April is when Split opens up: highs around 18 °C, seasonal restaurants and the first boat trips back, and crowds still light. The sea is only about 15 °C, so it is a walking and sightseeing month — come in late May if swimming matters.
By Marin Perić
Yes — it is the first month of the year when almost everything works. The terraces are out, the seasonal restaurants are back, the first boat trips run on good days, and the evenings are light until half past seven. Visitor numbers climb but are nowhere near summer: Split Airport handled about 205,000 passengers in April 2026, against roughly 787,000 in July 2025. The one thing April cannot give you is warm sea.
The DHMZ Split-Marjan normals give an average high of 18.4 °C and a low of 11.8 °C. It is a slightly showery month — about 62 mm of rain on seven or eight days — but sunshine averages more than seven hours a day. A day above 25 °C is unusual, happening less than once in an average April. Bring a jumper for the evenings and something waterproof.
Only if you like cold water. The sea averages about 15 °C, with a ten-year range of roughly 13 °C to 19 °C — the top of that range is a warm late April after a sunny spell. Most visitors paddle. Locals start swimming properly in May.
Open: the old town, museums and galleries on longer spring hours, the green market, and most restaurants, including many that close for winter.
Starting up: boat trips, sea kayaking and the first sunset cruises, usually from mid- or late April and weather permitting.
At Krka, the Skradin boat restarts on 1 April and entry rises to €20 for adults (from €7 in winter).
Still quiet: beach bars, many of which open in May, and some island konobas that wait until the season proper.
The state fast boats to Hvar town stay on their off-season timetable until 28 May — out of Split in the afternoon, back from Hvar early in the morning — so they are not a day-trip option. Seasonal private catamaran lines start through spring, and Brač has at least 12 ferry sailings a day all year. Check the timetables on your dates before you plan an island day.
How the port works: the Split ferry port guide.
The easiest island in spring: Brač and Zlatni Rat.
Easter falls in April in many years (16 April in 2028). Easter Monday is a public holiday, and Easter weekend is the first properly busy weekend of the year.
The run-up to Sudamja, Split's own feast day on 7 May, starts at the very end of the month — in 2026 the programme opened on 30 April.
Krka is at its best now: the falls are full, the boat is running and the park is a fraction as busy as it will be in July. In town, April is the month for the palace and the cellars without cruise groups, a sea-kayak trip round Marjan on a calm morning, and the cheaper end of the boat trips before summer pricing.
See sea kayaking round Marjan,
Easter weekend, if your dates include it. Otherwise book boat trips a day or two ahead and keep them flexible — spring wind still cancels departures, and a good operator will move you rather than sail you into chop. Rooms are easy outside Easter.
Comparing months? Read Split in spring and
Where these numbers come from: air temperature, rain and sunshine are the 1991–2020 climate normals for the Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service (DHMZ) station at Split-Marjan, 122 m up on Marjan hill, as published by the World Meteorological Organization through NOAA. A rain day is one with at least 1 mm. Sea temperature is the ten-year average for Split from seatemperature.info. Daylight and sunset are for the 15th of the month. Passenger figures are from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics.
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.