Šibenik
A cathedral slotted together from stone slabs without mortar, and seventeen Krka waterfalls upstream
- When to go
- September 21° · 9 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€price 3 of 5
- How many days
- 1days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 39 km Split · 59 km Zadar
- Right now
Šibenik is half a day for the cathedral and fortresses and a full day for Krka. The Cathedral of St James, built between 1431 and 1535, is made of stone alone: the slabs of its vaults and dome slot into one another in grooves, the way a carpenter joins wood, with no mortar. That technique put it on the UNESCO list in 2000.
The old town is steep, and stairs take you from the waterfront up to the fortresses. Three are open: St Michael's right above the town, Barone on the hill beyond it, and St John's, the largest of the land forts. A single ticket is €11.50 and a combined one for all three €15, so decide on the combined ticket at the first gate, not afterwards.
Skradinski Buk lies about ten kilometres upstream in a straight line, and two entrances lead to it. From Lozovac, where the park's car park is free, a park bus takes you down; from Skradin, where parking is private and paid, you go by boat. Both are included in the ticket from 1 April to 31 October. The ticket is €40 from June to September, €30 if you enter after 3 pm in those months, and €20 in April, May and October. Swimming at Skradinski Buk has been banned since 2021; it is allowed only at marked spots near Roški Slap, Stinice and Pisak, from June to September.
Guides for Šibenik
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
Šibenik in 2 days
→The first day stays in the old town and climbs to three forts, the second goes to Krka — because no public transport…
Day trips from Šibenik
→Krka and Kornati need a car or organised transport, Zlarin and Trogir run by ferry or coach, and Vrana Lake is reached…
Where to stay in Šibenik
→In Šibenik you choose between the old town's stairs, staying near Krka in Skradin, or a cheaper part of town outside…
What to eat in Šibenik
→The same Dalmatian menu as the rest of the coast, plus one dish named after the river town by Krka — Skradin risotto.
The best time to visit Šibenik
→Šibenik gets the most rainy days in November and December, the fewest in July — and Krka and one of the forts change…
What to see in Šibenik
The Cathedral of St James
A frieze of some seventy stone heads runs around the outside of the apses. Three master builders worked on it one after another, among them Juraj Dalmatinac and Niccolò di Giovanni Fiorentino, so its Gothic passes into Renaissance without a seam.
€10 · closed Sunday and holidays
St Michael's fortress
On a steep hill right above the old town, looking over the St Anthony channel. Since its restoration in 2014 it has been a summer concert stage.
€11.50
Barone fortress
The townspeople built it in 58 days in 1646, ahead of an Ottoman siege in the Cretan War. Since its restoration in 2016 the battle of 1647 plays on tablets, laid over the real view of the town.
€11.50 (26 Mar–31 Oct); free in winter (1 Nov–28 Feb)
Skradinski Buk
Seventeen falls over 400 metres, dropping 47.7 metres from the first to the last. In winter 43 cubic metres of water pass through every second; in summer, 18.
€40 · closed Dec 25–26; Dec 24 & 31 shortened (9–12); Jan 1 Lozovac entrance only
The St Anthony channel
A sea passage over two kilometres long that ships use to enter the port. The footpath beside it, about 4.4 km, ends opposite St Nicholas' Fortress, Šibenik's second UNESCO-listed monument (2017); the fortress itself is reached by boat from the town waterfront.
free
Visovac
An islet with a Franciscan monastery in the middle of the Krka. It is not in the ticket: the boat trip from Skradinski Buk takes two hours, half an hour of it on the island, and costs €15. There is no fixed timetable; departures are set day by day, April to October.
€15 · 2 h
Two things you probably did not know
The cathedral of St James is built entirely from stone slabs fitted without mortar, like a puzzle. Around seventy heads of ordinary fifteenth-century citizens run along the outer frieze, not saints but people the carver saw in the street.
In 1895 Sibenik got alternating-current street lighting from a hydroelectric plant on the Krka. It was among the first cities in the world with such a system, only days after Niagara.
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