Game of Thrones Filming Locations in Split

What Was Actually Filmed Here, and What Wasn't

Start with the correction, because it saves people a wasted day. King's Landing is Dubrovnik. The Red Keep, the Blackwater, the walk of shame down the Jesuit Stairs, the Lovrijenac fortress standing in for the Red Keep's exterior - all of that is roughly four hours south of Split by road, with a border crossing on the way. It is not a day trip from here, whatever a hotel leaflet tells you, and we say the same thing in our day trips guide.

What Split gave the production was Essos. The palace substructures and Klis Fortress together made Meereen in the fourth and fifth seasons, and the fortified villages up the coast at Kaštela stood in for Braavos. Those are within half an hour of the Riva, which makes Split the one place in Croatia where you can see several genuine locations in a single afternoon without spending the whole day in a vehicle.

• King's Landing is Dubrovnik, not Split - about four hours each way
• Split and Klis together are Meereen
• Kaštel Gomilica, twenty minutes up the coast, is Braavos
• Everything on this list except Šibenik is within half an hour of the Old Town

The Palace Substructures: Where the Dragons Were Chained

Under the southern half of Diocletian's Palace is a network of vaulted halls that were built simply to level the ground for the emperor's apartments above, then filled with rubbish for a thousand years and dug out in the twentieth century. They are the reason we know what the palace looked like upstairs, and they are also, unmistakably, the throne room and the dark chambers where Daenerys kept her dragons in Meereen.

You reach them from the Riva, straight through the old sea gate, and part of the passage is free to walk because it's lined with souvenir stalls; the large ticketed halls are on either side. Go in the morning, take a jumper even in August - it's ten degrees cooler down there - and give it half an hour. Our complete guide to Diocletian's Palace covers what the ticket includes and what else is worth seeing while you're inside the walls.

• Entrance from the Riva through the sea gate, in the centre of town
• Half an hour is enough, and the light is better in the morning
• The free central passage is not the filmed part - the ticketed halls are

Klis Fortress: The Gates of Meereen

Klis is the one that surprises people. A fortress strung along a rock ridge in the mountain pass directly above Split, it controlled the road between the coast and the interior for two thousand years - Illyrians, Romans, Croatian kings, then a long and famous defence against the Ottomans. It is enormous, rough, largely unrestored, and you can walk almost all of it.

In the fourth season it became the walls and gates of Meereen, and the scene most people come for is Daenerys addressing the freed slaves from above. Stand on the ramparts and you'll recognise the angle immediately; turn around and you get the best panorama over Split, the bay and the islands from anywhere outside the city. It's about half an hour by local bus from Split, the site is uneven stone throughout, and it deserves an hour and a half rather than the twenty minutes most coach tours give it.

• Around thirty minutes from Split by local bus, or fifteen by car
• Season four: the walls and gates of Meereen
• Best view over Split from anywhere outside the city
• Uneven stone everywhere - proper shoes, not sandals

Kaštel Gomilica: Braavos on the Water

Between Split and Trogir, along the bay, sits a string of seven small towns called Kaštela, each grown around a fortified house built to shelter villagers from Ottoman raids. The one at Gomilica is a squat stone castle standing in the sea, joined to the shore by a short bridge, with a handful of houses packed inside it and washing strung between the windows.

In the fifth season it played a canal-side corner of Braavos - the streets where Arya worked before the House of Black and White. In real life it takes about twenty minutes from Split by local bus or car, it takes fifteen minutes to walk around, and roughly nobody is there. Worth the detour if you're a fan or if you're heading to the airport anyway, since it's more or less on the road; not worth a special trip if you aren't.

• About twenty minutes up the coast, on the way to the airport
• Season five: the Braavos canal scenes
• Tiny - fifteen minutes to see it properly
• Still a lived-in village, so keep the noise down

Žrnovnica and the Valley Locations

Just east of Split, where the Žrnovnica river runs down out of the Mosor mountains, there's a green valley of mills and old stone that was used for exterior scenes in the same Essos storyline - the countryside outside Meereen, where Daenerys' army moved and the slavers' road ran. It is not signposted, there is nothing to buy, and it looks like what it is: a quiet Dalmatian valley with excellent water.

It's fifteen minutes from the centre and it makes a pleasant stop rather than a destination, particularly on a hot day, since the river is cold and swimmable in places. Treat this one as a bonus if you're already out that way rather than something to build an afternoon around.

Šibenik: The Braavos You Have to Drive To

An hour and a quarter up the coast, Šibenik's old town and its UNESCO cathedral of St James played the streets and the Iron Bank of Braavos, and the St Nicholas fortress at the mouth of its channel appears too. It's a genuinely beautiful town that most visitors skip, and if you're driving north to Krka anyway it pairs perfectly with a morning at the falls.

As a Game of Thrones trip on its own from Split, though, it's a stretch: two and a half hours of driving for a location you'll recognise for about a minute. Go for Šibenik itself and let the filming location be the excuse.

