August the 23rd, 2026 – Split Port is rapidly turning into a proverbial pizza oven as passengers have to wait in 40 degree heat with no shelter from the sun whatsoever.
At Split Port, passengers must wait to board in temperatures above 35 degrees in the shade, while on the scorching asphalt and with high humidity the perceived heat regularly exceeds 40 degrees. Lukrecija Zderic reports for Index that all of this takes place without a canopy under which people could take any form of shelter. With all the belongings they’re carrying on their journey, they must stand on the burning asphalt, exposed to the insufferable strength of the summer sun, with almost no shade available.
Parents with children, the elderly, and those waiting for the ferry try to find at least a scrap of shade under the smaller palm trees. Ferries come and go, the queues move, and passengers wait in the sun with no place to hide from the heat.
The problem becomes even greater when the catamaran or ferry is delayed and passengers don’t know exactly when it will arrive. This is precisely what happened to one of our readers, who wished to remain anonymous. With her family she had to wait in the port, in the sun and without adequate shelter, and she told Index how disappointing the whole situation was.
“It was a working day and we were supposed to travel by catamaran to Korčula. Unfortunately it was late, but that wasn’t the only problem. The biggest problem is that in Split’s port you almost have nowhere to shelter from the sun. The berths for the catamarans are far from the main, and practically the only, canopy in the port,” our interlocutor said.
“There’s often no space in the cafe or bar, and if you don’t know exactly when the catamaran will arrive or which berth it will dock at, which happens frequently, you can’t even move away to look for a shady spot. It was a heatwave, it was extremely hot, and with children it was a truly terrible experience,” the reader told us.
“if i hadn’t found shade, i’d have become unwell in the sun”
So we went to Split’s port to check whether the catamarans were late and how passengers spend their time waiting for them in the sun. Because the fact is that at the berths there is nowhere to shelter from the heat. During our arrival and the following three hours in the port, a large number of catamarans arrived and departed, and almost all of them arrived on time. The biggest delay we recorded was around ten minutes, which can hardly be called a serious delay, and it did not bother the passengers either. But what many would apparently gladly change is a simple thing – that instead of waiting on the scorching sun, they could wait for the ferry in the shade.
“It’s extremely hot, but it doesn’t bother me that much because I’m by the sea. It’s a bit inconvenient standing in the sun waiting for the ferry to Dubrovnik, so I try to find any little scrap of shade. This is more of a shadow, but it will do,” a tourist travelling to Dubrovnik told us.
“I saw that today it’s 35 degrees, and it’s the same in London, but I have to admit it’s much nicer here. Maybe because we’re on holiday, but if I hadn’t found a little shade, I would have gone crazy in the sun,” a tourist from England told us. Catamarans in Split’s City Port don’t all dock in one place; they use different berths along the operational quay. Some of them are located outside the main building of the maritime-passenger terminal. At the same time, works are underway in Split’s port on Sv. Duje Pier, where a new international maritime-passenger terminal is being built.
infrastructure upgrades – but nothing to deal with the issue of ensuring shade
Once completed, the project should take over part of the international traffic and free up Sv Duje Pier for domestic scheduled traffic, i.e. better connections between Split and the islands. But while the port infrastructure is being changed and expanded, the question remains whether the problem of protecting passengers who wait for catamarans in the open will also be solved, especially during the summer months and heatwaves.
While waiting for their catamaran, passengers try in various, and some quite inventive, ways to protect themselves from the sun. Umbrellas, caps and hats become the main defence against the scorching rays, while some hide in long sleeves and others seek refuge in the rare scraps of shade. The benches under the palm trees thus become sought-after spots, and passengers settle into every available bit of shade, however small.
“It’s very hot, we’re not used to this. We’ve put on long sleeves and are protecting ourselves with an umbrella. We hope our catamaran to Dubrovnik will arrive soon because it’s really hard to breathe here,” Japanese passengers told us. There were, however, also those who did not allow the heat to spoil their holiday mood.
“We’re from Germany and we’re only briefly in Split, and now we’re going to Hvar. We don’t have any special way of protecting ourselves from the sun; we simply try to find a little shade, although that’s not exactly easy here. We don’t want to complain – we’ve come on holiday, we’re by the sea and we’re going to one of the most beautiful islands. We won’t let a few minutes in the sun spoil our mood,” a married couple from Germany told us.
During the summer, Split Port is one of the busiest places in the city every day, yet there’s no respite from the intense heat. Back in 2024 alone, more than five million passengers passed through it on ferries and catamarans, of which more than a million on catamarans. This is a huge number of people who pass through the port every day during the season, and some of them wait for their catamarans precisely in the open, exposed to the sun and temperatures that during heatwaves exceed 35 degrees.
