SPLIT · CROATIA
Old stone, open sea, island days.
Blue Cave speedboats and Hvar lavender, Krka waterfalls and Plitvice lakes, the Cetina canyon and a living Roman palace at the centre of it all.
Only here
Three things you'll only find here.
Boat trips and beach days exist all over the Mediterranean. A Roman palace you can still live in, a cave that glows electric blue, and the lavender island offshore belong to this stretch of the Adriatic alone.
Seventeen centuries
Diocletian's Palace
A Roman emperor built this as his retirement palace around AD 305, and it never stopped being lived in. Three thousand people still have homes, bars and shops inside the original walls. You walk in through the cellars, come up into the colonnaded peristyle, and the whole old town is the palace.
- 1 Split: Old Town and Diocletian Palace Walking Tour
- 2 Walking Tour of Split and Diocletian’s Palace
- 3 Split & Diocletian’s Palace Walking Tour
Electric blue
The Blue Cave of Biševo
For an hour or so around midday the sun fires up through an underwater opening and floods the cave with a glowing, unreal blue. Only a handful of sea caves on earth do this. The speedboat day out strings it together with Vis, the Pakleni islets and a swim or two.
- 1 Blue cave, Mamma Mia and Hvar, 5 islands speedboat tour
- 2 Blue Cave & 6 Islands Speedboat Tour From Split or Podstrana
- 3 Blue cave, Mama Mia and Hvar, 5 island speedboat tour from Trogir
Lavender island
Hvar & the Pakleni Islands
Hvar is the sunniest island in the Adriatic: lavender fields on the slopes, a Venetian harbour town below, and the bare Pakleni islets a ten-minute hop offshore where the water turns to glass. One island that is half summer party, half quiet cove.
- 1 Split/Trogir: Blue Cave, Mamma Mia, Hvar and 5 Island Tour
- 2 From Split: Blue Cave & 5 Islands with Vis & Hvar Boat Tour
- 3 Split/Podstrana: Blue Cave, Hvar & 6 Islands Speedboat Trip
Start here
The day trip the whole coast books.
If you do one thing out of Split, more travellers make it this than anything else on the list.
The classics
Split's Most Popular Tours
The Blue Cave, the Blue Lagoon, Krka and Hvar. The days most people come to Split for.
Where to begin
The days a Split trip is built around.
The Blue Cave run, the Blue Lagoon swim, Krka and Plitvice, Hvar and the Cetina canyon. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
Your free day
Krka, Plitvice or the Cetina?
Three very different days out of Split into the water and the green. Pick by how far you want to drive and whether you want to swim.
Konoba country
Peka, oysters and island wine.
Dalmatian food is slow on purpose: octopus and lamb baked for hours under a peka bell, oysters pulled fresh from the Ston channel, dark Plavac Mali poured in stone-walled konobas. Tasting tours run up into the hinterland villages and out to the cellar doors behind Hvar and Brač.
Read the guide: the best food & wine tours →Up the coast
The old stone towns next door.
Twenty minutes north, Trogir is a whole medieval town on its own small island, walled and packed onto a few cobbled blocks. Beyond it the white island of Brač quarried the stone for Diocletian's Palace and half of Dalmatia, and quiet Šolta sits just across the channel.
Explore Trogir & the islands →The water
The colour you came for.
Off the islands the Adriatic turns a clear, lit turquoise you can read the bottom through at ten metres down. The Blue Lagoon off Drvenik is the easy one: a sheltered bowl of bright, shallow water made for swimming and snorkelling, an hour out from the dock.
Blue Lagoon trips →The big day on the water
Five islands, one speedboat, the Blue Cave at the heart of it.
The signature Split day out runs by speedboat to Biševo for the Blue Cave, then strings together Vis, the Pakleni islets, Hvar and a swim stop or two. A long, fast, sun-soaked day, and the single most-booked way to see the islands from Split.
- 1 Blue cave, Mamma Mia and Hvar, 5 islands speedboat tour
- 2 Blue Cave & 6 Islands Speedboat Tour From Split or Podstrana
- 3 Blue cave, Mama Mia and Hvar, 5 island speedboat tour from Trogir
By intensity
Pick your day, by pace.
Split runs the whole range. A slow konoba lunch and a swim, a fast island circuit by speedboat, or a full day in the Cetina canyon. Dial it up or down.
Take it slow
Konoba tables and island time.Wine tours into the hinterland villages, long lunches on Hvar, a gentle swim-and-snorkel cruise to the Blue Lagoon.
Out on the water
Speedboats and island circuits.The Blue Cave five-island run, quad safaris across Brač, sea kayaking under the Marjan cliffs at dusk.
Full send
Into the Cetina canyon.White-water rafting and canyoning down the turquoise Cetina, cliff jumps and zip lines through the gorge.
When the sun drops
The boats don't stop when the light goes.
As the heat comes off the day the harbour fills up again: DJs and shots on a party boat out to the Blue Lagoon, a quiet catamaran to watch the sun drop behind the Pakleni islands, a long table of seafood out on the water. In summer, Split's night starts offshore.
See all 13 sunset & party cruises →By place
Pick your stretch of the coast.
Hvar for lavender and late nights. Brač for the beach and the stone. Krka and Plitvice for the falls and the lakes. Trogir for the old walls, and the palace for the heart of Split.
By activity
Pick how to spend the day.
Speedboat if you want the islands fast. Cruise if you want them slow. Raft the Cetina, kayak under Marjan, taste the wine, or walk the palace.
Plan it
Three perfect days in Split.
First time on the coast? A long weekend that hits the essentials without a wasted hour.
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