Radunica & Lucac, Split: the city’s quietest old neighbourhood

Walk out through the Silver Gate, cut past the fruit stalls of the Pazar, and Split changes its tone within a hundred metres. The marble crush falls behind you. The tour groups thin out. Ahead is Radunica, a single crooked street with stone houses leaning so close together you could pass a coffee cup between windows, and behind it Lucac, climbing the slope toward Gripe. This is the part of central Split that still behaves like a neighbourhood: washing strung overhead, grandmothers on the doorstep, cats warming themselves on the stone, a scooter squeezing through a gap it has no business fitting through.

What Radunica & Lucac are known for

Radunica is not a district that performs for you. It is old, narrow, and stubbornly ordinary, which is its charm. The street is the historic spine of Lucac, the medieval suburb that grew up east of Diocletian’s Palace when the palace itself ran out of room. It was first recorded in the 13th century, and the name comes from radun, an old Illyrian word for a water spring. Around five centuries ago, families arriving from the Republic of Poljica — that autonomous farming community from the Omis region — settled here and left their surnames on the lanes: Kuzmanic, Nincevic, Ruzic, Bubalo, Trumbic, Duplancic, Petric. You still read the neighbourhood that way, by names and by doors.

The street itself is a lesson in compression. Radunica kinks and steps uphill, and the lanes that cross it feel less like streets than private agreements between houses. It is quiet, residential, genuinely lived-in. In a city where whole streets have been swallowed by holiday rentals, that matters. In 1994, the neighbourhood had eight cafe-bars; most have since become apartments. What remains is a pocket of everyday Split five minutes from the Peristyle. You smell somebody’s lunch. You hear church bells. You watch a scooter slide through a turn so tight it barely deserves the name.

The one night the street lets its hair down is the last week of June, when Dani Radunice fills the lane with tables, wine, klapa singing, card and bocce tournaments, poetry, a raffle and the sort of Dalmatian food that appears without fuss and disappears just as quickly. It began in 1994, meant to stitch the community together in the first years of independent Croatia, and it still does that job. The 2026 edition is set for Saturday 27 June from 9pm, opening with the Srdelice children's choir, followed by Klapa Jezinac and the entertainment group Sol. For one evening, the quiet street becomes a small public square.

There is one more piece of neighbourhood history worth knowing, and it is absence rather than presence: the Church of St Peter, Sv. Petar, which gave St Peter’s Old Street its name, was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943-44 when raids aimed at the nearby port and railway fell short. In Split, the past is often like that — half visible, half gone, and still shaping the street.

Where to eat & drink

This is konoba country, not a showpiece-restaurant district, and that is exactly why it works. You come here for bowls of food that seem to have been cooked for people who live upstairs, not for a camera.

The neighbourhood’s namesake, Konoba Radunica on Ulica Antuna Kuzmanica, is a tiny family room on one of the quiet upper lanes doing what you secretly hope every place near the palace will do: black crni rizot — cuttlefish-ink risotto — grilled fish, beef with gnocchi, and a proper Dalmatian marenda with omelettes and coffee. The prices are fair, the pace is unhurried, and nobody looks as if they are trying to turn lunch into theatre. That is the compliment.

A few doors along, Konoba Cetina at Radunica 16 keeps the same low-key register. It is a small, warm Croatian kitchen, the sort of place locals return to year after year because it does not need to reinvent itself. In a neighbourhood like this, repetition is a virtue.

Down where Lucac meets the market, the mood broadens a little. Konoba-Pizzeria Lucac on Ulica svetog Petra starog serves Dalmatian standards alongside a more ambitious, younger-leaning menu of wild boar, mouflon and burgers. Ask for a balcony seat if you can get one; this is a good place to sit above the street and watch the neighbourhood move below you. It keeps long hours too, roughly 10am to midnight, which makes it useful as well as pleasant.

Right next door, Bakra Steak & Pizza Bar has been feeding this corner since 1947. It bakes its pizzas in a wood-fired Marana oven, but the steaks and cevapi are what regulars come back for, and it is one of the higher-rated tables in the whole city. In a neighbourhood built on understatement, Bakra is the reliable workhorse: hot oven, honest meat, no grand speech.

For the cheapest and most local first bite, go to the edge of the lane where the Pazar green market meets the palace wall and buy a slice of soparnik, the Poljica chard pie, for around three or four euros. Eat it standing up, with market dust on your shoes and the palace wall at your back. That is about as polished as this corner gets, and that is the point.

For a drink, be realistic. Radunica is not where you go to hop from bar to bar. The old cafe-bar life has mostly vanished into apartments, and the street goes to bed early. If you want an actual pint or glass, drift to the edge of the neighbourhood and into Basket on Ulica Domovinskog rata, one of Split’s oldest bars, running since the 1970s and once favoured by Slobodna Dalmacija journalists. It is cosy, local, and heavy on character rather than noise. That is enough.

Going out

The honest answer is that Radunica does not really go out. It stays in. The neighbourhood is residential in the plainest sense, and after dark that is what you feel: doors closing, voices softening, the street settling back into itself. If you are after DJs and late-night momentum, the beach clubs of Bacvice are the place, not here. If you want wine bars and a little more movement, the Old Town is five minutes downhill around the Peristyle.

