Game of Thrones Filming Locations in Split: Complete Guide

Game of Thrones Filming Locations in Split: The Complete Visitor's Guide

If you've ever watched Daenerys Targaryen walk through the shadowy stone halls where her chained dragons growled, you've seen Split. The 1,700-year-old cellars beneath Diocletian's Palace doubled as the dragon dungeon. The colonnaded square upstairs became the exterior of her throne room. And just outside the city, the dramatic walls of Klis Fortress stood in for the city of Meereen itself.

HBO filmed Game of Thrones in and around Split for two seasons — and unlike Dubrovnik's fictional King's Landing, the Split locations are quieter, less crowded, and remarkably easy to visit on foot. This is the complete guide to every filming location in the city: what was shot where, how to find it, and how to see it all in a single day.

Why HBO Chose Split for Meereen

By the time the show's production team arrived in 2013 for season 4, they had a problem. Meereen — the great slaver city Daenerys liberates and then rules — needed monumental Roman-feeling architecture, ancient stonework, and a city that could double as both palace and prison. Building it from scratch was out of the question. So they came to Split.

Diocletian's Palace, completed around 305 AD as the Roman emperor's retirement compound, gave them everything in one place. Massive stone walls. A ceremonial colonnaded square. A perfectly preserved labyrinth of underground halls. And just outside the city, a fortress on a clifftop that looks more like Westeros than anything outside of a CGI render.

Split provided two seasons of filming (seasons 4 and 5, shot in 2013 and 2014). What follows is every location they used, in the order you'd visit them.

Diocletian's Palace Cellars — Daenerys's Dragon Dungeon

This is the most iconic Split location in the entire show.

The cellars (sometimes called the basement halls or podrumi in Croatian) are a network of vaulted Roman chambers built underneath the imperial apartments. Originally a structural substructure to level the sloped ground above, they survived the centuries almost untouched while the palace above was rebuilt, repurposed, and lived in continuously.

In the show, this is where Daenerys reluctantly chains her dragons Viserion and Rhaegal after Drogon, the unrestrained third, kills a child in the city above (season 4 finale, "The Children"). The torchlit, low-arched walkways need almost no set dressing — the production simply added chains, dim lighting, and dragon sound effects.

If you want a deeper dive into the cellars and the rest of the palace, see our complete guide to Diocletian's Palace.

How to visit

• Entrance: From the Riva (the seafront promenade), walk into the palace through the southern Bronze Gate. The cellars open directly off the central corridor.
• Hours: Roughly 8:30–21:00 in summer, 9:00–17:00 in winter. Hours shift seasonally — check at the gate.
• Ticket: Around €7 for the cellars proper. The corridor itself (lined with souvenir stalls) is free.
• Pro tip: Visit early morning before cruise crowds arrive (before 9:30) or in the last hour before closing. The cellars are atmospheric in low light.

The Peristyle — Throne Room of Meereen

Walk up the steps from the cellars and you emerge directly into the Peristyle: the grand colonnaded square at the heart of Diocletian's Palace. In the show, this is the exterior of the throne room where Daenerys receives petitioners, dispenses judgment, and sits in judgment of the masters.

Stand at the southern end of the Peristyle and look up at the granite columns and the pediment above. That's the angle the cameras used. The square also features in the famous slave revolt sequence and several Sons of the Harpy chase scenes — the production used the corridors radiating off the Peristyle for the network of "Meereen alleyways" without leaving the palace footprint.

It's free to walk through. The cathedral steps are the best place to sit and take it in.

Klis Fortress — The City of Meereen

Twelve kilometers north of Split, perched on a knife-edge ridge that controls the only mountain pass between the coast and the interior, sits Klis Fortress. If you've seen Meereen's exterior establishing shots — the city walls, the great gate, the fighting pits' approach — you've seen Klis.

This is the most cinematic GoT location in the entire region. The fortress has been there for over 2,000 years (Romans, Croats, Ottomans, and Venetians all held it at one point or another), and you don't need any imagination to see why HBO chose it. The walls drop away on three sides into a sheer cliff. The view from the top stretches to the islands.

How to visit

• By bus: Bus #22 from Split's main bus station runs to Klis village roughly hourly. The ride is 25–35 minutes depending on traffic. From the Klis stop, it's a 10-minute uphill walk to the fortress entrance.
• By car/taxi: 20 minutes from Split center. Free parking near the entrance.
• Ticket: Around €10 for the fortress.
• Pro tip: Allow at least 90 minutes inside the fortress. The walls are extensive and the sea-side ramparts have the best Meereen-angle views.

Žrnovnica — Battle Scenes Outside the City

A short drive east of Split sits the small village of Žrnovnica, used by the production for some of the rural exterior battle scenes — the kind shot in dusty fields and along stone-walled paths near Meereen, away from the city's monumental core.

