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.
By Ana Kovač
The palace cellars were Daenerys's throne room and dragon vault in season four. Klis Fortress, twenty minutes inland, played Meereen itself. Some operators add locations that were never used; ask before you book and be suspicious of anything outside those two. The cellars are the highlight of the tour, and they are the one part you can visit on your own for the price of an ordinary ticket.
The throne-room scenes used Diocletian's cellars, which you can visit on your own with an ordinary ticket.
Meereen was Klis Fortress, twenty minutes inland by bus.
A guide who shows you stills from the show next to the actual location, and points out the camera angles and the set dressing. If you love the show, that is worth €30 and two hours. If you merely watched it, a standard palace walking tour covers the same stones with a thousand more years of history and costs the same.
The standard alternative is the Split old town walking tour — ninety minutes, the same stones, more history.
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 vaulted basement halls that held up the emperor's apartments, preserved because they were filled with rubbish for a thousand years. The best-surviving Roman substructure anywhere, ten degrees cooler than the street, and the one part of the palace that looks like a ruin.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
The villa Ivan Meštrović built for himself on Marjan's south slope, now the best museum in Split. Sculpture inside, a garden of bronzes with a sea view outside, and the Kaštelet chapel with his wooden reliefs five minutes down the road.
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.
History
You do not need a shore excursion in Split. The cruise berths and the tender landing are a five-to-fifteen-minute walk from Diocletian's Palace, and the whole old town is walkable. Four hours covers the palace; six adds Marjan or a swim; eight lets you add Trogir or Klis by local bus.