1 November 2016

Hvar Island, Croatia


Hvar is an Croatian island a short ferry ride away from Split. Recommended by friends, it promised a mixture of historic sightseeing and small restaurants serving fresh seafood meals. Happy to escape from the package-tour packed streets of Split, we had plans to catch the ferry into Hvar city and then book ourselves onto a speedboat transfer to the Paklinski islands for a few hours of sunbaking.
Due to time constraints, we didn't manage to visit Stari Grad on the north side of the island, UNESCO listed and one of the oldest towns in Europe, first settled by Greeks in 384BC.


Traveling from Split to Hvar
Hvar is a popular day-trip destination for visitors to Split, located on the popular sailing route to Dubrovnik. There are many booths selling tickets along Split's port. To avoid disappointment, as it was peak season, we made our purchases the day before. This ensured that we could firm up the exact departure point and procedure, avoiding the issues we had encountered in Italy a few days before. The ferry ride took about 2 hours and our first impression of Hvar city was a beautiful Mediterranean port with outdoor cafes and mega yachts.

Churches, modern and ancient stone buildings

Pleasure yachts




Hvar Fortress
Dominating the skyline above the port is the Fortica Spanjola (Fortress). We decided to climb to the top to see the view before the day-time temperature would make such a trip unbearable.

The fortress viewed from the Port

The path to the Fortress was easy to find following cobblestone streets through narrow lane-ways between stone buildings.



On reaching the fortress, the view from the top compensated us for the effort. Hill hikes were necessary training for the Inca Trail hike that we had signed up to do only four weeks later. Seeing the green capped islands in the distance made us enthusiastic about booking in a water taxi to visit them.







Pebble Beach, Paklinski islands
After several search attempts on Google Images to 'relocate' the name of the beach that we visited, unfortunately it is lost to our memory. We made our way to this beach by booking a speedboat that we had found on our walk along the esplanade. Just a small sign with the destination and the return pick up times, we handed over money, assured that lifejackets were onboard and soon enough we were on our way to this 'beach' destination.

The beach was popular with tourists and most of the prime real-estate near the water was already occupied by the time we arrived. We worked out a way to hire two sunbeds for a few hours and beers from the local restaurant. Water shoes were a must in this region, as sea-urchins were common and could result in a painful experience. We swam close to the shore to ensure 'one eye' was always on our bags and also to avoid the 'shipping lane' of boats that ferried day trippers on/off the island.

Beer in paradise
After our visit to Nice a few years before, we were not a fan of pebble beaches. But with the sun out, turquoise water and beer in hand; it was difficult to think of any place we would rather be - so we sent a Facebook update to our ex-colleagues in London with the simple message 'Unemployed life - wish you were here'.

Hvar Main Square
After returning to Hvar,we walked around the city square to have a look at the free photo exhibition about Dalmatia's historic and natural attractions.

Main square, Hvar city

Photo exhibition





Seafood dinner
Before we boarded the ferry back to Split, we found a restaurant in the main square that offered reasonable prices on the menu (despite its prime tourist location) and we ordered a tomato salad with cheese and anchovies, grilled fish and squid.





Goodbye Hvar
Walking to the ferry, we had a chance meeting with one of Mei's ex-colleagues, Anne that had just arrived on the island for an overnight trip. It was one of a few quick catch-ups with ex-colleagues that occurred during our 5 month trip - one of those 'right place right time' moments. As our ferry pulled out of the harbour, it was sunset - our favourite time of the day. Goodbye Hvar.


Goodbye Hvar

Next blog post:
Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

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