Klis Fortress by Scooter

A few miles outside the city of Split you’ll find the imposing Klis Fortress strategically perched on a high hill in the mountain pass. To get to the fortress you can take public busses, book a tour or do what we did and rent a scooter. It was a bit ambitious for two people on only 50cc’s but we made it. The hardest part is navigating the local roads and avoiding the highways. The big hill is also a bit of a challenge on the way up on such a small engine. It’s easy to find the entrance to the fortress, with frequent brown signs pointing the way, you can’t miss it. With a scooter you don’t have to worry about parking issues like you would a car. The parking lot at the base of the fortress isn’t that big so it can fill up quickly. We were there near the end of the busy season so it wasn’t that crowded. There also was storm moving in that day which we narrowly avoided.

The entrance fee for the fortress is 20Kn per person. The fortress offers great views of the area as it should since its whole existence was meant to protect the mountain pass that it straddles. The ruins are a lot of fun to climb around and there aren’t many safety measures to keep you in so be careful running about. A lot of the walls are in various states of decay but it seems like there is some kind of restoration effort happening to repair and rebuild some of the fortress. The fortress has a small museum where you can read about the history but most visitors are probably more interested in the structure for its more recent use as a filming location for Game of Thrones. Lauren pointed out a few spots that they filmed parts of Meereen in season 4. There’s also a small exhibit of decaying photos that show what the sets looked like all dressed up, complete with a giant foam dragon hanging in the corner.

The giant foam dragon. So scary.