If you’ve ever made the drive down to Split, you’ll have noticed a curious old fortress located in the rugged hills overlooking the city. This incredible medieval fortress, or what remains of it, is named after the village in which it is located – Klis. Klis Fortress has been conquered many times during Croatia and the wider region’s tumultuous history. Originally constructed by the Illyrians, it took on its final shape during the Ottoman wars, when the marauding Turks had their eye on the area.
Klis Fortress is a very popular tourist destination, with history buffs, those who love the bird’s eye view over Split, photographers and everyone in between wanting to see this imposing piece of history standing tall above the popular Dalmatian city.
Owing to its continued development, as well as investments having been made, Klis Fortress has experienced a record number of visits from tourists in 2019.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marta Duic writes on the 23rd of December, 2019, Klis Fortress and the increase of tourists visiting it, fuelled by the fact that it is one of the top locations of the filming of the wildly popular Game of Thrones series is a peculiar phenomenon of Dalmatia.
Although the ancient fortress is a flywheel when it comes to development, with investments and a wise strategy, it managed to obtain visitor numbers that it has every right to boast about.
The number of visitors to Klis Fortress back in 2015 was a mere 12,000, the following year it increased significantly to 32,000, and in 2017, those numbers reached an impressive 47,000.
After last year’s 70,000 visitors, the upward trend has continued and more than 100,000 people visited Klis Fortress this year. The year was also marked by the opening of the Interpretation Centre worth 1 million kuna in total, in which visitors are introduced to the historical and cultural heritage of the region through an informative 3D hologram projection.
Thanks to the EU project worth 2.8 million kuna, special lighting has been erected on Klis Fortress, and the reconstruction of two buildings within the fortress and the installation of a summer stage with a pricet tag of 5.5 million kuna are now being prepared.
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