Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Palace of Diocletian. But after the fall of the Roman Empire, squatters moved in and started building houses
inside the crumbling palace walls. Over the centuries a little community grew up. What were once corridors
became streets. Courtyards and atriums evolved into public squares. Now the lanes - some so narrow you
have to turn sideways to pass through them - are mostly lined with houses and shops, and yet there is this
constant, disarming sense of being inside a palace. Incorporated into many of the fa￧ades are parts of the
original structure - stairways that go nowhere, columns supporting nothing, niches that once clearly held
Roman busts. The effect is that the houses look as if they grew magically out of the ruins. It is entrancing and
there is no other place in Europe like it.
I walked around for a couple of hours, then had an early dinner on a square bounded on three sides by
old buildings with outdoor restaurants and on the fourth by the quay. It was a fine summery evening, with the
kind of still air on which aromas hang - in this case a curious but not displeasing mixture of vanilla, grilled
meat and fish. Swifts circled and darted overhead and the masts of yachts rocked lazily on the water. It was
such a pleasant spot and dusk was settling in so nicely that I sat for some time drinking Bips and watching
the nightly promenade, the korzo.
Every person in town dresses up in his best clothes and goes for an evening stroll along the main street
- families, hunched groups of furtive-looking teenage boys, giggling clumps of dolled-up, over-fragranced
teenage girls, young couples with heavy-footed toddlers, old men and their wives. It had the same chatty,
congenial air of the gatherings around the square in Capri, except that here they kept moving, marching up
and down the long quayside in their hundreds. It seemed to go on for much of the night.
As I drank my fourth or possibly fifth beer, I suddenly felt drowsy - drowsy enough to lay my head on my
arms and just sleep. I looked at the label on my beer bottle and discovered with alarm that the alcohol
content was twelve per cent. It was as strong as wine and I had drunk a bucket of it. No wonder I felt tired. I
called the waiter and paid the bill.
Solitary drinking is a strange and dangerous thing. You can drink all night and not feel the remotest
sense of intoxication, but when you rise you discover that while your head feels clear enough, your legs have
suddenly decided to go in for a little moonwalking or some other involuntary embarrassment. I moved
across the square, dragging one reluctant leg behind me, as if under the strain of a gunshot wound, and
realized I was too far gone to walk anywhere.
I found a cab at the quayside, climbed in the front passenger seat, waking the driver, and realized I had
no idea where I was going. I didn't know the name of the street, the name of the woman to whom I had
entrusted my personal effects, the part of town in which she lived. I just knew it was up a hill. Suddenly Split
seemed to be full of hills.
'Do you speak English?' I asked the driver.
'Nay,' he said.
'OK, let's not panic. I want to go sort of that direction. Do you follow me?'
'Nay.'
'Over there - just drive that way.' We went all over the place. His meter spun like the altimeter on a
crashing plane. Occasionally I would spot a corner that looked familiar, grab his arm and cry, 'Left here! Left
here!' A minute later we would find ourselves coming up against the gates of a prison or something. 'No, I
think we may have gone wrong here,' I would say, not wanting to let his spirits down. 'It was a good try
though.' Eventually, when it became apparent that he was convinced I was insane as well as drunk and was
considering pushing me out, we blundered onto the correct street. At least I thought it was correct. I gave
him a pile of dinars and stumbled out. It was correct - I recognized a corner shop - but I still had to find my
way along the steps and alleys. Everything looked different at night and I was drunk and weary. I wandered
blindly, occasionally frightening the crap out of myself by stepping on a cat, and peered through the
darkness for a four-storey building with a plank of wood outside.
Finally I found it. The plank was thinner and wobblier than I remembered. I shuffled along it and was
about half-way across when it turned sideways and my footing went. I fell through black space for an instant
- it seemed longer and was really rather pleasant - unaware that my feet were either side of the plank and
that I was about to break my fall with my reproductive organs.
Well, it was a surprise, let me say that much. I teetered for a moment, gasping, then fell heavily sidelong
 
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