36 Hours in Split, Croatia

Bačvice Beach, a five-minute walk from the main ferry port, is named for the wine barrels (bačvice) that were once unloaded here because of the shallow, soft, sandy bottom (as opposed to Croatia’s typical stone beaches). That forgiving sand is also famous for picigin, a diving, handball-meets-hacky-sack game played in knee-high water and born on this beach. After a swim, walk 10 minutes along the shore to Dvor, a decade-old restaurant with seaside terraces. Begin with the canelon tuna (around 16 euros, or $17) — rolled tuna carpaccio filled with foie gras — and a glass of vugava (around €6), white wine from the island of Vis. Then, treat yourself with rack of lamb served with roasted potatoes and rosemary cream (around €25).

For Splićani (people from Split), alcohol typically means wine, rakija (local brandy) or beer. Bar Sistema, a cocktail spot, has started to change that. A few feet from the city’s medieval ramparts, Sistema’s doors open to 20-foot-high, backlit, liquor-filled shelves. The owner, Anteo Ivanišević, a Split native who learned his trade in New York and New Zealand, makes drinks using locally inspired concoctions: One drink, Solstice (€9.95), is a mixture of amaro, blueberry, cranberry, lemon thyme and teranino, a liqueur made from a red Croatian grape variety called teran. Finish the evening’s gallivanting with a glass or two of travarica (€2.10), a Dalmatian herbal rakija, and a panoramic view of Split at Teraca Vidilica, an expansive outdoor terrace on the eastern slopes of Marjan Peninsula.

The Riva, the seaside promenade, is lined with cafes (an espresso costs around €1.5) and is teeming with fashion-conscious locals. Open daily, a city-block-size outdoor green market known as Pazar sits on the Riva’s eastern end. Pick up rations from the stands selling fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts, honey and Dalmatian olive oil. Then head to the promenade’s western end and the Ribarnica, or fish market (also open every day), which is crowded with stone tables where mongers hawk Adriatic treasures: glistening sea bass, shrimp, lobsters, oysters. Your reward after shopping: Kruščić, an artisan bakery (behind the fish market) where rustic creations like cherry strudel (€2.40) are made with organic, whole-grain flour.

Diocletian’s Palace, a 7.5-acre limestone-and-marble retirement villa for the Roman emperor that was finished in 305 A.D., was Unesco-inscribed in 1979 and still forms Split's active city center, where locals shop, meet for coffee and conduct daily business. Hire a guide (about €50 per hour), like the encyclopedic guide and historian Dino Ivančić, then prepare for historic overload. (Palace entry is free, with fees for specific attractions.) Highlights inside the grounds include the ruler’s 3,500-year-old Egyptian sphinxes; the view from atop the Cathedral of Saint Domnius’s 187-foot bell tower (€7); the perfectly preserved subterranean rooms (€7); and the Temple of Jupiter, which was dedicated to ancient Rome’s chief deity and later converted into a baptistry in the 7th century (€3). “It is easy to forget how incredible this is,” Mr. Ivančić told me. “We have to remind ourselves we live inside one of the world’s best-kept examples of Roman architecture.”

Locals know: To eat well, choose spots open year-round, not just during tourism season. Villa Spiza, 300 feet from the palace’s western-facing Iron Gate, is one such place. The cash-only restaurant, which has two intimate dining rooms with stone walls and rough-sawn, wooden ceiling beams, doesn’t take reservations. It also has no freezer, so the ingredients are fresh daily (the handwritten menu is updated accordingly). Start with the black mussels (€12), cooked with wine, garlic and olive oil. Follow with a glass of red plavac mali (€3.10), a Dalmatian grape variety, and the slow-cooked beef cheeks with gnocchi (€20). The meal isn’t over without the chocolate cake with ganache (€5).

Nadalina is a chocolate shop inside the palace’s central cluster of streets opened by Marinko Biškić, a punk rocker who became one of Croatia’s first bean-to-bar makers. You’ll find bars (€3) with locally roasted cacao beans from Madagascar, Bolivia and Cuba. Around the corner, Uje Oil Bar has seven rooms where you can shop for and taste well-curated food products, as well as sit in to eat. On Uje’s shelves, olive oil from the Croatian island of Brač (500ml bottles, €36.50) and dried-fig jam (around €3.50) are favorites. Nearby, Break Time is an atelier steps off the boutique-lined Marmontova Street that creates and sells nautical-rope bracelets (around €35) with various designs, clasps and engraving possibilities.

Digest the city’s history and hospitality with the cookbook author, licensed tour guide and local chef Jolanda Vitaljić, who hosts Chef’s Table dinners (from €790 for groups of four to six). The three-hour gourmet and storytelling experiences (dietary restrictions are accommodated) are held in a showcase kitchen and dining room a 10-minute walk north of the center. Watch, taste and listen as Ms. Vitaljić shares local culinary secrets: for instance, that delicious capers grow on bushes near the palace’s Silver Gate. She prepares around 10 dishes with wine and aperitif pairings, with typical menus including homemade pasta with mushrooms and local herbs, cheese aged traditionally in sheepskin, baked white fish and orange cake with carob and almonds. (Message Jolanda’s Instagram account to book.)

On the southside of the Marjan Peninsula, a 20-minute walk west of Split’s center, the Meštrović Gallery (the €12 ticket includes entry to the seaside chapel across the street) is in a palatial home built by the sculptor Ivan Meštrović, perhaps Croatia’s most famous artist. Meštrović, who grew up poor in Dalmatia’s hardscrabble hinterland and died in 1962, completed construction of the villa in 1939, but World War II cut short his time on the property, which was intended to be his summer house and studio. Today, the sprawling rooms are filled with blueprints, letters and many of the prolific creator’s finest pieces: paintings and the instantly recognizable, elongated lines of his wood, bronze and marble sculptures, which were lauded by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin.

For a big picture perspective of Split’s history and evolution, take local bus 22 (€3) eight miles inland to the Klis Fortress (tickets, €10), wedged in a gorge between the Kozjak and Mosor Mountains framing Split’s vulnerable backside. The fortress was built and rebuilt for more than 2,000 years as control for this strategic position and “key to Dalmatia” was held by Illyrians, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, Venetians and Croatians. On the way back (also bus 22), stop at the archeological site of Salona (€8), once among the Roman Empire's most populous cities dating to the third century B.C. You can stroll the 22 acres between sarcophagi, mosaics and the amphitheater. Notice, in the distance, the 5.5-mile aqueduct built for Diocletian’s Palace that still supplies Split with water.