalized, adapted or just plain removed and replaced with something different. The result is an organized maze (it looks intimidating but it's really pretty simple) of narrow passages built over the centuries into what it is today.

But if you hunt a bit, you can find some other parts of the original Palace. 

The old Temple of Jupiter in Split.

When Diocletian had the initial Palace designed, he certainly didn't envision a Christian cathedral. But he did have a temple built within the four walls of his fortress. That temple, dedicated to Jupiter, is still completely intact today and accessible from the other side of the Peristil opposite the Cathedral. And like the Cathedral, it's been repurposed as a Christian place of worship, serving as a chapel remote from the Cathedral rather than off the side of the church as they are typically located.

The old Temple of Jupiter is actually a little gem within the city. Other than having a statue of John the Baptist (awesomely sculpted by Croatia's native son Ivan Meštrović) placed in the back of the space, the building is pretty much untouched, including the representations of Jupiter, Apollo, Helios and Triton above the entrance to the building and the many, many faces carved into the vaulted ceiling of the space. As a tourist attraction, it's quite different from the Diocletian's former mausoleum. Whereas the Cathedral is covered with all sorts of ornaments and incense vessels and other sorts of Christian iconography and trappings, the old Temple of Jupiter is left alone. You can appreciate the original qualities of the place that must have been almost just as Diocletian himself experienced them. 

And once you are done with the Temple of Jupiter (and before or after you've already visited the vestibule), if you really want to be a completist, you can find pieces of the original flooring of the Palace here and there, including in the Cathedral and in a souvenir shop on the way from the Peristil to the Golden (or northern) Gate.

Glimpses of the original floors of Diocletian's Palace.

So about that vestibule.

The space between the Peristil and Diocletian's quarters in the old Palace is a circular space in plan with an entrance on either side and a series of niches around the perimeter of the room at ground level and a couple of other levels above the ground. As luck would have it for us, it is also the entrance to the forecourt of the hotel we were staying in, so it served as the entrance to where we were living for our two nights in Split.

When it was built as part of Diocletian's Palace, it was an enclosed space. I assume there may have even been doors on either side (assuming here based on the fact that security would most probably be required there). Today, the roof and whatever doors were on either side are gone. The ceiling and roof which used to be there replaced with a giant oculus at the top of the space. It's not historically accurate today but its ruin is actually as perfect a space as I can imagine today. I've been in the Pantheon in Rome which has an oculus by design. This accidental oculus is about as cool. 

The open top does two things for me. First it brings fresh air and light into the space and at night it allows the clear blue Croatian sky to be framed and seen by all passing through the space. It also offers looks at the Cathedral's bell tower. I know, I know, it's not original and if there were a ceiling in the space it's not like you couldn't see the bell tower from the exterior spaces on either side of the vestibule. But the framed view through the ruined ceiling turned oculus is pretty special.

The bell tower of the Cathedral of St. Dominus seen through the missing ceiling of the oculus (top) and morning in Split (bottom).

But the thing that I loved most about the vestibule was the music.

I had read in one of our guidebooks that you might be able to see and hear klapa groups singing in the vestibule at some times in the day. Klapa is traditionally a style of music sung by a four-person a cappella group of men with its subjects (according to Wikipedia) focused mostly on love, wine, their country and the sea. It's a deep, sonorous style of music that's rich and reverberates well in a circular, formerly domed space like the vestibule in Diocletian's Palace. I had this on my list as something that I wanted to experience in Split.

And sure enough, on our second day in the city, we were headed back to our hotel through the vestibule when we came upon a klapa group singing in the vestibule. The place was packed. The perimeter of the vestibule was crowded with tourists standing watching these four men with most holding their iPhones up and recording the event for posterity or for just storing on their hard drive or phone until they figure that there's no actual use to it for them. Apologies on the cynicism there.

We didn't want to stand in a mob of tourists and watch and listen. Too many people too close together. So we passed through the vestibule, ordered a glass of wine (Croatia's excellent pošip wine, if you must know) and sat in the dining area outside our hotel immediately outside the vestibule and listened to our free concert coming from the klapa singers in the space not 20 feet from where we were sitting.

This is one of my favorite memories of Split. We rarely slow down some days on vacation but we sometimes find the most special experiences when we do. This was just that kind of experience. It was perfect. I mean how could it not be? Sitting outside in a gorgeous Mediterranean, historic city listening to some traditional music while sipping some chilled white wine. Tell me what's wrong with that experience.

Our time spent in Diocletian's old Palace was awesome every minute of the time we were there, but I'm happiest with that 30 minute klapa concert. It capped that experience perfectly. I'd highly recommend it. 

Well done, Diocletian. Except for the whole persecution thing.

Klapa singers, Split.