Diocletian's Palace

What survives is not a ruin but a quarter: lanes, apartments, bars and shops fitted into the shell of a fourth-century imperial compound, with the original wall…What survives is not a ruin but a quarter: lanes, apartments, bars and shops fitted into the shell of a fourth-century imperial compound, with the original walls still carrying the street plan. The four gates are named for metals, Golden, Silver, Iron and Brass, and three of them still serve as the way in.

The southern half, which faced the sea, holds the substructures, a run of vaulted cellars that once supported the emperor's apartments above and now carry the stalls. Over them the Peristyle, the colonnaded courtyard, is the one space where the scale of the original building is still obvious.