Four or five hours that start at the green market and the fish hall and end with you eating what you bought. The good ones shop first, which is the half that teaches you something: how to tell this morning's fish from yesterday's, and what is actually in season.
By Ana Kovač
The classes worth taking begin at the Pazar or the fish market rather than in the kitchen. You walk the stalls with someone who buys there every week, learn what is local and what has been trucked in, and pick the fish yourself. Then you cook — usually a peka or a black risotto, something grilled, and a dessert — and sit down and eat it with wine. Reckon on four to five hours from market to coffee.
The market is the Pazar, against the palace's eastern wall — at its best before nine.
For the eating without the cooking, the Split food tour walks the same markets and replaces lunch.
Around €100 at the lower end and up to €180 for the smaller, chef-led classes that include the market trip and decent wine. That is not cheap for a meal, and it is not really a meal: you are paying for four hours of somebody's attention and a technique you can use again. Most run twice a day Monday to Saturday, and most cap the group in single figures.
Split has very few genuinely good wet-weather activities, and this is one of the few that is better in bad weather rather than merely tolerable in it. The market is covered enough to be workable, and the rest is indoors with wine.
More ideas for a wet day: things to do in Split when it rains.
Get out there
Guided trips that include this stop, with live availability.
History
Ninety minutes through the palace with a guide who lives inside it: the Golden Gate, the cellars, the Peristyle, the cathedral and the streets in between. Small group, no flag, and a proper explanation of why a Roman emperor retired to a cabbage patch in Dalmatia.
Within a short walk.
History
The colonnaded courtyard at the centre of Diocletian's Palace, where the emperor appeared to his subjects and where Split now drinks wine on the steps. Free, roofless, and the best-preserved Roman square you can sit down in.
History
Ninety minutes through the palace with someone who can explain what you are looking at. Worth it on your first morning: the palace makes far more sense with a guide, and everything you do afterwards is better for it.
History
Diocletian's Palace is free: its lanes, the Peristyle, the domed Vestibule and the central passage through the cellars are open at all hours with no gate. You pay only for interiors — the side halls of the cellars (€10 for adults as of October 2026) and the cathedral, bell tower, crypt, treasury and Temple of Jupiter, ticketed separately. Built around AD 305, it is still full of homes, bars and shops.
History
The oldest cathedral building in the world still in use, and it started life as the mausoleum of the emperor who persecuted the man it is now named after. The bell tower beside it gives you the best view in Split for the price of 183 steps.
History
Two hours around the palace cellars, the Peristyle and the Klis-facing viewpoints where Meereen was filmed. Honest verdict: worth it if you love the show, skippable if you merely watched it — a standard palace tour covers the same stones with more history.
Food & drink
The layer between the Riva and the clubs: small cocktail rooms, jazz corners, hostel bars and neighbourhood cafés that turn into bars after nine. This is where the local crowd drinks, it costs about a third less than the seafront, and it is the part of Split nightlife that still works in February.
Food & drink
Twelve seats at a counter, a blackboard that changes daily, and cooking that is better than places charging three times as much. No reservations, no table service, and a queue outside from seven. Worth the wait.
Food & drink
A small konoba on a Varoš side street doing exactly four things well: grilled fish by the kilo, black risotto, octopus salad and house wine from a jug. No view, no English menu board outside, and a queue by eight in July.
Culture
Split's palm-lined seafront promenade, and the city's actual living room. Locals walk it at seven every evening, coffee lasts an hour, and nobody is in a hurry. Free, always open, and the correct place to watch the light go orange on the palace wall.
Food & drink
Three and a half hours through the green market, the fish market and four family-run places inside the palace, eating soparnik, pršut, Pag cheese, fresh anchovies and rožata. Enough food to replace lunch, with the context that makes Dalmatian cooking make sense.
Family
The most Split thing you can do for ten euros. Poljud is a listed 1979 shell of a stadium, the Torcida have been going since 1950, and a mid-table league game on a Saturday night tells you more about this city than any walking tour will.
Culture
Inside the palace for atmosphere and noise, Varoš for stone lanes and quiet, Bačvice for the beach and the nightlife, Meje for calm and views, Žnjan for space and value. Split is small enough that none of them is a bad choice — they are just different holidays.
Culture
Yes, for two to five days, and most of all in June or September. Split is a Roman palace that people still live in, with beaches in town and the islands an hour away by boat. It is not worth it for a party-free week in mid-August, or for anyone who wants sand and silence.
Culture
Base yourself in Split if you want islands, day trips, beaches and a city that is still a city. Choose Dubrovnik for two or three nights of the most complete walled town on the Adriatic. For a week, Split; for a long weekend, either; with ten days, both — four to five hours apart.