Three days in Šibenik: the one Dalmatian city the Romans did not build

Two nights in a stone town under its fortresses, with a full day at the Krka waterfalls and the friars' island upriver from them

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Šibenik
Places
8 across 3 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

Every other town on this coast was started by somebody else. Zadar and Split are Roman, Trogir is Greek, Dubrovnik grew out of a refugee settlement from a Roman city down the road. Šibenik was founded by Croats, first written down in 1066 in a charter of King Petar Krešimir IV, and it is the oldest native Croatian town on the Adriatic. That is why it has no forum, no amphitheatre and no palace, and why what it does have is a medieval stone maze running straight up a hillside from the water.

The building at the middle of it is one of the strangest churches in Europe. The cathedral of St James took a century to finish, from 1431 to 1536, and it is made entirely of stone: no brick, no timber, no mortar. The roof is interlocking slabs, the vault is stone, the dome is stone, all of it cut to fit and pinned together like a dry stone wall in three dimensions. Around the outside of the apse runs a frieze of seventy-two carved heads, ordinary faces of sailors and merchants and passers-by who posed for the masons while the work went on.

The other reason to come is thirty minutes inland. The Krka river drops through a chain of travertine cascades that are as good as the ones everyone queues for further north, and Šibenik is the natural base for them: a full day at the falls, a boat up to the friars who live on a wooded islet in the river, and back down to the coast for dinner.

Highlights

  • St James's cathedral, built out of nothing but cut stone, with seventy-two real faces carved round the back of it
  • St Michael's fort on its crag, seventy metres up, with the whole channel and the islands laid out below
  • Skradinski buk, the widest of the Krka cascades, with wooden walkways threaded through it
  • Visovac, a Franciscan monastery on a wooded islet, reachable only by boat
  • The underground cisterns beneath the old town, dry since the fifteenth century and now a gallery
  • A stone city that empties out at ten in the evening because the day trippers all sleep in Split

Where to stay

Šibenik

The old town is a wedge of pale stone between the water and a hill, and everything in it is within five minutes of everything else. The cathedral and the old town hall face each other across the main square at the bottom, the lanes climb north from there in a tangle of steps, and the fortress sits on top looking down the channel.

Šibenik has four fortresses, which is a lot for a city of thirty-odd thousand people and tells you what it was for. This was Venice's frontier against the Ottomans for a couple of centuries, and the walls and forts were the point of the place. Two of the hilltop forts were restored in the 2010s and reopened as viewpoints and concert venues; a fourth, St Nicholas, sits on its own island at the mouth of the channel and is part of the same UNESCO listing as Venice's other defence works.

The city was shelled in 1991 and the cathedral roof was among the things hit. It has been repaired and there is little to see now, but it is worth knowing while you stand under it, because that stone vault is a hard thing to put back.

Day by day

Day 1 in Šibenik

The stone cathedral, the church art museum and the fortress at sunset

Arrive and go straight into the old town, which is small enough to see properly in an afternoon and best in the low light anyway.

Start at the cathedral. Look at the outside first and walk right round the apse end, where the frieze of seventy-two heads runs at head height: they are portraits of real people from the 1440s, sailors and traders and locals who sat for the carvers, and they are the most likeable thing in Dalmatia. Inside, find the baptistery, a small domed room carved as intricately as a piece of jewellery, and the figures of Adam and Eve by the north door, both covering themselves and one of them getting it wrong. Then look up and remember that the whole roof is dry stone.

St Barbara's is a two minute walk away, a small fifteenth-century church with a lopsided front and a clock, now holding the museum of church art: painted panels, silver and carved wood from churches around the county, in a building that is as good as anything hanging in it.

Then climb. The fortress of St Michael is seventy metres above the sea directly behind the old town, twenty minutes up through the lanes, and the view from the walls takes in the roofs, the channel out to sea and the islands beyond. The courtyard is now an open-air stage and there are concerts up there most summer evenings. Go for the hour before sunset.

  1. 15:30

    Katedrala sv. Jakova

    Religious

    Modest dress, and walk the outside before going in. Closed over lunch in some seasons, so aim for mid afternoon or after four.

  2. 17:00

    Crkva sv. Barbare

    Religious

    Small, cheap, half an hour. The asymmetric facade and its clock are worth a minute from the street even if the museum is shut.

