Podstrana starts about eight kilometres southeast of Split and runs six kilometres of coast to the low hill of Veliki Mutogras. It is the closest thing to a villa belt that Split has, and whether it works for you turns on one thing: how far up the slope your house sits. Prices below come from what a villa week in Croatia costs to rent, and the distances were checked against the tourist board, the Split bus timetables and the ferry lines.
Is Podstrana a good base for Split?
Yes, for the week where you want a pool and a garden and still want to eat in Split more than once. The road distance to Split Old Town is about eleven kilometres, about thirteen minutes by car outside August traffic and noticeably longer on a summer afternoon, because the whole coast funnels onto one road at the Split end.
The public option is real here, which is rare for a villa area. Promet Split line 60 runs Split to Omiš and back through Podstrana roughly every thirty minutes, from about half past four in the morning until midnight, and Grljevac into Split takes about twenty three minutes for one to three euros. A taxi is about twenty five to thirty one euros. The airport is about twenty seven kilometres, about twenty seven minutes by car.
The coast is why you are out here at all. The tourist board describes the whole six kilometre shoreline as groomed into one long beach for almost its entire length, and it is pebble throughout: Strožanac with showers, parking, parasols and deckchairs, Grljevac fine pebble broken by small piers and sloping gently into the water. Perun rises to 533 metres behind it all.
If your week has more than two Split evenings in it, do the taxi arithmetic before you take a house at the Omiš end of the strip.
Podstrana or Split: which suits a villa week?
| What the week needs | Where it belongs | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| A pool, a garden, a table for twelve | Podstrana | The Old Town is a drive or a bus, never a walk |
| Walking home from dinner at midnight | Inside Split | Pools are rarer, gardens rarer still, plots smaller |
| Four to six people | Inside Split | Nothing, and you stop paying for empty bedrooms |
| Two or three nights in July or August | Inside Split | The Podstrana houses we priced hold five night minimums then |
Podstrana buys space, Split buys walking, and almost nobody gets both. Decide which you would give up first.
Stobreč or Podstrana?
They are neighbours, and the Žrnovnica river is the line between them. Stobreč sits on a small peninsula on the eastern side of Split, seven kilometres from the historic centre by the tourist office’s own figure, at the mouth of that river, and Podstrana begins on the far bank. The drive into town is much the same from either, so the difference is what you walk out onto.
Stobreč has the sand. The tourist office describes the beach in the middle of it as a spacious sandy beach with shallow warm water, with pebble at the river mouth and rocky coves to the southwest. Podstrana is pebble for all six kilometres, groomed but pebble. If a three year old is the reason you are choosing, that settles it.
Podstrana has the houses. Stobreč is a village rather than a villa belt, and its bay is a working harbour with pontoons for small boats rather than a marina like Marina Lav down the coast. It has a bus of its own, Promet Split’s line 25, about twenty departures each way on weekdays, though the last one out of Split goes in the mid evening rather than at midnight.
Ask about both in one message. Stobreč and the Strožanac end of Podstrana are minutes apart, and the answer usually comes down to sand.
Podstrana or Trogir?
Opposite sides of Split, so this is about which end of the week you want made easy. Podstrana starts about eight kilometres southeast of the city. Trogir is 27 kilometres west of it, with the whole of Split in between.
Trogir wins the airport. The runway is about five kilometres away, against about twenty seven kilometres and twenty seven minutes from Podstrana, and Promet Split’s line 37 runs Split, airport and Trogir from four in the morning until a quarter past midnight. The houses are on Čiovo across the water and on the strip west of the town, not in Trogir itself, and two bridges reach the island now, so that is no longer a drive through the old town.
Podstrana wins the islands and the city. Hvar, Brač and Vis all sail from Split, thirteen minutes up the road, and line 60 runs into town every half hour until midnight.
Trogir gives you a stone old town to walk into from the Okrug end of Čiovo, and Podstrana gives you a strip of restaurants at sea level with a hill above it. Split or Trogir, where to stay covers that side in full.
If the flights are the awkward part of your week, price Trogir first. If two of your days are on the water, stay here.
Where are the villas in Podstrana?
