Budget · 3-hour walk · Split
Diocletian's Palace in three hours
Meštrović's Gregory of Nin, the Peristyle, the emperor's mausoleum turned cathedral, the cellars and the Riva.
Split's old town is a Roman retirement palace that people moved into. Diocletian built it on the shore around the year 300, and when Salona was sacked in the 7th century its people took refuge inside the walls and never left. Houses fill the old courtyards, a cathedral occupies the emperor's tomb and cafés set their chairs between the columns. This route goes in through the north gate and out by the sea, and is best walked early, before the cruise groups arrive.
The route, stop by stop
-
Statue of Gregory of Nin
Ivan Meštrović's 8.5-metre bronze of the 10th-century bishop who defended the Slavonic liturgy. It stood in the Peristyle from 1929 until the Italian occupiers removed it in 1941, was set up here outside the Golden Gate in 1954, and its big toe is rubbed shiny by people asking for luck.
10 min here Walk here → -
Peristyle
The palace's ceremonial courtyard, lined with red granite columns, where the emperor appeared to his subjects. Diocletian brought granite sphinxes from Egypt, carved some 3,500 years ago, and one still sits beside the cathedral steps.
15 min here Walk here → -
Cathedral of Saint Domnius
The octagonal building was Diocletian's own mausoleum; in the 7th century it became the cathedral of Domnius, a bishop martyred in his persecution. The 57-metre Romanesque bell tower can be climbed on a separate ticket for the view over the port.
35 min here Walk here → -
Temple of Jupiter
A small Roman temple with a coffered stone barrel vault, later the cathedral's baptistery. A headless sphinx waits by its door.
15 min here Walk here → -
Vestibule
The round, domed hall that led from the Peristyle into the imperial apartments; its dome is now open to the sky. Klapa groups often sing here, unaccompanied, for the echo.
10 min here Walk here → -
Diocletian's Cellars
The vaulted substructures that held up the emperor's rooms. Filled with rubbish for centuries, they survived almost whole and still show the plan of the apartments above; Game of Thrones filmed scenes for its fourth season here.
30 min here Walk here → -
Riva
The palm-lined promenade along the palace's south front, the one side left unfortified because it rose from the sea. The arched windows of the imperial gallery can still be traced in the wall above the cafés.
15 min here Walk here → -
People's Square
Pjaca, the main square of the medieval town that grew up west of the palace's Iron Gate. The Gothic Old Town Hall stands among its Venetian palaces.
15 min here Walk here →
More walks in Split
More in Split
Every walking route in Split, the full Split guide for where to stay and what a day costs, or walks in other cities.