Split & Trogir

Split & Trogir – 2 cities at the Croatian coast but very different in size and atmosphere. We took a walk through both but didn’t try to compare them, just enjoying the old centres while walking through  narrow alleys.

Trogir


First we parked outside of Split and took a 1/2h walk to the centre. It is the second largest city of Croatia with 250.000 inhabitants.

The speciality about Split is, that the centre developed inside of a palace, which led to weird architectural mixes. The fortified Diocletian’s Palace was built for the Roman emperor in 305 AD. It was a combination of a luxurious villa and a Roman military camp, divided into four parts by two main streets.

Throughout the centuries, the residents of the palace, and later the citizens of the city of Split, have adapted these buildings to their own needs, so that the buildings in the palace, as well as the outer walls with the towers, have lost their original shape, although the basic features of the imperial palace are still clearly visible today.

The peristyle, the palace’s central square, is located in the middle of the former Roman temples and served as the reception hall for Emperor Diocletian: here the emperor had himself worshiped as the living son of the god Jupiter. He presented himself under the arch of the central part of the Protyron to his subjects, who approached him humbly and kissed the hem of his purple robe.


Bell tower of the Cathedral

Statue of Bishop Gregory of Nin
Seafront of the Diokletian Palace

After we had hiked back through town to get to our caravan again, we drove further north to reach the small town of Trogir, which has its centre on a small island which is squashed between the coast and the island of Čiovo just of the shore.

Trogir

Trogir is said to have the best-preserved Romanesque-Gothic complex not only in the Adriatic, but in all of Central Europe. Its medieval core, surrounded by walls, comprises a preserved castle and tower and a series of dwellings and palaces from the Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods.

Cathedral of Trogir

Trogir’s grandest building is the church of St. Lawrence, whose main west portal is a masterpiece by Radovan, and the most significant work of the Romanesque-Gothic style in Croatia.

Impressive main portal of the cathedral

Town Hall and Bell Tower

Inside the Town Hall

3,6 should be just enough – hopefully there is a tolerance

Looks so low …

… but we didn’t scratch

By chance we had found a spot to spend the night just next to another wall separating a peninsula from the mainland – the Wall of Oštrica (43.640099,15.950700) Tomorrow we will go and explore it! You can spot it already behind our caravan 😉
After it got dark that evening we heard the calls of the gold jackal. One of them seemed to be sitting next to our caravan, calling his friend a little further away. We were exited to hear them again after we had our first encounter in Greece.
Parking for the Night

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