Split is Croatia's second city (population 170,000) on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic Sea — the city that was literally born inside a Roman emperor's retirement palace, making it the only city in the world whose historic centre is simultaneously a UNESCO World Heritage archaeological site (Diocletian's Palace, designated 1979) and a living residential neighbourhood where 3,000 people live and work in ancient Roman rooms, corridors and colonnaded squares. Diocletian's Palace (built 295-305 AD by the Emperor Diocletian (Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus — the first Roman emperor to retire from power voluntarily; born in Salona (modern Solin), 6 km north of Split, in 244 AD to Dalmatian parents; the most capable administrative reformer of the late Roman Empire; his tetrarchy system (4 co-emperors) was the most sophisticated governance response to the size problem of running the empire from Rome; on May 1, 305 AD, Diocletian became the first emperor in Roman history to resign the office voluntarily, retiring to his palace to grow cabbages — "If you could show the cabbage that I planted with my own hands, you would no longer talk of empire" — a quotation that defined the Split cabbages joke for 1,700 years)) as a 38,500 m² walled complex of quality so high that the walls (2 m thick, 25 m high on the seaward side) stood for 1,700 years without major deterioration; when the Roman Empire collapsed and the nearby city of Salona was destroyed by Avar raids in the 7th century, the refugees moved into the palace and built an entire medieval city within the walls. The result: the original Roman basement halls (the hypogeum) are perfectly preserved; the original temple of Jupiter became the baptistry; the mausoleum of Diocletian became Split's cathedral; the Romans' colonnaded peristyle square is Split's main social gathering point; and 3,000 people's apartments are built directly onto and into the ancient Roman walls.
The Peristyle (the central colonnaded square of Diocletian's Palace — the formal approach to Diocletian's private apartments; the Corinthian columns with the sphinx statues (Egyptian grey granite sphinxes, 3,500-year-old originals brought from Egypt by Diocletian) flanking the staircase; the peristyle was the formal gathering point of the emperor's court and is now Split's main public square where the Dalmatian morning coffee ritual takes place at the Luxor café; the vestibule (the large domed rotunda at the north end of the peristyle — the entrance to Diocletian's private apartments; the dome has an oculus (open ceiling) like the Pantheon in Rome; the acoustics of the vestibule make it the venue for the a cappella klapa singing groups who perform for tourists and for the religious processions; the local men's singing groups (klapa) represent one of the most distinctive musical traditions of Dalmatia — UNESCO Intangible Heritage).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Cathedral of Saint Domnius (Katedrala Svetog Duje — the most unusual cathedral in Croatia: the original mausoleum of the Emperor Diocletian (built 305 AD, the octagonal domed Roman building in which Diocletian himself was buried) that was converted into a Christian cathedral in the 7th century; the irony: Diocletian was the last emperor to seriously persecute the early Christians (the Diocletianic Persecution, 303-311 AD); his mausoleum was converted into a church dedicated to the Christian martyrs his persecution created; the 13th-century campanile (bell tower, 60 m — the finest Romanesque bell tower in Dalmatia; the view from the top over the palace roofscape, the Split waterfront and the islands of Brač and Šolta); the Romanesque door panels (1214 — the finest medieval carved wooden doors in Croatia, carved by the sculptor Andrija Buvina with 28 scenes from the life of Christ).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Diocletian's Palace basement (the hypogeum — the underground halls that supported the floor of Diocletian's imperial apartments above; the basement is the most important single element of Diocletian's Palace because the apartments above were altered and rebuilt over 1,700 years while the basement floor plan perfectly preserves the original 305 AD layout (the basement is the mirror image of Diocletian's apartments above, room for room); the Roman engineering visible in the basement (the barrel vaults, the drainage channels, the light wells); the basement is also used as a film set: the vaulted halls were used as the slave pits in the Game of Thrones filming (the Meereen slave pits scenes were filmed here — Split was used for multiple seasons as a filming location); the basement exit opens onto the south waterfront, directly facing the Adriatic islands.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Riva (the 1 km waterfront promenade of Split — the social heart of the city; the wide marble promenade faces the Adriatic with the palace's south wall behind it; the Riva was redesigned and reopened in 2007 (white concrete, palm trees and LED lighting) and is the standard meeting point for Split residents in the afternoon and evening; the view from the Riva to the islands of Šolta, Brač (with the white Zlatni Rat beach visible on a clear day) and Hvar on the horizon; the ferry terminal is at the east end of the Riva — the ferries to Brač (1h), Hvar (1h30), Vis (2h30), Korčula (3h) and other Dalmatian islands depart from here multiple times daily; the fresh seafood restaurants on the Riva and in the adjacent Vestibule area serve the grilled fish, the octopus salad and the Dalmatian prstaci (clams with olive oil and white wine).