It's not a tourist attraction in any conventional sense. There's no signage, no ticket booth, no plaque telling you what was filmed where. You'd need to know the specific dirt road or olive grove to recognize it. For most visitors, it's worth knowing about as context — the production didn't only film inside the palace and the fortress — but it's not somewhere you'd dedicate an afternoon to alone.

Bonus: Trogir as Qarth (Season 2)

This one's a separate story. In 2011, two years before HBO came to Split, the production filmed in Trogir — the small UNESCO-listed island town 30 minutes west of Split. They used Trogir's medieval squares and waterfront as the city of Qarth in season 2, where Daenerys arrives with her newborn dragons and is briefly hosted by the Thirteen.

If you're already heading to Trogir as a day trip from Split, the GoT connection is a nice extra. The most recognizable angle is the waterfront promenade as it curves around the western side of the island, near the Kamerlengo Fortress. Our Trogir free walking tour covers the medieval town in depth — the Qarth filming is a footnote, not the main draw, but it's there.

How to See All of It in One Day

Here's the realistic itinerary if you want to hit every Split-area GoT location in a single day:

• Morning (9:00–11:30): Diocletian's Palace cellars and Peristyle. Combine with breakfast on the Riva afterward. About 2 hours total inside the palace, longer if you want to see the cathedral and Jupiter's Temple too.
• Late morning (12:00–14:30): Bus #22 or taxi to Klis Fortress. Allow 90 minutes at the fortress plus travel time. Lunch in Klis village (try one of the spit-roast lamb spots — Klis is famous for it).
• Afternoon (15:30–18:00): Optional — drive to Žrnovnica if you have a car, or skip it and head back to Split for a coffee on the Peristyle steps.
• Evening (19:30): Join our Game of Thrones walking tour, which covers the palace locations with scene comparisons, behind-the-scenes stories from the actual Split shoots, and the full historical context that the show borrowed from. It's free — pay what you wish at the end.

Visiting With a Guide vs Self-Guided

You can absolutely do this self-guided. The locations are all signposted, the cellars have informational plaques, and Klis has a small museum with photos from the shoot.

What you miss without a guide is the layering — which exact corner was used for which scene, the production stories from locals who worked on the shoot, and how Split's actual 1,700 years of Roman, Byzantine, and Croatian history shaped the fictional world the show built on top of it. A guide can also walk you to the precise camera angles and tell you which scenes were composited with green screen versus shot in-place.

Our Game of Thrones tour starts at the Gregory of Nin statue (just outside the Golden Gate) every evening at 19:30. The route covers the palace locations on foot in about an hour. It doesn't include Klis — that's a separate trip — but it makes the in-city locations come alive in a way maps can't.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where was the dragon dungeon scene in Game of Thrones filmed?

The dragon dungeon scenes featuring Viserion and Rhaegal were filmed in the underground cellars (basement halls) of Diocletian's Palace in Split, Croatia. The same location was reused across seasons 4 and 5.

Can you visit the Diocletian's Palace cellars where Game of Thrones was filmed?

Yes. The cellars are a public ticketed attraction inside Diocletian's Palace. Entrance is around €7 and they're open daily. The free corridor through the cellars (lined with souvenir stalls) is accessible without a ticket — the ticketed area is the larger preserved chambers off to the sides.

How do I get from Split to Klis Fortress?

Bus #22 from Split's main bus station runs to Klis village roughly hourly. From the Klis stop, walk 10 minutes uphill to the fortress entrance. By car or taxi, it's a 20-minute drive from the city center.

Was Daenerys's Meereen filmed in Split or Dubrovnik?

Meereen was filmed in Split and at Klis Fortress, not Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik doubled as King's Landing (the Red Keep, the Blackwater coast, the Walk of Shame). Confusing the two is the most common mistake when planning a Game of Thrones trip in Croatia.

How long does it take to see all the Game of Thrones locations in Split?

A full day is realistic for the palace locations plus Klis Fortress. The palace itself takes 2 hours, Klis takes 90 minutes plus travel time. Trogir (Qarth, season 2) adds another half-day if you want to include it.

Is the Game of Thrones walking tour in Split free?

Yes. The Game of Thrones Free Walking Tour in Split runs nightly at 19:30, lasts about an hour, and uses a pay-what-you-wish model — you tip the guide based on the experience at the end. No upfront booking fee.

One More Thing

The thing that surprises most visitors isn't the GoT connection itself — it's that the locations the show used were already extraordinary 1,700 years before HBO arrived. Diocletian retired here in 305 AD. The cellars survived the fall of Rome, the medieval city built on top of them, and a Venetian, French, Habsburg, and Yugoslav century each. The show borrowed a setting that was already legendary. Walking through it on foot is the only way to feel that.

Ready to see it for yourself? Our Game of Thrones Free Walking Tour meets nightly at 19:30 at the Gregory of Nin statue. Pay what you wish.