Nathan's Insights

Friday 03 May 2024
Highlights: Smooth Ferry Crossing, Exploring Diocletian’s Palace, Farewelling our group

Early morning start as we needed to drop our bags off for transfer to the ferry at 6.30 am. With the breakfast buffet opening at 6.30 am and us needing to walk to the ferry at 7 am today was not the day to be late. It turned out the weather was overcast meaning that yesterday’s full day got the best weather.

We boarded our ferry to Split around 7.30 am. The poor souls already on board had been traveling since 5.00 am from Dubrovnik. This crossing was calmer and I don’t think anyone got sick this time.

We got transferred to our hotel to drop our bags off before check in. We had a spare 40+ minutes before leaving for a walking tour so most of us used the time to work out post tour activities.

The Art Hotel and Annex building was a nice 25 minute walk to the main attraction in Split – Diocletian’s Palace.

This ancient Palace was built for the Roman emperor Diocletian at the end of the third century AD. Diocletian was the most important of four co-emperors at the time and he managed to actually retire from the position instead of the usual method of dying in the role (natural causes or more likely murder).

Diocletian’s Palace was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1979 and forms the core and centre of Split.

With the fall of the nearby regional capital of Salona in the 7th century refuges moved to this heavily defended Palace and Split was given new life as a major centre from this point onwards.

Diocletian’s Palace is consider the world’s most complete remains of a Roman palace making it very important structure. Today people live and work in the palace. As a major tourist destination you get a lot of vendors and people and some artists.

After the walking tour Darby and I sought out some lovely ice cream for the final time 🙂

We then did a short walk to the shoreline outside the Palace and later explored a local market.

We then walked back to our hotel and checked in and just relaxed for the rest of the afternoon before our final tour dinner. Nadya had selected nearby restaurant and we all told stories of our travels, both this trip and past ones, and thanked Nadya for guiding us. After eating it was time to say a final farewell.

I had organised for Alexa, Megan, Theresa, Ivan, Darby and myself to travel together to the airport so these farewells will be later. With the dinner finished the tour Croatia and the Balkans part of our tour concluded.