  3. 18:00

    Fortress of St. Michael

    Historic

    Twenty minutes of steps to get up there and worth every one. Check whether a concert is on, which changes the closing time and the ticket.

  4. 20:00

    Dinner in the lanes

    Eat

    Fish, grilled and sold by the kilo, or pasticada, the slow beef in a sweet vinegar sauce that Dalmatia does better than anyone.

With more time: The waterfront promenade south of the old town runs out past the marina towards the channel, and it is the flattest walk in Šibenik, which after an afternoon of steps counts for something.

Day 2 in Šibenik

Krka: the cascades, the island monastery and the upper falls

The whole day on the river, starting early because the boats that make it worth doing stop running in the middle of the afternoon.

Skradinski buk is the bottom cascade and the one on the postcards: a wide staircase of travertine steps and pools with the river coming down over all of it at once, and about two kilometres of wooden walkway threaded across, between and behind the water. Travertine is the trick here, a soft rock that the river deposits as it flows, so the falls are slowly building themselves rather than wearing away. There are old watermills at the top with the machinery still in them, and the millstones still turning in one or two.

In the afternoon take the boat upriver to Visovac, an islet in a wide green stretch of the Krka with a Franciscan monastery and a stand of cypresses on it and nothing else. The friars have been there since the fifteenth century, it is a working place of pilgrimage, and the visit is a guided half hour of the church, the library and the garden before the boat takes you back. It is the quietest place in the park by a distance.

If the timing works, carry on to Roški slap further up: a longer, shallower run of cascades below a series of small falls, with a set of restored mills and a footpath that crosses the river on stepping stones. Fewer people get this far and it is the better walk of the two.

  1. 09:00

    Skradinski buk

    Nature

    Two hours on the loop, more if you stop. The boardwalks are wet, narrow and one way, so shoes with grip and no hurry.

  2. 12:00

    Lunch at the mills

    Eat

    The buffets at the top of the falls are touristy and average, and one of them sits beside an old millrace, which buys a lot of forgiveness.

  3. 13:30

    Visovac

    Nature

    Boat only, booked at the jetty on the day, about two hours all in. A guided walk round the monastery is part of the trip.

  4. 16:00

    Roški slap

    Visit

    The upper cascades, either by the same boat or by road. Take the path over the stepping stones rather than only looking from the viewpoint.

With more time: Further up the river there is a Roman legionary camp with the remains of an amphitheatre, and an Orthodox monastery in a bend of the gorge, both inside the park and both nearly empty. Either would fill a second day at Krka if you wanted one.

Day 3 in Šibenik

The cisterns under the town and the monastery garden

Two small things in the old town before the bus, both a couple of minutes apart and neither taking long.

The Four Wells are exactly what the name says: an underground complex of water tanks cut in the fifteenth century to supply the city, dry for centuries and now fitted out as a museum of the town's own story, with a cafe in the vaults. The subjects are local and specific, shipwrecks in the bay, what people ate, who lived here, and the space itself is cool and strange on a hot morning.

Then the medieval monastery garden beside St Lawrence, which is rarer than it sounds. Almost none of these survive anywhere in Europe; this one was rebuilt in 2007 to a monastic plan, in beds of herbs and medicinal plants laid out the way an apothecary would have wanted them. There is a small cafe at one side with a view over the roofs to the sea, and it is a good place to lose the last hour of a visit.

If you are driving rather than catching a bus, take the shore road out along the channel instead: the walking and cycling path along Kanal sv. Ante runs from the edge of town to the mouth of the inlet, looking across at the sea fortress on its island.

  1. 09:30

    Četiri bunara

    Visit

    Underground and cool, about an hour, and the cafe down there is a fair place to sit if the morning is already hot.

  2. 11:00

    Srednjovjekovni vrt sv.Lovre

    Visit

    Twenty minutes for the garden and as long as you like for the cafe at the edge of it. Free to walk in.

With more time: With a whole spare morning, the local ferry to Zlarin or Prvić takes half an hour, costs almost nothing and gets you to a car-free island with a village, a beach and a bar, which is a better last morning than another church.

Before you go

Getting in

Buses do everything here. The station sits on the waterfront five minutes from the old town, and there are frequent services along the coast to Split and Zadar and inland to Zagreb, plus long-distance routes into central Europe. Both Split and Zadar airports are about an hour away by bus, and for Split it is quicker to leave the airport at Trogir and pick up a coastal bus there than to go into Split and back out.

