Eight steel wires strung across the Cetina canyon about three kilometres from Omiš, 2,100 metres of cable in total. The longest single run is 700 metres, 150 metres above the canyon floor, and takes well under a minute.
By Ana Kovač
The course is eight wires taken in sequence, totalling around 2,100 metres of cable, set in the canyon roughly three kilometres from Omiš. They start short — deliberately, so you learn the braking and the landing on a wire where the ground is close — and build to a 700-metre run about 150 metres above the canyon floor. Allow two and a half to three hours for the whole thing, most of which is walking between platforms and being clipped on and off rather than flying.
No fitness or experience is needed; you are harnessed, clipped and briefed at every platform. What it does need is a head for exposure. There is no way to leave the course halfway other than walking out with a guide, so if the first tall wire is going to be a problem, it is better to know that before the group is committed. Operators set a minimum age and a weight range, both of which are worth checking when you book, because they vary.
It runs through the warm half of the year and is a morning activity in July and August, when the canyon becomes an oven by early afternoon. There is no shade on the platforms. Closed shoes are required, and long shorts are more comfortable than short ones under a harness.
The site is in the Cetina canyon about three kilometres from Omiš, which is roughly half an hour down the coast from Split by car and a little longer by bus. Operators generally run a transfer, and it is worth taking — the access is up a canyon road rather than somewhere you would want to leave a hire car and find again. The canyon itself holds heat: it can be pleasant on the coast and genuinely oppressive on an exposed platform two hours later, which is why the morning departures fill first in July and August.
Rafting, canyoning and the zipline all happen within a few kilometres of each other, and they are not interchangeable. Rafting is the sociable, low-commitment one and works for families. Canyoning is the physical one, cold and long, with real rope work on the extreme version. The zipline is the shortest and the least tiring, and the only one where the difficulty is entirely psychological — nothing is asked of you but to step off.
Get out there
Guided trips that include this stop, with live availability.
Boat trips
A full day on a fast twelve-seat boat: the Blue Cave on Biševo, the Monk Seal cave, Stiniva's famous cove, lunch on Vis and a swim off Budikovac's turquoise lagoon, finishing with a stop at Hvar town. Ten and a half hours, small group, no coach transfer.
Adventure
The pine-covered hill on Split's western edge, a fifteen-minute walk from the Riva and the reason the city feels liveable in August. Free, open always, with viewpoints, hermit chapels, swimming coves at the bottom and a proper trail network on top.
Adventure
Two hours on a board lit from underneath, pushing off Stobreč as the sun goes and paddling into the river mouth in the dark. The LEDs light the bottom through three metres of water, which is the whole point: you can see what is down there.
Adventure
Three hours paddling the cliffs and hidden coves along Marjan's south shore, with two swim stops and a cave you can only reach by water. The best way to see Split from the side it was built to face, and easy enough for a complete beginner.
Adventure
An hour and a half up the marked path from Strožanac to the chapel of St George, topping out around 441 metres with Split, Kozjak, Mosor and the islands all in view. It is free, it starts at a supermarket, and locals walk it before work.
Adventure
Around eleven kilometres of the Cetina through its canyon below Omiš, on grade II–III water in summer. Three to four hours on the river, most of it drifting between short rapids, with swimming stops and a cliff to jump off if you want one.
Boat trips
A skippered yacht for the day, out to Šolta or Brač and back on the afternoon wind. Slower than the fast boats, quieter than all of them, and the only way to see this coast the way it has always actually been travelled.