That said, the annual Dani Radunice feast changes the rules for one night in late June. Tables appear in the lane. Wine bottles multiply. Klapa harmonies drift up between the stone walls. People who spend the rest of the year greeting each other from doorways suddenly have a crowd. It is the best kind of local party: the sort visitors can attend, but not quite take over.

Basket is the closest thing the area has to a proper night-time address, and even there the mood is old Split rather than a scene. It sits on the Lucac-Manus fringe, a place for conversation and a drink, not for making a night of it. That may sound like a limitation. In practice, it is a relief.

Things to do / what to see

The main thing to do here is walk. Start at the Silver Gate end by the market and follow Radunica as it steps and kinks uphill. Read the family names off the side lanes. Look up at the facades. Notice how the street narrows and then narrows again, as if the whole place were built by people trying to save a little ground for the next generation. It is a short, slow, deeply photogenic wander, and most visitors to Split never make it, despite the fact that it begins barely a hundred metres from the Peristyle.

From the top of Lucac, keep climbing to Gripe Fortress, the 17th-century Venetian star fort raised to hold off the Ottomans and later used as an Austrian barracks. It sits about a 15-minute, steep-but-rewarding walk from the centre. Inside its 19th-century building is the Croatian Maritime Museum, which is worth the climb if you like ships, trade, and the practical history of the coast. The collection runs from Venetian galleys to modern liners, and there is a room devoted to the pioneering Whitehead torpedo. It is the sort of museum that reminds you Split was always more than a postcard.

Time your visit for the last week of June and the neighbourhood gives you its best thing for free: Dani Radunice. You do not need an itinerary for it. Just turn up and let the street do what it has done since 1994.

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Shopping & markets

If you are looking for shopping in the usual sense, Radunica and Lucac will disappoint you, which is another way of saying they remain a real neighbourhood. The one great institution here is the Pazar, Split’s open-air green market, pressed right up against the eastern wall of Diocletian’s Palace where Lucac begins. Locals have shopped here for generations, and it runs daily from around 6.30am into the early afternoon.

This is where you buy the raw material of Dalmatian cooking: seasonal fruit and vegetables trucked in from the interior, island cheeses such as Paski sir, home-cured prsut, jars of honey and jam, and bottles of somebody’s homemade rakija. It is all practical, noisy and slightly chaotic, which is how markets should be. Grab a slice of soparnik for a few euros, stand in the margin, and eat it before it goes soft.

Beyond that, there is not much in the way of retail and that is part of the appeal. No boutiques. No souvenir rows. Just the odd corner shop serving residents. If you want fridge magnets and designer names, go downhill into the palace and along Marmontova. Here, the commerce is older and more useful.

Where to stay in Radunica & Lucac

This is one of the smartest-value bases in central Split, and locals know it. You are minutes on foot from Diocletian’s Palace and the market, with Bacvice beach a short walk south, but apartment prices generally undercut what the same proximity costs inside the Old Town. More importantly, you avoid the 2am noise echoing off the marble.

The catch is the one you would expect in a neighbourhood that still behaves like a neighbourhood: the supply is mostly self-catering apartments and a few guesthouses and hostels rather than big hotels. That suits some travellers better than others. If you want a place that feels like you live in Split for a few days, this is the right patch of town. If you want a concierge and a lobby bar, look elsewhere.

The Radunica street lanes and the streets immediately around them give you the most atmospheric, village-like stay, all stone steps and quiet, but be ready for stairs and no car access. Further up toward Gripe and out toward Lucac-Manus, the buildings turn larger and more modern, and you gain easier parking and a slightly gentler walk while keeping the lower prices. Wherever you land, keep the noise down at night. People actually live here.

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Getting around

Radunica and Lucac are made for walking and, at the top end, not much good for anything else. From the market at the foot of Radunica you are inside Diocletian’s Palace and on the Peristyle in about two to five minutes on foot. The Riva promenade and the ferry port are roughly ten minutes downhill. Bacvice beach is around a ten-minute walk to the south. It is all close, which is why this area makes such sense.

The upper lanes are steep, stepped and largely car-free, so pack light and wear proper shoes. If you are arriving with heavy luggage and no patience for stairs, this is not the easiest part of town. If you are happy to move on foot, it becomes simple.

For anything further, the whole city bus network fans out from the terminals by the palace and the port. Staying in the more modern Lucac-Manus streets gives you a realistic shot at street or garage parking, which the Old Town does not. Split Airport, SPU, is about 25 km west toward Trogir, roughly 30 to 40 minutes by taxi or the frequent airport bus that terminates at the harbour a short walk from the neighbourhood. Trains and long-distance buses also leave from that same waterfront transport hub, so island ferries, day trips to Trogir or Krka, and onward travel all start within a ten-minute walk of your door.

The practical truth is simple: Radunica and Lucac are close to everything, but they ask you to meet them on foot. That is fair enough. The street has been doing it that way for centuries.