March is Split waking up: highs around 14 °C, the sea still at about 14 °C, and days that stretch past seven in the evening once the clocks go forward. Good for walking, the palace and cheap Krka visits before prices rise in April — still too early for swimming or island-hopping.
By Marin Perić
It is the best of the quiet months for anyone who wants to walk. The air is warm enough to sit outside at lunch, the days are suddenly long, and the city is still almost entirely local — Split Airport saw about 63,000 passengers in March 2026, a twelfth of a July. You will not swim, and the islands are still on winter timetables, but Marjan, Klis and the palace are better now than they will be for the next six months.
DHMZ's Split-Marjan normals give an average high of 14.5 °C and a low of 8.5 °C. Rain falls on about seven days, totalling 58 mm, and sunshine rises to more than six hours a day. Early March can still feel like winter when the bura blows, and late March can feel like May — pack for both. Frost is all but gone, at under one night in two years.
The clocks go forward on the last Sunday of March (29 March in 2026, 28 March in 2027). Sunset jumps from about 18:00 in mid-March to almost twenty past seven by the 31st, and that extra hour of evening is what makes the month feel like spring.
No. The sea is about 14 °C on average, the same as February, and the ten-year range runs from roughly 12 °C to 16 °C. The water lags the air by about two months, which is why May is warm on land long before it is warm in the sea.
Open: everything in the old town that runs year-round — the palace, cathedral, galleries, green market and most restaurants. Café terraces come back out on sunny days.
Starting to reopen: some seasonal restaurants and bars, mostly towards the end of the month and around Easter.
Still shut: beach bars, most boat tours and island konobas. The Skradin boat at Krka only starts on 1 April.
The state fast boats to Hvar town keep an off-season timetable from 1 January to 28 May and from 28 September to 31 December. On line 9608 that means one sailing a day from Split at 16:00 and one back from Hvar at 07:30 on weekdays, at a winter fare of €6.40 in 2026, and the other year-round fast line through Hvar, towards Vela Luka and Lastovo, also leaves Split in the afternoon and comes back in the early morning. That is a timetable for islanders, not day-trippers — you cannot do Hvar as a day trip on it. Brač is the easy island in the off-season: since January 2026 Jadrolinija has kept at least 12 ferry sailings a day between Brač and the mainland all year.
March is the last month of Krka's €7 winter price. From April adult entry goes up to €20, and from June to €40, so a late-March visit is the cheapest way to see the falls at their fullest after winter rain.
Plan it with the Krka day trip guide.
Easter falls in March or April. In 2027 Easter Sunday is 28 March, and Easter Monday is a public holiday in Croatia, so expect the first busy weekend of the year and book lunch.
Cruise ships start to return in spring. Split logged 71 cruise visits between January and May 2025 — against 48 in August alone — so a March ship day is noticeable in the palace but nothing like summer.
This is the month to walk. Do the full loop of Marjan, from the Varoš steps past the chapels to Kašjuni and back along the shore, while the hill is green and nobody is sweating. Go up to Klis in the afternoon light. See Salona, the Roman city at the edge of Solin, before the heat makes an open ruin a chore.
Start with Marjan hill, then
Klis Fortress and
More: things to do in Split in spring.
Nothing far ahead, except Easter weekend. If a Krka tour matters, check it runs on your date — some operators only restart in April. Book a room with heating for the first half of the month and with a terrace for the second.
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.