Split works well with children: shallow sand at Bačvice and Firule, shaded swimming at Bene, a Roman cellar that feels like a dungeon, and a hill with a fortress on top. Distances are short and nothing needs booking weeks ahead.
By Marin Perić
The cathedral bell tower — 183 steps of open staircase with gaps you can see through — and the ten-hour Blue Cave day. Both are better in a few years. The half-day Šolta trip does the same job in a fifth of the time, and the skip is the right call, not a compromise.
Beach in the morning before the sand gets hot, palace cellars at midday when they are cool, lunch, a second swim at Bene in the shade, and an early dinner before the konobas fill. The distances are short enough that you can go back to the room in the middle of the day without losing half of it, which is the thing that makes Split work with small children.
Things to Do in Split When It Rains
11 picks, in order
Ordered by an editor who lives here, not by who paid the most.
Shallow for fifty metres, which is the whole argument.
Split's city beach, and the only proper sand within walking distance of the palace. Shallow for fifty metres, which makes it excellent for small children and the reason picigin — Split's own barefoot ball game — was invented here.
Local favourite
Same sand, half the noise, ten minutes further along.
A small sandy bay just past Bačvice, in front of the tennis club where Goran Ivanišević learned to play. Shallow, calm and mostly families — the quieter alternative when Bačvice is a wall of people.
Local favourite
Cool, vaulted and satisfyingly dungeon-like.
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.
From €745 min
Five hours rather than ten, with a swim within the first hour.
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.
5 h
The rainy-day answer, priced per room rather than per head.
A genuinely good rainy-day answer in a city with few of them. Several rooms in and around the old town run in English, take two to six players, and cost €60–80 for the room rather than per person.
From €601 h
Space, ramps into the water and sports courts along the promenade.
The long, recently rebuilt beach strip east of the centre: wide promenade, sports courts, beach clubs, plenty of space and proper accessible entries into the water. Little shade, but the easiest beach in Split to spend a whole day at with children.
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.
From €303 h 30 min
The south side of Marjan drops straight into clear water over rock rather than sand, which is exactly what you want and exactly what the city beaches are not. Bring a mask, walk in off the stones at Kašjuni or Bene, and it costs nothing.
Local favouriteFree1 h 30 min
On the north shore of Marjan, under dense pine, with concrete platforms and pebble coves, tennis courts, a running trail and a café. This is where Split actually swims — quieter than Bačvice, shadier than Kašjuni, and free.
Local favourite
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.
From €578 h
Board hire from Kašjuni and Bene for about €15 an hour, or a guided paddle along the Marjan cliffs. Flat water most mornings and a shoreline with no boat traffic close in — one of the easier places to learn.
From €152 h
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.