Balkans day 2: Dalmatia

Day 2 of my trip sees me rattling along a single-track railway for nearly seven hours through snow-covered uplands, over the back of Croatia proper, and finally down to the Adriatic coast at Split.

The Mrežnica river, my companion for a lot of this journey

Winter hasn’t given up its hold here

Darkness had long since fallen by the time I’d arrived, but in daylight the city of Split is a fascinating place. It’s the biggest city in the ancient province of Dalmatia. So far I have not seen any Dalmatians (qua spotted dogs) or spotted any obvious speakers of Dalmatian (the basically extinct Romance language) – unsurprising given that there are only 20 fluent L2 speakers according to Wikipedia. What I have seen is a lot of tall people, good food, and nice architecture. Split was where the Roman emperor Diocletian decided to build his retirement palace (do I get one of those?) circa 300 AD, and it still shapes the present-day town.

The Cathedral of St Domnius, formerly Diocletian’s mausoleum

View over the west of Split from the belltower

It was raining in the morning, so I took shelter in the cavernous basement level of Diocletian’s palace before looking for some good seafood to eat. In the afternoon the sun came out, and I was hoping to get a bus to the fortress of Klis, but the 22 bus – which both the internet and my guidebook told me to get – steadfastly refused to actually exist, so I retreated into the winding alleys of the old town of Split.