The Varoš neighborhood

Varoš is characterised by its warren of narrow and stone streets called kala. It was originally home to the city’s fishermen, who moored their small boats at Matejuska, the little inner harbor on the western side of the Splits waterfront promenade, the Riva. As you walk these cobbled streets, past churches, twisting alleyways lined with wonderful stone houses, you will notice the streets go progressively uphill.

This is because Varoš begins at the foot of Marjan Hill, the “lungs of the city“, a beautiful large park, with ancient hermitages, places to hike and bike and even swim.

Križeva street, where our Agava Luxury Rooms is, is named after the church of the same name in Varoš, Sveti Križ, originally built in the 15thC and later remodeled in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today it is protected as a cultural landmark.

The church has a fascinating legend, a story which says that fishermen, after a tiring and extremely stormy night at the sea, found a cross that floated—and when they approached the cross, it was bloody.

Today, this cross is still on the Sveti Križ altar as a witness to ancient times.