Diocletian Palace tours and Island tours

Diocletian's Palace should be a walking tour. The palace is very concentrated, so you won't have a bike or segway option. I didn't take a guided tour while I was there, but there are options for private guides in Rick's Croatia book. If you'd prefer a tour group (~20 people), there are tours going all the time and it should be easy to join a group.

Regarding sailing, I took a tour last year that left from Hvar and went around the Palenki Islands. We stopped for a while on Palmižana, but didn't have the time (or the desire) to explore very much because of the rough weather. It was the only day of our Croatia trip that was very overcast and windy. Those conditions made the sailing much more adventurous than normal.

Regarding Viator, it is just an aggregator of local companies. They are simply a middle-man to give us an easy way to search for tours, private drivers, airport transfer, etc. without having to search through the bowels of the internet for each company in each location. I've had good success with Viator in the past, but usually there are other local companies offering the same service, and there's not that much difference between companies when it comes to group tours.

There are plenty walking tours available in Split. Check out Trip Advisor for the latest view on the best. They used to be free, but now they charge.

The trouble with many day boat trips in Croatia is that they are booze cruises, playing loud party music. You won't see much of the islands on a 1 day boat trip, as they only give you 30 minutes in some of the places. You are better just getting the regular catamaran to whichever island takes your fancy and spend a few hours there before returning to Split.

Word of warning - I was on Hvar last September and the weather broke c 20 September, which I was told is typical - much cooler and rain. Many places shut at the end of September, so they are winding down from mid September. We left 23 September and called at a resort on the mainland for a coffee - there was only one place still open!

We did a half day walking tour with Maja Benzon. Google for contact info. She's very knowledgeable and interesting; and her price is quite reasonable.

We did a bike tour with Red Adventures that was fun and covered areas of Solit outside of the palace as bikes would not make sense inside. We did one stop in front of the palace to talk about it. We saw the archeological museum ( and later went back to make a full visit), and rode all up and around Marjan park. Later on our own, We toured the basements of the palace (self-guided) and mainly walked around soaking in the atmosphere in the evenings when the day crowds had diminished.