Split is the city that grew inside a Roman emperor's retirement home. When Diocletian finished his seaside palace around 305 AD, he built it to house a court; seven centuries of refugees, bishops, Venetians and Dalmatian families turned it into a town, and about three thousand people still live within its walls. Croatia's second city wraps around that core: a palm-lined promenade, a pine-covered hill, sandy beaches where locals play a ball game in knee-deep water, and a harbor that is one of the busiest passenger ports in the Mediterranean, sending ferries to Hvar and Brač every hour.
It is a place best explored with your own soundtrack. The palace has no ticket gate and no single entrance; you simply walk in through one of four Roman gates and find yourself in a maze of lanes that were once Diocletian's corridors. Each landmark here has its own audio guide, so you can stand in a courtyard, press play, and hear how a persecutor of Christians ended up buried under a cathedral.
Inside the Emperor's Walls
Start at the Peristyle, the colonnaded court where Diocletian appeared to his subjects and where a granite sphinx, hauled from Egypt seventeen centuries ago, still keeps watch. His octagonal mausoleum became the Cathedral of St Domnius, one of the oldest cathedral buildings in the world, and its Romanesque bell tower is the climb that rewards you with the whole harbor at your feet. Across the court, the Temple of Jupiter was converted into a baptistery, its headless sphinx guarding the door. Step through the domed Vestibule, where the acoustics make it a favorite of a cappella klapa singers, and descend into Diocletian's Cellars, the vaulted substructures that held up the imperial apartments and now double as a market hall and a Game of Thrones filming location.
The Four Gates and Gregory of Nin
The palace was laid out like a legionary camp, with a gate on each side. The Golden Gate on the north was the ceremonial entrance from Salona; today it opens onto the giant bronze statue of Gregory of Nin by Ivan Meštrović, the 10th-century bishop who fought to hold Mass in Croatian rather than Latin. Rub his polished big toe for luck, as everyone does. The Silver Gate faces east toward the Green Market, the Iron Gate on the west has been in continuous use since Roman times, and the small Brass Gate on the south once let the emperor step straight from his quarters onto a boat.
Squares, Markets and the Riva
Medieval Split spilled beyond the walls. People's Square (Pjaca) was the town's civic heart, with its Gothic Old Town Hall and Venetian loggias, while the Radić Brothers Square, better known as Fruit Square, keeps a Venetian defensive tower and a baroque palace. Follow the locals in the morning to the Green Market outside the Silver Gate, where Dalmatian farmers sell figs, olives and cheese, and to the Fishmarket in the shadow of the sulfur baths. Then join the evening promenade on the Riva, the waterfront where the palace's south wall meets the sea and every table faces the harbor. West of it, the fishing harbor of Matejuška and the stone cottages of Varoš keep an older, quieter Split.
Marjan Hill and the Meštrović Gallery
The pine forest that rises west of the old town is Split's green lung. Forest Park Marjan reaches 178 meters and is stitched with stairways, viewpoints, medieval chapels and hermit caves cut into the cliffs. The first lookout, ten minutes above Varoš, is the classic postcard of red roofs and bell tower. On the hill's southern slopes stands the Meštrović Gallery, the villa the sculptor designed for himself and filled with his own marble and bronze, and below it the pebble coves of Kasjuni and Bene are the beaches locals prefer.
Bačvice and the City Beaches
East of the ferry port, Bačvice is a rare sandy beach in a country of pebbles, and the birthplace of picigin, the acrobatic hand-ball game played in shallow water that Split treats as a folk art. The shore continues past Firule to the long beach at Žnjan. Football fans should know that the city's other religion is Hajduk Split, whose seashell-shaped Poljud Stadium was built for the 1979 Mediterranean Games.
Salona, Klis and Trogir
The story of Split begins outside it. Salona, a few kilometers inland, was the Roman capital of Dalmatia and Diocletian's birthplace; its amphitheater and basilicas were abandoned after the 7th-century sack that sent the population fleeing into the palace. Above it, Klis Fortress rides a ridge between two mountains, the medieval stronghold that held back the Ottomans and later played Meereen on screen. West along the coast, the island town of Trogir is a UNESCO-listed maze of Romanesque and Renaissance stone, guarded by the Kamerlengo Castle and crowned by the carved portal of St Lawrence's Cathedral.
Islands and the Cetina
Split is the base for the central Dalmatian islands. Ferries run to Hvar, with its lavender fields and Venetian-era harbor town, and to Brač, where the shifting spit of Golden Horn Beach changes shape with the wind. South along the coast, the pirate town of Omiš sits where the Cetina River cuts a canyon through the mountains, an afternoon of rafting or ziplining before the return to the Riva.
Getting around
Everything inside the walls is car-free and a few minutes on foot; the ferry port, bus station and railway terminus sit side by side just south of the Riva. Local buses reach Salona and Klis, while boats and catamarans handle the islands. Split is compact enough to cover the palace in a morning, Marjan in an afternoon, and still have the evening for the Riva.