NATALIJA UGRINA

Me, mid grocery run, with a 1,700-year-old Roman column for company — welcome to the SPAR inside Diocletian's Palace There's a version of this story I've told at dinner parties in the US more times than I can count. It usually starts the same way: someone asks where I'm from, I say Split, Croatia, and they nod politely like they've maybe heard of it. Then I mention that there's a Diocletian's Palace grocery store — a full working supermarket tucked inside a 1,700-year-old Rom

This summer, I found myself back in Split, the city where I grew up, but it felt different this time. After years of living abroad, I was...