Four coastal settlements string northwest to southeast along the Adriatic road: Strožanac, Grljevac, Sveti Martin and Mutogras, with Stara Podstrana, the old village, above them under the rocks. The municipality covers about eleven and a half square kilometres, and the ridge sits an average of two and a half kilometres back from the coast. Hold that figure while you read listings: Podstrana can mean a house a short walk from the water or one several hundred metres up the hill, and the terrace photographs look much the same.
The stock is what this coast builds: three, four and five bedroom houses with a private pool, plus a few much larger ones, including a house that sleeps twenty across ten bedrooms. A sea view is cheap here, because the slope hands one to almost everybody. Walking distance to the sea is the expensive part, because the seafront band is thin and the coast road runs along it.
Higher up buys the view, the quieter road and usually a bigger plot, and every swim and every dinner then starts with a car. Lower down buys a five minute walk to the pebble. Say which matters more before anyone sends you a photograph. It removes half the list.
What does a villa here cost?
Bands only, and none is a quote for your dates. In July 2026, comparable five bedroom Podstrana houses with a private pool ran about EUR 1,300 to EUR 1,450 a night. The same house from 5 to 18 September 2026 was EUR 756 a night. The ten bedroom house sleeping twenty was EUR 1,875 a night through July and August, on a five night minimum.
Minimum stays catch people out. From June to September most houses of any size on this coast are let for five to seven nights, and the two Podstrana houses in the cost guide hold five. Cleaning, a refundable damage deposit and tourist tax sit on top of the nightly rate, and the arithmetic for those is in what a villa week in Croatia costs to rent.
Move the week into the first half of September before you move down a bedroom. On these numbers it is the cheapest change on the list.
How do you get to the boats?
Podstrana has water access of its own. Marina Lav sits inside the Le Méridien Lav complex with 74 sea berths for vessels up to forty metres, enough for a boat to come to you rather than the other way round.
Most private boat days still start in Split, because that is where the fleet sits. ACI Marina Split is in Uvala Baluni on the city harbour, with 318 wet berths and 15 dry, taking vessels up to ninety metres. From a Podstrana house that is the same thirteen minute drive as the Old Town, so a boat morning costs you a transfer and little else. The range from that quay is on private boat tours from Split.
Scheduled boats go from the Split riva. Split to Hvar town is about fifty minutes to an hour with Jadrolinija, Kapetan Luka and TP Line, Krilo fares from around EUR 8.50, with Supetar on Brač from around EUR 10. The Split to Stari Grad car ferry takes about one hour fifty, and Jadrolinija line 9603 reaches Jelsa by way of Bol in about an hour and a half.
Tell us which morning you want on the water and we will say whether to start it at your end of the strip or in Split.
How do evenings work, and will you need a driver?
The tourist board’s own food and drink directory splits Podstrana in two, into Donja Podstrana on the coastal strip and Gornja Podstrana on the slope above, and that is the line your evenings run on. Down on the strip, restaurants, taverns, bars and a beach club are a flat walk. Up the hill they are not, and the climb home in the dark is longer than it looks.
Two things fix it. A driver for the nights you want in Split, usually two or three out of seven, since line 60 stops at midnight and dinner rarely does. And a chef at the house for the rest, which on a terrace facing Brač and Šolta is often the better evening: private chef for a Split villa.
Count the evenings you genuinely want to go out before you book a car for the week. Most groups over-count.
Who should stay in town instead?
Four groups. Four to six people, because a house that sleeps ten costs what it costs whether six or ten sleep in it. Anyone who will not drive, since line 60 is good but it stops at midnight. Anyone wanting two or three nights in July or August, because the Podstrana houses we priced hold five night minimums then. And anyone whose week is really a Split week with swimming attached.
If you are still choosing between the mainland and an island rather than between Podstrana and Split, Split or Hvar, where to base your week is the decision that comes before this one.
What should you send us?
Dates or the month, how many nights, how many people, how many bedrooms, whether the pool or the walk to the water matters more, how many evenings you want in Split, and the budget with whether that is per night or in total. Those seven lines sort the strip top to bottom.
We come back with two or three houses that actually fit, each with the total for your nights and what sits on top of it, and you book the house with the villa’s own booking office at its published rate. The week around it, the boat days, the chef, the drivers, is ours to arrange.
Request Villa Options on find a villa.
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