Visit to Split

I spent the last week in Split, down south from here on the Dalmatian coast. I took the ferry there last Monday night. It was the first time I've been on a ship since my semester at sea voyage -- see that report at my website: https://faculty.gcsu.edu/custom-website/mary-magoulick/
I went to Split with my colleague Mariellyn to teach some classes for another colleague there in the English department. We were met Tuesday early morning at the dock by our colleague Tania and immediately set off for the law school, where Mariellyn taught. After a few hours there, we raced across town to the faculty of philosophy, where the English dept is housed. I taught three classes there that day, and three again the next day. I also met many members of the English department, including a senior scholar Fulbrighter who has been in Croatia several times previously and whom I had heard much about over the years, since I read his reports and I taught for a year at his university back in the States (Radford University). We all had lunch together that day at a vegetarian restaurant and the very congenial Myrl Jones (the prof from Radford) gave us a little introductory tour of Diocletian’s palace.

Diocletian’s palace is the main attraction in Split. Diocletian (245-312 CE) was emperor of Rome but originally was from Croatia, near what became Split, which was all part of Rome at the time. He started with humble roots but rose through the infantry to the highest position and eventually declared himself a god. But he had no happy end; rather he is believed to have killed himself when his daughter was taken prisoner (based on something to do with the way he split (!) up the empire to be ruled by four people and then retired to this palace). In any case, he built his retirement palace in Split, on the sea near the Roman town of Solanas (now Solin -- just a few kilometers away). I was able to visit those ruins too.

The palace originally was a huge walled fortress (or city) including soldiers barracks, courtyards, temples, his tomb, and living quarters, all of which eventually became the center of Split. When I first saw the “palace,” which I had seen images of showing the layout in Roman times, I did not fully comprehend that what I was seeing is what’s left of the palace. Many of the outer walls and the original gates are still there, as well as the “peristyle” (middle picture above) a central courtyard area that is the main place today where people consider themselves to be in the old palace. It’s a tourist hot spot and kind of a main square, with columns, steps, an Egyptian sphinx, and entries into the cathedral (transformed from Diocletian’s octagonal tomb in the Middle Ages). There are also some basement rooms (recently excavated) that one can visit to get a sense of the original layout of Diocletian’s apartments, and there are some other interesting spaces like a domed area with an open circle in the roof (bottom picture above) and a former temple of Jupiter since transformed into a baptistery. But the bulk of the space where Diocletian lived is now completely transformed and unrecognizable as what it once was. It’s all been subsumed by the rest of the city. So in Diocletian’s apartment are crowded many more modern apartment buildings (though often using the old materials).

The whole palace area is a maze of tiny streets, surprising squares, and a mishmash of apartments, cafés, businesses, tourist shops, and so on. My guide book says this was for much of the last 50 years a kind of ghetto area of Split, the hang-out of prostitutes, drug addicts, and the poor. Nonetheless there seems to have been some recent renovations and changes, and although it’s now very touristy, it’s nonetheless a very beautiful and interesting place. I walked through the peristyle and ancient streets pretty much every time I went into town or to the faculty, so it became a familiar, but nonetheless thrilling sight.

Inside the cathedral is quite lovely, with it’s roundish shape from the original octagonal tomb. There are still a few carvings near the domed ceiling of Diocletian and his wife, and other scenes from Roman mythology, but mostly the original symbols were removed and replaced with Christian ones. There is a beautifully carved pulpit, a large, ornate choir behind the altar, and little side chapels, plus some nice, huge carved doors with biblical scenes. There’s also a tower just outside the cathedral that was added in medieval times and well, towers above the whole palace. The tower is a landmark you can see from the sea and many parts of town (top picture above).

