The next day the weather had indeed improved. In fact, it was pretty much perfect – sunny 71 degrees with a nice sea breeze. Given that, I decided to walk to a seaside restaurant had been highly recommended – Dvor.
It was about a 30 minute walk out of the old city and I enjoyed seeing Split from a different vantage point. Along the way, I passed by the famous Bacivice Beach which was already teeming with sunworshippers eager to take advantage of the great weather.
From there, I diverged through a lovely wooded pathway and soon found myself in front of Dvor and made my way down the stone pathway to the garden seating area.
The wind had picked up considerably but I decided the view plus the sound of the water sloshing against the rocks below was worth being a bit cold. My server explained that their dishes were traditional Dalmatian but with a modern twist. I decided to start with the first sea bass tartar I had ever tried and paired it with glass of Posip – a crisp Croatian white wine.
The tartar soon arrived and was simply outstanding. Perfectly diced and super fresh, the meaty sea bass had been reduced to a melt in the mouth smoothness. It was nicely complemented with a compressed lemon sauce and crispy toast points to scoop it all up.
The main courses had several intriguing options but I decided to stick with my seafood kick, selecting “Interpretations of Octopus Under Glass” I’m still not entirely sure what in the Hell that meant but I’m a sucker for a good octopus dish.
From the marina, I made my way towards the seafront, called The Riva, which was a hive of activity from all of the tourists unloading from the various ships pulling into port.
Since the weather was still pretty much perfect, it was now time to really explore the old part of the city. In the late 400s, the Roman emperor Diocletian had decided, for good reason, to make Split his home and built a massive palace. Over time and through many wars, the majority of the palace has been reduced to ruins but what ruins they are!
I purchased a combo ticket that allowed me onto the palace grounds along with access to the 14th century chapel and crypt that had been built on top of the palace in typical new conquering empire, in this case the Venetians.
Across from the chapel was actually my favorite part of the area – the temple of Jupiter, which once I entered made me feel like I was truly in ancient times.


One of the specials was freshly caught hake steaks with roasted vegetables so that became a no-brainer pick for me. Simply grilled with salt, pepper and olive oil, the fish was perfectly cooked and the vegetables were quite tasty as well. Since I was having fish, I opted for a glass of Posip, which was fantastic. I paid up and headed back over to the Riva, which was now brightly lit
I meandered for awhile but soon started craving a night cap of one more glass of Croatian wine. I had been wanting to check out a wine bar called Paradox near the Riva, which was closing in about 30 minutes. Given that, it was hardly surprising that the room was fairly empty.