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.
By Marin Perić
It is not a sight. It is where Split does its evening walk, drinks its afternoon coffee, meets people it did not plan to meet and watches the ferries come in. The correct way to use it is to sit down at a cafe at around 18:30, order one coffee, and stay for ninety minutes. Nobody will rush you. That is the whole point.
The promenade runs about 400 metres from the ferry port in the west to the church of St Francis in the east, with the south wall of the palace on one side and the sea on the other. It is flat, palm-lined, and wide enough that even in August you can walk it without touching anyone. In the morning it is for coffee and the newspaper; at midday it is for the shade of the awnings; in the evening it is for the walk, and that is when it is at its best.
For the evening version, see the Riva's evening bars — one round, then move inside the walls.
The sunset cruise leaves from the Riva or Matejuška, usually at 18:30 in summer.
Cafe prices on the Riva are the highest in the city and you are paying for the seat, which is fair — the same coffee two streets back inside the palace costs about a third less. A coffee is €3–3.50, a beer €5, a glass of wine €4–5. The cafes open early and close late; the walk itself is always open, and it is where most boat tours meet. The promenade is flat, wide and fully accessible.
The cheaper coffee two streets back is inside Diocletian's Palace.
In December the Riva fills with Advent in Split: lights, mulled wine and klapa concerts.
Order one coffee, stay ninety minutes, and do not order food — the cafes are for drinking, and the food is a menu they have to offer rather than one they want to cook. Sit at a table in the back half, not the front row by the railing — the view is the same, the price is the same, and you are not in the way of the people who want to walk. The front row is for tourists with cameras; the back is where Split sits.
The evening walk is the local ritual and the one thing you should join. Locals walk the Riva from about six to eight — west to the ferry port, turn, east to the end, turn, repeat. Walk it slowly, make eye contact, and stop at a cafe at the turn for a second coffee. Do not walk fast — the Riva walk is not exercise, it is the social event of the day, and walking it quickly is how everyone knows you are not from here.
If you want the Riva without the prices, walk to the end and around the corner past the ferry port — the cafes there are where the ferry workers drink, the coffee is the same, and the bill is half. It is still the Riva, technically, and it is where the people who work on the boats start their day at five in the morning.
Get out there
Guided trips that include this stop, with live availability.
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.
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.
Nightlife
Split's staging area, not its destination. The seafront cafés turn into bars after eight, and you are paying for the seat and the view of the palace wall going gold — a fair trade for one round while the group assembles, a poor one for a whole evening. Move inside the walls by half ten.
Boat trips
Croatian law lets anyone drive a boat under 5 kW without a licence, which is enough to potter round a bay at walking pace and reach coves the buses do not. Around €57 a day out of season and €88 in August, and nobody will ask you anything except for a deposit.
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.
Boat trips
Two hours out of the city harbour towards Čiovo and back as the light goes, with a drink in your hand and Split's waterfront lit from the water. The single easiest good decision on a first evening in the city.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.