Split Riva

About this audio guide

This guide to the Riva in Split starts in 1806, when Napoleon's newly appointed governor Auguste de Marmont decided the city's four-century-old Venetian sea walls had to come down, and turned the rubble into the promenade you're walking now. You'll hear about the roads, schools and hospital he built here in five years, and the street just behind you that still carries his name. Eight years later, events far away in Paris would put everything he had built his reputation on to the test. Stand where the fortress once met the water and look out over the harbor his soldiers opened up.