A pirate town where the Cetina river cuts out of the mountains into the sea, half an hour down the coast. Rafting, zip-lining, canyoning and a fortress climb that ends with the whole gorge underneath you.
By Marin Perić
Rafting the Cetina — grade 2 and 3, family-friendly, about three hours on the water. The trip runs from spring to autumn and costs roughly €40–55 a person, including all gear and transport from Omiš to the put-in point upstream.
The zip line over the gorge: eight cables, roughly two hours, €50–60. You are up high and the view is the gorge from above, which is the best view of it.
Canyoning for something considerably more serious — wetsuits, swimming through pools, jumping off rocks. Not for anyone who is nervous in water.
Or just climb to the Mirabela fortress above the town — twenty minutes, a few euros, an absurd view of the coast and the gorge mouth. The fortress is the pirate lookout, and you can see why they put it there.
More on rafting the Cetina: the season, the grades and who it suits.
More on the Cetina zip line: eight cables over the gorge.
More on canyoning in the Cetina gorge.
The Omiš pirates were real and effective enough that Venice paid them off for decades rather than fight them. The gorge behind the town is why: fast boats could vanish upriver into the mountains where larger ships could not follow, and the Omiš boats were fast. The tribute lasted into the fifteenth century, which is a long time to run an extortion racket from a river mouth.
The easy version is the morning rafting trip, lunch in Omiš at one of the konobas by the river, and the Mirabela climb in the afternoon before the bus back. The full version adds the zip line in the afternoon and makes for a long, hot, satisfying day. Either way, book the activities the day before — the operators are small and fill up, and the morning trips leave from Omiš at specific times that the bus schedule has to match.
Buses along the coast road from Split's main terminal take 35–45 minutes and run frequently. By car it is a spectacular half-hour drive.
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.
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.
Boat trips
Five hours to Šolta and back on a ten-person boat: three swim stops in coves you cannot reach by road, an hour in Maslinica for dinner or a drink, and the run home across the channel as the sun goes down behind the island.
Within a short walk.
Adventure
Walking, swimming and abseiling down the Cetina where the canyon narrows above Omiš. The extreme version drops you 53 metres beside the Velika Gubavica waterfall and 25 metres again near the canyon exit; the ordinary one keeps its feet closer to the water.
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.