Croatia · Self-guided walk
Split in one walk 6 sights, 25 minutes
A self-guided walking tour of the Split Old Town: 6 sights on one 1.6 km loop, about 25 minutes on foot, back where you started.
No two days to spare? Here is the short version: the big sights in one loop. I would take longer. I always take longer.
At a glance
The walk in numbers.
- Distance
- 1.6 km, a loop
- Time
- about 25 minutes of walking at 4 km/h, plus however long you stop
- Sights
- 6
- Start and finish
- katedrala svetog Duje
- Steps
- on Dioklecijanova palača
- Cost
- free: no guide, no booking, no tip
The route
Map of the Split walk: 6 stops, one loop.
The gold line is the walk. The numbers are the stops, in the order you reach them. The pale lines are every other street in the Old Town.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
The stops
6 sights in Split, in walking order.
Each stop says how far the next one is and which streets take you there.
1. katedrala svetog Duje
the start
It sits on the Peristil, the sunken square that four lanes run into and stop. Look at the wooden doors before you go in, panel by panel: the man who carved them has a street of his own two minutes away. Then climb the tower. Narrow steps, worn treads, my favourite texture.
Next: Pazar, 250 m, about 4 min, along Bulićeva, Stari pazar, Pazar.
2. Pazar
about 4 minutes of walking from the start
The one place in here that sells things you can eat. Buy something you can hold in one hand, then keep walking while you eat it. Streets are for eating. I have been saying so for six hundred years.
Next: Zlatna vrata, 300 m, about 5 min, along Pazar, Stari pazar, Poljana kraljice Jelene, Dioklecijanova.
3. Zlatna vrata
about 8 minutes of walking from the start
Go through this one rather than up to it. Then look up. There is a chapel wedged into the wall above the passage, so narrow that two of you could not stand abreast in there. A doorway with a room in its ceiling. I like a building that fits in a gap.
Next: Ribarnica, 300 m, about 5 min, along Vuškovićeva.
4. Ribarnica
about 13 minutes of walking from the start
Get here early. By the middle of the afternoon there is nothing left but wet marble and a hose. Before nine it is the loudest room in the level, and everything in it was in the water yesterday. I would not eat any of it. I still turn up.
Next: Crkva i samostan Sv. Frane, 220 m, about 3 min.
Lunch break
Dujkin dvor, Trumbićeva obala 6, about 90 m off the route, open Mon–Sun 08:30–23:00.
Next to Matejuška, the little fishermen's harbour on the waterfront. More on what to eat in Split.
5. Crkva i samostan Sv. Frane
about 16 minutes of walking from the start
The far west end of the waterfront, where the paving runs out and the noise stops with it. Step in off the lane: there is a rectangle of shade in there that nobody on the promenade knows about. I do my best eating where nobody is watching.
Next: Palača Milesi, 330 m, about 5 min, along Dobrić.
6. Palača Milesi
about 21 minutes of walking from the start
Cross to the far side and look back. This one wants distance; up close you get nothing but wall. Then sit down. The best sitting in the level is right here, which I mention as a thing that has never once sat down.
Back to the start: katedrala svetog Duje, 180 m, about 3 min.
Every stop counts from the street; the hours are for going inside. Opening hours from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors. Check before you go.
After the walk
The rest of Split.
This loop is 6 sights. The Old Town is 72 streets, and I have opinions about all of them. Every street of the Split Old Town, with what to eat and where.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone: every street is a line of dots you collect by walking it, and the phone stays in your pocket. Your first city is free.