hvar island

Looking for some relaxing island life, we spent 4 days on the island of Hvar, just an hour's boat from Split. Hvar is a popular tourist island. Very popular. The main town apparently attracts a whopping 10000 people per day during the peak season, but we guessed that most of those typical tourist types stay in the main town. Nearby there is a much smaller town called Milna - well it's more like a street by the shores. 

This is Milna. It's much quieter, and easier to escape.

Our room was right on the water. Below that white gate thing is "our very own private beach" - well, it was more like a concrete slab. It was actually a great spot to end the day reading and drinking before dusk. 

The sun did start to go down eventually. This part of Croatia apparently gets the most sun filled days per year in Europe, and pretty long sunsets too.

We had a few days at this spot so we wanted to explore a little more, although nothing too exhausting. Wandering away from civilisation wasn't hard - it's maybe a 10 minute walk before you stop seeing people and the beaches turn from pebbles to jagged slabs or rock.

Some of the more secluded FKK beaches (nude beaches) were just smaller, quieter and nicer. We are not quite the nude types, but it does make it easy to change for swimming! Although there was a screaming child here who maybe just didn't want to be naked. It is funny seeing the nude people meandering about all day - kind of makes you imagine human life before civilization...

We bought some goggles to save our eyes from the salty Adriatic seabed, also to spot any of the black spiny sea urchins that were pretty dangerous looking. But these small critters are basically the only worry in the whole ocean. No one was concerned at all about drowning or being eaten - the waters were calm, sharks were very uncommon, people would just swim out into the ocean and float around. Even the heat wasn't much of an issue. In the water, chilly cool undercurrents mixed with waters warmed by the sun made for a really interesting swim.

Really trying to be comfortable - worked for a little while! Actually the rocks are mostly very sharp, you have trouble walking on them barefoot. Actually, one thing we experienced while treking around on the high road (that is, in the scrub) was that the island is practically covered in wild rosemary. We didn't realise it at first, probably because it's so scratchy to your feet as you stomp through it.

Unfortunately we had to leave sometime! But at least we weren't going too far, just to the other side of the island at a place called Stari Grad - another town which wasn't tourist filled Hvar town. 

What we found in Stari Grad was a pleasant port town with quiet back streets and great swimming spots. We wanted to spend the night here and jump on the morning boat to Dubrovnik.

There were lovely old buildings dotted throughout the back streets. Oh, and best photo of me ever!

Very relaxed, chilled out place... but a lot of walking if you want to get from one side of the port to the other!

The next day we boarded our deck accomodation on the boat to dubrovnik, an 8 hour cruise journey. Didn't really know how comfortable it would be until we got there. We made the most of it - this spot we're in was shady for more or less the whole time. Actually Grace had to convince me to get up and walk around - I must have been hypnotised for a good 6 hours by the moving views.

It's a lot of the same really, but we didn't tire of looking at it - staring at a massive chunk of Croatian coastline for hours and hours. It was... Great!