Diocletian's Palace and Old Town Small-Group Walking Tour Split

The Golden Gate and the statue of Gregory of Nin

The tour begins at the Golden Gate, the grand northern entrance of Diocletian's Palace, through which the Roman emperor himself entered when he retired here in 305 CE. The gate still shows its original arches and the niches that once held statues, and from the small park outside it you understand the scale of the palace: a fortified rectangle of about thirty thousand square metres that today forms roughly half of Split's Old Town. Your guide uses this spot to set the scene before the walk inside.

Next to the gate stands the huge bronze statue of Gregory of Nin, a medieval bishop who argued for church services in the Croatian language. Its polished big toe is the city's most touched lucky charm, so this is the first photo stop of any Diocletian's Palace guided tour. From here the guide leads the group through the gate and into the narrow Roman streets.

The Peristyle and the Cathedral of Saint Domnius

The Peristyle is the central court of the palace and the finest Roman square on the Adriatic: an open colonnade of granite columns and arches, a black sphinx brought from Egypt and the steps where the emperor once appeared before his subjects. The square is still the stage of city life, and the guide explains how its columns, the Egyptian sphinx and later medieval houses fit together.

On the east side rises the Cathedral of Saint Domnius, built inside the emperor's own octagonal mausoleum and considered the oldest cathedral in the world still in use in its original structure. Its bell tower, added in the Middle Ages, is the symbol of Split, and the carved wooden doors from the thirteenth century are a highlight of the Split old town tour. The guide describes the interior from the square; cathedral and bell tower tickets are paid separately if you want to go in or climb afterwards.

The Vestibule and the cellars of the palace

From the Peristyle the group climbs a few steps into the Vestibule, a tall circular hall open to the sky that once led into the emperor's private apartments. Its brick dome and acoustics make it a favourite spot for local singers, and from its opening you look straight up at the cathedral tower. The guide explains how the imperial apartments above the sea wall were divided over the centuries into the homes that still fill the palace.

Below the Vestibule lie Diocletian's cellars, the substructures that held up the imperial apartments and mirror their layout exactly. For centuries they were filled with rubbish and only excavated in modern times, which is why the vaults survive so well. The walk passes through the central cellar corridor between the Peristyle and the Bronze Gate on the Riva, an atmospheric stretch of Roman brickwork that is one of the most photographed places on a Diocletian Palace tour in Split.

The Riva promenade

Leaving the palace through the Bronze Gate you step on to the Riva, the wide waterfront promenade lined with palm trees and café terraces that runs along the southern wall of the palace. Here the guide points out the sea-facing façade with its arched gallery, where the emperor's apartments looked across the water, and the view west to Marjan Hill, the green peninsula that locals use as their park.

The Riva is where Split takes its morning coffee and evening stroll, and the Split Riva walking tour stop gives you time to photograph the ferries in the harbour and the islands on the horizon. It is also where the first ninety minutes of the walk end with a short break for restrooms and refreshments before the second half, which heads into the everyday neighbourhoods beyond the palace walls.

The Green Market and the Fish Market

Just outside the eastern palace wall, the Green Market (Pazar) is the open-air market where farmers from the hills and islands around Split sell what they grew that week: figs and cherries in season, tomatoes, chard, olives, farm-pressed olive oil, honey, dried herbs and bunches of lavender. The guide walks you through the stalls and explains the Dalmatian kitchen, from soparnik, a thin chard pie, to the vegetables that go into the island stews.

A few minutes away on the western side of the Old Town, the Fish Market (Peškarija) has sold the morning catch since the nineteenth century in an iron-and-glass hall; sardines, sea bream, squid and octopus are laid out on marble slabs, and locals know the best is gone by late morning. These two markets are the part of the walk that shows how the city still eats, and they are best seen on the 10:00 departure when the stalls are fullest.

Marmontova, Prokurative and the Varoš fishermen's port

The final stretch follows Marmontova Street, the elegant pedestrian avenue laid out under French rule in the early nineteenth century, to the Prokurative, a neoclassical square framed on three sides by arcaded buildings in the Venetian style and open to the sea on the fourth. It is Split's concert and festival square, and a quiet contrast to the Roman streets you walked earlier.

From there the guide leads you into Varoš, the oldest neighbourhood outside the walls, where fishermen and farmers built low stone houses with green shutters on the slopes of Marjan Hill. At its foot lies Matejuška, the historic fishermen's port, still used by small wooden boats and the place where locals sit on the stone pier in the evening. The tour ends here, a short walk from the Riva, after about two and a half hours on foot through the whole story of Split.