This private walking tour explores Diocletian's Palace, the heart of the historic center of Split and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979. Construction began around 295 AD as a retirement residence for the Roman Emperor Diocletian and was largely complete by 305 AD, when he abdicated the throne. Today it remains one of the best preserved examples of Roman residential architecture anywhere in the world, and it is still fully inhabited, with homes, shops, restaurants and cafes built into and around the ancient structure.
Your licensed guide meets you at the port and walks with you into the palace. You begin in the substructures, the vaulted cellar chambers built to support the imperial residence above. These halls were originally used for storage and later filled with debris over the centuries, which is part of why they survive today in such complete condition. Walking through them gives you an accurate sense of the palace's original floor plan before you go above ground.
From the cellars you reach the peristyle, the palace's central courtyard, lined with granite columns brought from Egypt and ringed by an arcaded gallery. This was the ceremonial heart of the palace, where Diocletian would have appeared before his court, and it remains the visual center of Split's old town today.
Your guide then leads you to the Cathedral of St. Domnius, one of the oldest buildings in continuous use as a cathedral anywhere in the world. It began as Diocletian's octagonal mausoleum and was converted into a Christian cathedral in the 7th century, an irony not lost on historians since Diocletian was one of the last Roman emperors to persecute Christians. Its bell tower, added in the 12th and 13th centuries, is one of the defining images of Split's skyline. The tour concludes at the nearby baptistery, originally built as the Temple of Jupiter and later repurposed for Christian rites.
After the walking tour, your guide can either walk you back toward the port or leave you to enjoy free time in the shops and cafes filling the palace's narrow streets before you make your own way back.
Review Location- Split 