There were many other interesting things to see in Split, the second largest city in Croatia. It’s such an attraction that there were tons of tourists from all over the world. I heard more American English spoken there than I have since I got to Croatia. Perhaps the most interesting and lovely day I had was when I visited the archeological museum, on the sea. It turns out there are actually two archeological museums, which is why I got completely conflicting and confusing directions about how to find it. But eventually I found one of them and enjoyed the exhibits on an excavation of part of the palace and artifacts from a medieval church from a nearby small village. There was also an interesting statue of a woman in a meditative pose. I asked the woman who worked there when it was from, and she told me it was the work of Ivan Mestrović, the most famous Croatian sculptor (from the early 20th century). She told me his museum was just down the street and that I should go see it. So I walked down this road along the sea on a beautiful, sunny spring day to his museum. The museum turned out to be in a beautiful old villa overlooking the sea where Mestrović planned to live (but instead fled to Zagreb during the Italian occupation in 1941). Nonetheless it’s an incredibly beautiful place, now full of his sculptures. My favorite part was the dining room, with a fireplace he designed with amazing sculptures, and medieval style chairs and tables. Plus the balcony running the length of the second floor gave amazing views of the sea and the beautifully landscaped grounds (also holding some of his work).

From there I was directed to also try to see the chapel Mestrović designed that is in a little kastellet just down the road, so I continued wandering along the sea, which was very lovely in this area and has many luxurious villas lining it. I found the chapel and really enjoyed the space. Mestrović carved wooden panels that line all the walls showing the entire life story of Jesus, and he sculpted the crucifix and altar as well. The little castle itself was also nice to see, with incredibly beautiful views of the sea. I sat in a window (with a wide ledge) there for almost an hour, just soaking up the sea air and the whole atmosphere, spring flowers, turquoise sea, waves crashing, and almost no other tourists around (I saw one couple the whole time I was there). It was a sublimely beautiful and inspiring morning all in all.

From there, I walked back into town, about a 45 minute walk all along the sea. I went from virtual isolation to eventually incredibly thick crowds (of mostly Croatians) as I got to the seafront area near the central harbor. This central seaside promenade was cheek to jowl with people parading on a sunny day, sitting at the numerous cafés, and just hanging out. It was Easter Saturday, so perhaps it’s the thing to do in Croatia to be seen that day on a public square or the waterfront.

I also took a couple of day trips from Split, once to Hvar, an island nearby called “the jewel in crown” of Croatian islands. No doubt it is very pretty, with an interesting medieval old town area, a monastery, a lovely seafront, and hills that tower above it all. The island is known for lavender, rosemary, olive oil, figs and so on. There is a fortress that rises above Hvar town, where we hiked up to get amazing views of the sea and nearby islands (see pictures in Hvar entry above). We also met another English language fellow, Annie, who lives on Hvar. After we toured Hvar town, she drove us to her house in a little village near Stari Grad (another town on the island near the ferry). Her house is an old traditional farmhouse that she is slowly renovating. It’s in a charming location, and she has a lot of good ideas for how to use it. It’s got one main room to which she has added a loft. There is also a kitchen, then a kind of outdoor courtyard with other attached rooms, including a summer kitchen, the old outhouse, a modern bathroom she’s put in, a barn, and some basement areas, and also a little garden area. The whole complex is maybe 800 sqaure feet (I'm totally guessing at that). It’s really nothing like houses we know or that I’ve seen elsewhere, but I suppose it’s a fairly common style for this area. Imagining a whole family living there is kind of hard, since presumably they would all have slept in that one main room, and crowded their animals and gardening and all their living into that space. But I guess all our ancestors were used to much more communal living than most of us are. For Annie it’s a good space, I think, with lots of opportunity for her to keep transforming it to her vision. It’s already got all the character and a lot of lovely details. Her neighbors bring her wine, herbal tea, honey, and other local goods.

In Split, we stayed in a student dorm (but nicer rooms set aside for faculty and visitors therein) about 20 minutes walk to town. It was nice to get an idea of how Croatian students live. When I first got to Split I wished I had been placed there (it was the city/university that I requested on my original Fulbright application). But after a week there I realized that the tourists might get on my nerves. Although Split is in many ways very beautiful, I am happy to be in Rijeka, maybe just because it already feels more like “home.” I took the ferry back here the evening of Easter Sunday, after a quiet day I spent by myself wandering the old town one last time. It was an overnight ferry trip back, about a 12 hour trip from Split to Rijeka (faster by car). I met people on the ferry who’d all been to Dubrovnik as well, and they all raved about it as being even more beautiful than Split, one of the most beautiful places they’ve seen, so that’s something to look forward to.