In short
Split has a feature no other city shares: its historic centre is an inhabited Roman palace. Diocletian's Palace, built around 300 CE for the emperor's retirement, was occupied in the Middle Ages by inhabitants fleeing invasions, who built their houses inside its walls and between its columns.
It is therefore not an archaeological site but a living quarter, with shops, flats and washing at the windows, World Heritage listed.
The Riva is the seafront promenade. Marjan, the wooded hill to the west, is the city's lung.
Arriving and getting around
The airport is at Kaštela, twenty-five kilometres out, linked by shuttle and bus.
Split is the great ferry port of the Dalmatian coast: Hvar, Brač, Vis and Korčula leave from here, on fast craft or car ferries. The bus station, railway station and port are side by side.
The centre is covered entirely on foot.
What it really costs
Split is markedly cheaper than Dubrovnik and better connected: a more rational base for exploring the coast.
The green market and the fish hall, at the edge of the palace, are the economical addresses in the centre.
When to come
May–June and September. July–August are hot and very busy, partly with travellers passing through to the islands.
The water stays swimmable into October.
What nobody tells you
The palace basements stayed filled with rubble for centuries, which preserved them: they now give the best sense of the original Roman structure, and part can be visited.
The bell tower of St Domnius cathedral is built on Diocletian's mausoleum — the emperor who led the last great persecution of Christians therefore lies, by a historical reversal, beneath a cathedral.
Marjan is climbed on foot from the centre in half an hour, by staircases, and gives swimmable coves much used by locals and almost not at all by visitors.
The national parks of Krka and Plitvice work as day trips from Split; bathing, once allowed at Krka, is now restricted.
