Ten days in Croatia: three cities that barely feel like one country

Drop your bags and go uphill. The eastern gate of the medieval town survived a fire in 1731 that took the street around it, along with a painting of the Virgin inside, and it has been a chapel ever since: benches in a stone tunnel, banks of candles, people slipping in on their way past.

A minute further up is the square that runs the country, with the parliament on one side and the government on the other. Between them stands a church whose glazed tiles are laid out as two coats of arms, put on in the 1880s during a restoration by Herman Bolle.

Save the end of the afternoon for the museum three minutes downhill, where strangers have donated the objects left over from their failed love affairs, each with a note explaining what it meant. It began as a travelling exhibition by two Zagreb artists after their own break-up. Nothing else in the country is quite like it.

Eat on the street below the hill, where the paved-over stream is now a line of kitchens and bars.

The cathedral's twin spires are visible from every approach to the city, though one of them lost its top in the 2020 earthquake and the scaffolding will be there for years. The foundations go back to 1217; almost everything above them belongs to a rebuilding after the earthquake of 1880.

Up the steps behind it is the market, the city's larder since 1930: a raised terrace of red parasols with fruit, cheese and flowers on top and the fish hall underneath. It winds down in the early afternoon, so go in the morning.

Lunch is strukli, the local pastry stuffed with fresh cheese and baked in cream. Then walk south into the parks. A chain of green squares was laid out from the 1880s onwards in a horseshoe between the main square and the railway station, each with a fountain, an academy or a gallery on it. The first has a bandstand and a weather column that has been recording the temperature since 1884.

The train south leaves in the morning, so pack tonight.

The train leaves the main station in the morning and takes about six hours: farmland, then the karst plateau of the interior, then a long descent through tunnels with the Adriatic appearing between them. It ends at the harbour in Split, a hundred metres from the ferry terminal and five minutes from the palace walls.

Walk in through the nearest gate and aim for the middle. The Peristyle is the colonnaded court where Diocletian appeared to his subjects under an arch, with a granite sphinx shipped from Egypt still sitting at the side, and it is now where the town drinks its coffee on cushions laid out on the steps.

Eat in the lanes and go to bed early. The palace is at its best at nine at night, when the coach parties have left and the stone is giving back the heat of the day.

Be at the cathedral when it opens. It was built as Diocletian's mausoleum, an octagon inside a ring of columns, and turned into a church in the seventh century by the Christians he had spent his reign persecuting. It is dedicated to a bishop he had executed, which makes it one of the longest jokes in Europe, and it is among the oldest buildings anywhere still in use as a cathedral.

The bell tower beside it is a separate climb up open-sided stairs, and the reward is the palace roofs, the harbour and the islands lined up behind them.

The little temple on the other side of the courtyard is the best preserved Roman room in the complex, with its original barrel vault, and it takes ten minutes.

Then let the day go. The market outside the eastern wall, the seafront, an afternoon swim: Split rewards that more than another ticket.

Trogir is a small island town wedged between the mainland and the island of Ciovo, joined to both by bridges. Bus 37 runs there all day from Split in about twenty five minutes and calls at the airport on the way; in summer there are also boats, which take an hour and are far more pleasant.

The whole old town is on the UNESCO list and it is easily walked in an afternoon: a cathedral square, a loggia, stone lanes and a waterfront promenade. The cathedral's west door is the reason to come. A local master called Radovan signed it in 1240 and filled it with Adam and Eve, the labours of the months and a nativity, and it is one of the great pieces of medieval carving on this coast.

At the far end of the island a Venetian fort guards the channel. You can walk its walls and climb its tower, and in summer it is used for concerts.

Eat by the water and take a late bus back.

Marjan is the pine covered ridge west of the old town, threaded with paths, chapels and coves, and it is where Split goes to get away from Split. Walk out along its lower road, which is flat and shaded, until you reach the villa Ivan Mestrovic designed for himself in the 1930s. Croatia's best known sculptor left the house and the work in it to the state; a chapel a few hundred metres on, included in the ticket, holds his wooden panels of the life of Christ.

Afterwards, either climb into the pines for the viewpoints and the coves on the far side, or come back down and take the afternoon at the beach on the eastern side of the harbour, where the water is shallow and warm and locals play a ball game in it that they take more seriously than anyone expects.

In the evening, the palace again, and one of the bars in its vaults.

The boat leaves the harbour in Split and works its way south, tying up at Hvar and Korcula and sometimes Mljet, for most of the middle of the day. It is a fast, enclosed catamaran rather than a cruise, but the island stops are worth staying awake for, and it docks at Gruz, a couple of kilometres from the old town.

Get in, drop your bag and walk to the Pile Gate, the western entrance, over the bridge and under the statue of the city's patron saint. Inside, the town opens onto one wide street polished smooth by centuries of feet.

Do nothing else today. Walk its length to the tower with the clock on it, look up the side stairs, buy the walls ticket for tomorrow morning if the office is still open, and find dinner in the lanes. The old town after nine belongs to the people who slept in it.

Be at the Pile stairs when they open, which is around eight in summer. The circuit is about two kilometres, walked one way round, with almost no shade and a great deal of stone throwing heat back at you by mid morning. Ninety minutes if you keep moving, two hours if you stop.

From up there the town explains itself: a wall six metres thick towards the land, thin towards the sea where nobody could reach it, and a chain of forts covering every approach.

Come down, then walk out of the gate again to the fortress on the rock outside the walls, which is on the same ticket. The inscription over its door, that liberty is not sold for all the gold in the world, was the republic's foreign policy in a sentence.

Keep the afternoon indoors and cool. The Franciscan monastery just inside the gate has a cloister of double columns, no two carved alike, and a pharmacy that has been dispensing since 1317. The cathedral a few streets on is Baroque, with a treasury of reliquaries behind its altar.

The Rector of Ragusa served for one month at a time and was not allowed to leave his palace while he did, which tells you everything about how this republic felt about ambitious men. The building at the eastern end of the main street was his office, the armoury and the prison, and it is now the city museum.

Two streets away, an exhibition of conflict photography does the opposite work: no gold, no Baroque, just very good photojournalism, including from the war fought here in the 1990s. It changes its shows each season and it is the most affecting hour in the city.

Give the afternoon to the sea. Boats cross to the wooded island opposite the old harbour every half hour in season, where there are peacocks, a ruined monastery, a saltwater lake to swim in and no cars. Alternatively take the longer boat up the coast to Cavtat, a quieter bay with a hilltop mausoleum carved by Ivan Mestrovic above it.

Dubrovnik's airport is at Cilipi, about 20 km southeast, with shuttles from outside the Pile Gate taking around half an hour. That leaves most mornings free.

Spend it on the harbour side of the old town, which is the quietest corner: the Dominican cloister inside the eastern gate, with its garden and its paintings, and the fish market on the quay first thing. Then coffee somewhere with a view of the water and out.

Ten days, three cities, one train and one boat. Whatever else this country does, it makes leaving difficult.