Ignore the railway. Šibenik is technically on the network by a branch to Perković, but the trains are slow and the timetable is no use to a traveller. Nobody local suggests it.

By car it is a short run off the A1 motorway at the Šibenik junction, and there is a large car park on Poljana square at the edge of the old town, which is as close as any car gets.

Getting around

On foot, entirely. The old town is a few hundred metres across and the furthest thing in it is half an hour's walk, most of that uphill. It is a town of stairs rather than streets: lanes turn into steps without warning and no map conveys the gradient. Wear something with grip and do not book a room at the top of the hill if you are travelling with a heavy case.

Local buses run to the outskirts and to the shopping centre, which you will not need. For the Krka falls you want either a hire car, a bus to Skradin, or one of the day trips that leave from the waterfront in season.

Krka in a day

Buy the park ticket online before you go: entry is timed and capped in summer, and the gates turn people away. Prices swing enormously by season, and the shoulder months cost a fraction of July.

There are two ways in at the bottom end. Skradin is the pretty one, a small town on the estuary from which a park boat runs up to the falls in season, included in the ticket. Lozovac is the practical one, with the big car park and a shuttle bus down to the same place. Either way you arrive at Skradinski buk, and either way the walkways there are a one-way loop.

Swimming at the falls has been banned since 2021, whatever an older guidebook or a listing tells you. Bring shoes rather than swimming things: the boardwalks are wet and slippery for most of their length.

The boats to Visovac and up to Roški slap are separate excursions booked on the day at the Skradinski buk jetty, and they are the part of Krka most people miss. Allow the whole day for the three together and start early, because the last excursion boats leave in the middle of the afternoon.

Where to stay

In the old town, in a converted stone house, and accept that you will be carrying your bag up steps. The reward is that Šibenik empties in the evening once the coaches from Split have gone, and the lanes at ten at night belong to whoever is still there.

The alternative is the modern hotels around the bay and out towards Solaris, which have pools and car parks and are a bus or a taxi from anything worth seeing. Fine for a family, dull for two nights.

The islands

Local ferries leave the town quay for a scatter of small islands: Zlarin and Prvić are the two most people take, both car free and both twenty to forty minutes out. There is nothing to do on either beyond swim, eat and walk between two villages, which is the entire point.

These are working local boats rather than excursions, so they are cheap and they run to a timetable that assumes you live there. Check the return before you commit to an afternoon.

When to go

May, June and September are the good months: warm enough for the sea, and Krka is neither full nor rationed. July and August are hot, and the falls run at their lowest just as the crowds peak, which is the worst combination.

Out of season the town is quiet and lovely and half the restaurants are shut. The falls are at their most powerful in spring, when the river is up and the walkways are loud.

Šibenik is the Dalmatian city people drive past, which is odd, because it has the best cathedral on the coast and the fewest people looking at it. A good part of the crowd at Krka has come from Split for the day and spends about three hours of it on the road.

Stay two nights instead. Do the falls properly, with the boat on to the monastery and the upper cascades, and come back down to a stone town on a hill that is quiet by ten and does not seem to mind.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is Šibenik worth visiting?
Yes, and more so than its reputation as a stop between Zadar and Split suggests. The cathedral is one of the great buildings on the Adriatic, the old town is genuinely medieval rather than restored for visitors, and it is the closest base to the Krka falls.
How many days do you need in Šibenik?
Two nights. The old town is an afternoon, Krka is a full day, and a last morning covers the cisterns and the garden or a ferry to an island. A third night only makes sense if you want to swim.
Is Šibenik better than Split for visiting Krka?
Considerably. Krka's lower entrances are around half an hour away rather than an hour and a half, which means you can be at the falls before the coaches and still be back for dinner.
Can you swim at the Krka waterfalls?
Not any more. Swimming at Skradinski buk was banned at the start of 2021 to protect the travertine, and older guidebooks and listings that say otherwise are out of date.
How do you get to Šibenik without a car?
By bus. The coastal services from Split and Zadar are frequent and the station is five minutes from the old town. Both cities have airports about an hour away. The railway exists and is not worth using.
Can you change the plan?
Copy it into the planner and move things around: Krka needs a timed ticket so it fixes the day it lands on, and everything in the old town shuffles freely around it.