• Split has a population of 161,000, and June / July / August the town is very crowded with tourists.
• There are no cruise ships in port today, but just last week there was one of those gigantic ships that disembarked 6,000 tourists into the city (overwhelming the small streets around the Diocletian palace area).
• The Roman Emperor Diocletian at the turn of the Fourth Century, commissioned the building of a 5-mile aqua dike (fresh water supply) to a small (at the time) seaside community of Split.
• Next came his summer palace in 300 AD (took 10 years to complete), expanding out within defendable town walls that encompassed the entire town (at the time).
• The city had four heavenly diffable city gates.
• Diocletian (born near Split in today’s Croatia providence of Dalmatian = (just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy), was a Roman General, that became Emperor in 284 AD (after he murdered the Roman Prefect Aper).
• Diocletian ruled for 21 years and then unexcitedly abdicated and retired to his palace that he had built, where he eventually died, he was entombed in a LARGE mausoleum near his royal apartment in the palace.
• They say this palace is the greatest Roman ruin in Southeastern Europe.
• Split grew up around the palace to incorporating ancient heritage with the new, both inside and outside the city wall.
• Built like a fortress with walls 590 feet by 705 feet, the palace was occupied by the Emperor Diocletian from AD 300-313.
Diocletian’s Mausoleum were eventually turned into a Christian church dedicated to the seventh century martyr St. Domnius .
The entire old section of Split, with the palace as its centerpiece, is a virtual open-air museum with the city's contemporary life.
If you watched the Netflix series Game of Thrones (and we did), many of the locations within this city and Diocletian's Temple of Jupiter were used as backdrop in the production! Tom may now have to revisit the series (Game of Thrones), to better relate to many of the locations in the movie that match our experience walking through the palace!