The Emperor's Palace

The modern day city of Split, where we stayed last night, is Croatia's second-biggest city. We could tell it was large as we were driving in, trying to find the old part of town, getting lost, trying again. The nucleus of the city, though, is very small, and based on one building - the Roman Emperor Diocletian's palace. Which also happens to be where our hotel is. Staying here was our "hotel splurge" of the trip, and even though it was hard to find, it's been worth it.

The palace, circa 300 AD

Diocletian may not have been a very personable man - though he did retire from being emperor in order to garden here at the palace full time - but certainly his palace, built just before 300 AD, is still impressive. The entry vestibule, which our hotel is located in and named for, is host to a quartet of traditional singers. I can even hear them as I blog in our room, it's quite nice.

The vestibule - impressive even with it's dome gone

Traditional klapa singers. We admit, there was one gentleman in particular that we thought was cute, perhaps you can guess from this picture which one he is...and also, um, we bought their CD.

Even Roman soldiers need to scratch their noses occasionally

We walked around town a bit, and especially enjoyed poking around in the basement of the palace which was full of rooms with strange artifacts, not very much explanation, and sometimes creepy pigeon sounds.

I bring to you, blog readers, the most exciting picture you'll see this entire time...see below for the reveal.

I was not acting here. Erin I. snapped a photo just as I was rushing out of a small chamber in the basement after hearing wings flapping around my head. Thanks, Erin.

We strolled slowly around a few other sights - the weather was not conducive to strolling anything but slowly - which included a walk along the harbor to drop off our laundry:


And a visit to this giant statue whose toe people rub for luck. He was a lot taller than Erin I.


We leave here today and have one more stop in Croatia before driving back to Slovenia and catching our plane to Krakow on Sunday morning. Phew!