Split: My Living Roman Palace

The ACI marina promenade led us straight from the ship toward Diocletian's Palace — not a ruin frozen in time, but a living organism where 3,000 souls make their homes inside 1,700-year-old walls. This is the world's only continuously inhabited Roman palace, a distinction that hits you the moment you step through the ancient gates. We walked off the gangway and into the Peristyle while a klapa group sang under the sphinx. Had the square almost to ourselves at 8 a.m. Climbed the bell tower (terrifying open stairs) for 360° views over red roofs and the Adriatic, trying to imagine what this place looked like when it was first completed in 305 CE.

What strikes me most is the sheer audacity of Emperor Diocletian's retirement dream. Born in humble circumstances in Salona — just six miles up the coast — he rose through military ranks to rule the known world from 284 to 305 AD. He instituted the tetrarchy, dividing the empire among four rulers, then did something almost unheard of: on May 1, 305 AD, he voluntarily abdicated. He spent his final eleven years in this palatial fortress he'd built from 295 to 305 CE, tending his famous cabbage gardens and watching the sea until his death in 316 AD. The palace was designed as both retirement villa and military fortress, with four great gates — Golden to the north, Silver east, Iron west, Bronze south — and sixteen towers guarding the perimeter, though only three remain standing after seventeen centuries of history.

UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site in 1979, calling it the largest and best-preserved Roman palatial architecture anywhere. But what makes it utterly unique is that it never stopped being inhabited. For nearly three centuries after Diocletian's death, the palace stood largely empty, a monument to imperial retirement. Then around 614 AD, when the Avars and Slavs sacked Salona, desperate refugees flooded into the abandoned palace walls seeking protection. They built homes in the emperor's apartments, shops in the colonnades, churches in the temple chambers. They never left. Today I sipped espresso in a café built into what was once the imperial vestibule, then browsed handmade jewelry in a boutique tucked between ancient columns. I found myself wondering if Diocletian would be horrified or delighted to see his grand solitude transformed into this vibrant maze of humanity — his peaceful retirement villa now a bustling neighborhood where laundry hangs from windows carved by Roman stonemasons.

We strolled the Riva promenade for coffee, then took the ferry to Hvar for the day — swam at Pokonji Dol beach in water so clear I could see my toes at 10 m depth. Back in Split at sunset, the palace glowed orange, the same limestone that Diocletian would have watched turn golden each evening from his private quarters. The continuity of it all — seventeen centuries of sunsets on the same stones — took my breath away.