• About an hour and a quarter each way from Split
• Season five: the Iron Bank and the Braavos streets
• Pairs naturally with Krka waterfalls in one day
• Not worth the drive for the location alone

Dubrovnik Is a Different Holiday

We get asked this constantly, so here it is plainly: you cannot sensibly do King's Landing as a day trip from Split. It's roughly four hours each way by road, with a border crossing that can add an hour in summer, so a day trip means eight hours in a vehicle for three or four hours in the city, in the heat, at the busiest time of day.

If Dubrovnik matters to you, give it two nights on the way south or north, or fly. If it doesn't, you're not missing anything on this list - Split's own locations are the interior of Meereen, which is arguably the better set anyway.

Doing It Without a Tour

All of it is possible on public transport and it costs very little. The substructures are in the middle of town. Klis is a local bus about half an hour each way. Kaštel Gomilica is a suburban bus or a train from the main station, around twenty minutes, and the walk from the stop to the castle is another ten.

What it costs you is the day. Bus timetables here are built for commuters rather than for visitors chaining three sites together, and the gaps between services are what turn this into a full day rather than an afternoon. How to get around Split has the practical detail on tickets, stops and timings.

• Klis: half an hour away
• Kaštel Gomilica: suburban bus or train, about twenty minutes
• Check return times, especially on Sundays and out of season
• Budget a full day if you're doing all by bus

Doing All of It in One Afternoon

If you'd rather not spend the day at bus stops, the locations chain together neatly by road: the substructures in the centre, then up through the pass to Klis, then down the coast to Kaštela, with the Marjan viewpoints and the west coast on the way back. That's a comfortable afternoon in a vehicle and a very long one on foot and by bus.

It's the same problem we built the tours around - Split's best bits are scattered, and the walking between them is the part that eats the holiday. Our See Everything Tour is the closest fit if you want the fortress views and the coast in one run, and if you specifically want a Game of Thrones route rather than our usual one, just ask us and we'll build the afternoon around these stops. There's more on why this city rewards being driven around in why Split is best explored by tuk tuk.

Is It Worth It If You've Never Watched the Show?

Honestly? Partly. Klis Fortress is worth going to whether or not you know what Meereen is - it's two thousand years of Croatian history on a rock with the best view in Dalmatia, and the television is the least interesting thing about it. The palace substructures are the same: an extraordinary Roman engineering space that happens to have had a dragon in it.

Kaštel Gomilica and Žrnovnica are the fan stops. Pretty, quiet, quick, and not worth rearranging a short trip for if the show means nothing to you. If you have two days rather than four, our two-day Split itinerary is the better use of your time, with Klis slotted into the second afternoon.

• Klis: go regardless, it's the best half day from Split
• Substructures: extraordinary on their own terms
• Kaštel Gomilica: for fans, or if you're passing anyway
• Žrnovnica: a stop, not a destination

When to Go, and What to Wear

Klis is exposed, high and treeless, which makes it glorious in May and brutal at two in the afternoon in August. Go early or go late; the light on the walls at the end of the day is far better anyway. The stone underfoot is uneven and there are drops without railings in places, so wear shoes with a grip and keep an eye on children.

Opening hours are longer in summer and shorter and less predictable in winter, so check before you set out if you're travelling between November and March. The substructures keep steadier hours and are the obvious wet-weather option, since they're underground and unaffected by rain.

• Klis is best early morning or late afternoon
• Uneven stone, unfenced drops: real shoes
• Winter hours are shorter and vary - check for this ahead

Where to Eat Around the Locations

The village below Klis is genuinely famous for one thing: lamb roasted on a spit at the roadside restaurants on the old road, which people drive up from Split for on a Sunday. It is not a light lunch and it is not a quick one, but it's one of the best meals in the area.

Down in Kaštela the seafront konobas are unremarkable but honest and half the price of the Riva, and in town the rule from our Split food guide applies as always: walk two or three streets back from the water.

The Photographs People Actually Want

Three shots are worth planning for. The Meereen angle from the Klis ramparts looking out over the pass. The same walls in the last hour of light, when the stone goes gold. And the wide one from the fortress looking down over the whole of Split, the bay and the islands, which is not a Game of Thrones photograph at all but is the one you'll actually frame.

Inside the substructures you'll need a steady hand rather than a flash. And if photographs are the point of the trip, our guide to Split's best viewpoints covers where the light works in the city itself.

Westeros in an Afternoon, and Split in the Same Day

The pleasant surprise of doing this properly is how little of it is actually about television. You spend an afternoon in a Roman cellar, a mountain fortress and a castle standing in the sea, and the show turns out to be the reason you went rather than the reason it was worth it.

That's the case for treating this as a route rather than a checklist: the Meereen stops sit on the same roads as the Marjan viewpoints, the west coast and the villages up the bay, so one afternoon on a tuk tuk tour covers both the filming locations and the parts of Split that most visitors never reach at all - the argument we make in 7 places in Split you can't easily reach on foot.