Varos Neighbourhood

Varoš is Split's oldest neighbourhood outside the Roman palace — a hillside tangle of narrow alleys, stone houses, and tiny piazzas that grew up in the 7th century when refugees from the sacked Roman city of Salona settled around the palace walls. The neighbourhood climbs the slope between the old town and Marjan hill, and its pedestrian-only lanes (too narrow for any car) provide the most atmospheric domestic architecture in Split.

The tiny Church of St. Nicholas (Sveti Nikola), built in the 11th century, is one of Dalmatia's earliest Romanesque churches and sits at the edge of Varoš on the way up to Marjan. The neighbourhood still has a working-class, lived-in quality that the polished Riva lacks — laundry hangs from balconies, cats doze on windowsills, and locals stop to chat in the alleys in a way that makes Varoš feel like the Split of 50 years ago.