Bacvice Beach

Bačvice is a sandy beach roughly 1.3 kilometres from Split's Old Town, on the city's southern shore. Its water stays shallow for a long way out, which has made it Split's most popular family beach and, for more than a century, the home of a distinctly local sport.

In 1908, a group of Split students who had studied in Prague adapted water polo to the beach's shallow water, creating picigin — a game played with bare hands and a small, partly deflated ball, with no net and no fixed scoring, the aim being simply to keep the ball from touching the water. Picigin is still played at Bačvice every summer, and in 2013 it was entered on Croatia's national Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage, formal recognition of a tradition locals had already kept alive for a hundred years.

The beach sits close to Split's two working marinas, ACI Marina Split and Marina Zenta, both a short walk away — which is why many charter guests anchor here for the afternoon before walking into the old town.

The swimming area itself is roped off from boat traffic for safety, so anyone arriving by sea moors at one of the marinas rather than anchoring directly off the sand — a small practical detail worth knowing before planning a stop.