Hvar (ferry 1h30 from Split — the 68 km long island of the central Dalmatia chain; the sunniest place in Croatia (2,726 hours of sunshine per year); the Hvar Town (the main town, built around the Venetian Loggia, the Renaissance Arsenal and the Fortress of Napoleon on the hill above; the best-preserved Venetian medieval town on the Dalmatian coast; Hvar was the Venetian staging point for the Adriatic trade for 500 years (1278-1797) and the town grid, the public buildings and the language (the Hvar dialect has a significant number of Venetian Italian words) reflect 500 years of Venetian rule); the lavender fields of Hvar (the interior of the island has been cultivated with lavender since the 1920s — the Hvar lavender essential oil is among the finest in the world; the lavender bloom in June-July is the most fragrant landscape in the Adriatic).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Pakleni Islands (the chain of small wooded islands directly in front of Hvar Town — accessible by water taxi (15 min, €5) from Hvar Town harbour; the islands have no permanent residents and the 30+ small coves and beaches (most accessible only by boat or kayak) are the finest swimming in the central Dalmatia area; the Pakleni water is the clearest in the Adriatic — 20-25 m visibility in calm conditions; the restaurants on the islands (Carpe Diem Beach on Stipanska Island, Meneghello on Palmižana Island) serve the freshest fish in the Hvar area, cooked to order from the catch brought in that morning by the Hvar fishing fleet; the afternoon northwesterly (maestral) wind makes the Pakleni channel one of the finest dinghy sailing areas in the Adriatic.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideZlatni Rat (the "Golden Horn" — the famous white pebble beach on the island of Brač at Bol, accessible by ferry to Brač (50 min from Split) and 35 km by bus to Bol; the beach is a natural monument of Croatia: the 600 m long triangular white pebble peninsula that extends into the Adriatic and changes shape with the sea current — the tip of the Zlatni Rat shifts east or west by up to 4 m per day depending on the current direction; the pebble is the specific fine white limestone pebble unique to the Brač quarry (the same Brač stone used to build the Split Cathedral campanile and the White House in Washington DC — the White House was built with Brač limestone supplied from the island quarries); the Zlatni Rat windsurfing (the channel between Brač and Hvar produces reliable maestral afternoon wind — the Zlatni Rat is one of the top 10 windsurfing locations in the Mediterranean).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Dalmatian konoba (the traditional stone-walled restaurant of the Dalmatian coast — the authentic dining experience as opposed to the tourist-facing Riva restaurants): the peka (the most distinctively Dalmatian cooking method — lamb, veal or octopus (the fish version is equally traditional) placed under the peka (the iron bell-shaped lid (peka in Croatian; sač in Serbian/Bosnian) buried under the embers of a wood fire and left for 2-3 hours; the result is the most tender slow-cooked meat on the Dalmatian coast, served from the cooking vessel at the table); the Plavac Mali wine (the Dalmatian indigenous red grape variety — the same variety as the Zinfandel/Primitivo: Plavac Mali from the Pelješac Peninsula wine region (Dingač, Postup) is the finest Croatian red wine; the Bogdanuša white wine from Hvar is the finest Croatian Adriatic white wine).
Trogir (25 km northwest of Split — UNESCO World Heritage 1997; the smallest UNESCO city in Croatia; a medieval city on a small island connected to the mainland and to the island of Čiovo by two bridges; the entire historic centre of Trogir (600 m long by 200 m wide) is a continuous streetscape of Venetian Romanesque and Gothic buildings from the 11th-15th century without a single modern building within the walls; the Cathedral of St. Lawrence (Katedrala Sv. Lovre — the Romanesque-Gothic cathedral begun 1213; the Radovan Portal (1240) is the most significant piece of Romanesque sculpture in Croatia and one of the finest in the eastern Adriatic — the carved portal with scenes of the life of Christ surrounded by the labours of the months and the signs of the zodiac; the Kamerlengo Fortress (1437 — the Venetian fortress with the round tower, now used for summer concerts); the narrow streets of the Trogir old town are the most perfectly preserved Venetian urban streetscape in Croatia.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideOmiš (25 km southeast of Split — the town at the mouth of the Cetina River gorge (Omiška klisura) — the most dramatic coastal gorge in the Adriatic; the Cetina River cuts through 300 m high limestone cliffs for 10 km before reaching the sea at Omiš; the gorge was the base of the Omiš pirates (the Omiš pirate republic of the Kačić clan, 12th-14th century — the most feared pirates of the Adriatic who raided Venetian and Byzantine shipping from the hidden harbour in the gorge and defeated multiple Venetian punitive expeditions; the Adriatic pirate tradition that produced the greatest challenge to Venetian sea supremacy in the 13th century had its headquarters in this gorge); the Cetina River rafting (the standard raft from the Blato springs to Omiš: 11 km, 2.5 hours, class II-III rapids, in the 100 m deep gorge with the falcon and eagle nesting cliffs overhead).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Dalmatian Coast Drive (the D8 coastal road south of Split, along the Dalmatian Riviera — the most scenic coastal road in Croatia; the road passes the Brela (the village with the beach at the base of the Biokovo Mountain, rated the most beautiful beach in the Adriatic by multiple travel publications), the Makarska Riviera (the 60 km beach resort strip below the 1,762 m Biokovo Mountain — the combination of the white limestone mountain dropping vertically to the turquoise Adriatic is the most dramatic coastal landscape in Croatia); the Biokovo Nature Park (the Biokovo Skywalk — the glass viewing platform cantilevered over the 1,228 m cliff above Makarska, one of the most vertiginous viewing platforms in Europe); the drive returns to Split via the A1 motorway through the Dalmatian hinterland.
The Pazar (the daily outdoor market outside the palace on the east side — the Dalmatian produce market where the locals shop: fresh figs, pomegranates, dried lavender from Hvar, olive oil from the Dalmation hinterland, pršut (Dalmatian dry-cured ham, similar to prosciutto but air-dried rather than cold-cured, with a stronger flavour from the bura wind that blows from the Dinaric Alps); and the evening in the palace — the restaurants and bars built into the Roman arched halls of Diocletian's Palace that serve fresh seafood and local wine in 1,700-year-old rooms; the most atmospheric dinner setting of any Adriatic coast city.