Round The World and other travels

Split can trace its origins back to Roman times, when the emperor Diocletian decided to build a palace on the Dalmatian coast - essentially a retirement home - and called it Spalatum. I don't know whether to feel relieved or cheated that the passage of centuries has transformed the name to Split, instead of the rather more obvious Splat. In any event, having made a highly successful short trip to Dubrovnik in October 2006, I decided that one year on would be a reasonable time to sample what has become Dalmatia's largest city and Croatia's second largest. Sadly, the weather could hardly have been more at odds with my previous trip : the northerly Bura winds had deposited snow on the mountains and average temperatures tumbled just days before my arrival. This didn't prevent me from exploring the city's main attractions, which centre round the remains of Diocletian's palace and the rabbit's warren of an old town that later grew up within its walls. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.