Around Split
Split beyond the islands: building the rest of your trip
This tour takes the whole day. Here's how to fit it into a Split stay, and what else the city and its waters are worth your time for.
See the Hvar, Pakleni & Brač catamaran tickets on GetYourGuide ↗Fitting it into a trip
| When | Why it works | |
|---|---|---|
| This catamaran day | 08:30 to around 18:00 | Leaves the evening free in Split |
| Diocletian's Palace, on foot | Any evening or half-day | Steps from the pier this tour leaves from |
| Blue Cave & five-island speedboat | A separate full day | A different boat, a different route — see below |
| Krka or the winelands inland | A separate full day | No overlap with this tour's islands |
An early start buys you the evening
Because the boat is back in Split by around six, a catamaran day like this one doesn't cost you the trip's evenings the way some full-day excursions do. Diocletian's Palace — still a lived-in neighbourhood of shops, bars and apartments built into a Roman emperor's retirement palace — is a five-minute walk from the pier and genuinely worth an evening wander once you've dried off and changed.
Diocletian's Palace, in outline
The Roman emperor Diocletian built the palace as his retirement residence, completed in the early 4th century AD, and — unlike most Roman ruins — it was never abandoned. Split's old town grew up inside and around its walls over the following centuries, so the Peristyle, the palace's central colonnaded square, now sits a few steps from a modern café, and the basement halls once used for storage are open to walk through. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it rewards an unhurried evening far more than a rushed hour between activities.
A different boat, a different route: the Blue Cave
Split also runs speedboat day trips to the Blue Cave on the island of Biševo, further out into the archipelago, where sunlight through an underwater opening lights the cave's interior electric blue for roughly an hour around midday — a completely different route, boat and experience from this catamaran's Hvar-Pakleni-Brač-Šolta circuit, and not something this tour visits or claims to. Travellers who want both should treat them as two separate day trips on two separate mornings, since both leave early and both run most of the day.
Inland from the coast
For a change of scenery from island-hopping, Krka National Park's waterfalls and the vineyards of the Dalmatian hinterland are both popular full-day trips from Split that don't overlap with anything this catamaran tour covers. Krka suits anyone who wants green water and walking trails after a day of blue water and swimming; the wine country suits anyone happy to trade a boat deck for a slower, seated day — worth considering for a second or third day if your trip runs longer than a couple of nights.
What not to stack on the same day
A nine-and-a-half-hour boat day is enough on its own. Booking an early-morning activity before an 08:15 check-in, or a late dinner reservation the same evening you're not sure what time you'll actually be showered and changed by, both risk turning a good day into a rushed one. Give this tour its own day and let the rest of a Split stay build around it rather than through it.
Building a short Split stay around one boat day
For a three- or four-night stay, one day for this catamaran circuit, one for Diocletian's Palace and the old town at a slower pace, and a spare day for whichever of the Blue Cave, Krka or the winelands appeals most is a workable shape. Keep at least one evening genuinely unplanned — Split's Riva waterfront in the evening, with a full day on the water already behind you, tends to need no further itinerary.
If you're island-hopping onward from Split
Split is also the usual ferry hub for reaching Hvar, Brač, Šolta and Vis independently, for travellers planning to stay a night or more on one of the islands rather than seeing them all in a single day from the deck of a catamaran. If this tour leaves you wanting more time on Hvar specifically, the ferry terminal sits close to the same old-town waterfront this tour departs from, and a return trip based on the island itself is a natural next step rather than a repeat booking of the same day tour.