July 15th, Bus to Dubrovnik

7/15     Monday

            Dalia meets us in the morning to say goodbye, and we’re off to catch the fast ferry to Split, just an hour’s ride. It’s packed full, and we have to grab a couple seats quickly. We forget sometimes, getting on the ferries or trains, how people are commuting on these everyday, not meandering around on vacations. If there’s a seat – get it! We connect to a bus to Dubrovnik, about a four hour drive through mostly mountainous roads. We have a border crossing and passport check into the absurdly brief Bosnian coast, a stretch of a few miles before we cross back into Croatia. Vedran’s is our host in Dubrovnik, and his mom meets us at the bus station. She has a room in the apartment, not that she stays while we’re here. She gives us a welcome drink of homemade cherry liqueur, pours out a dish of pretzel snacks and starts scarfing them down. “So hungry, no time to eat today.”  She gives us a huge pile of towels, instructions to tie open the doors or “windows are breaking” when the wind slams the doors shut, and asks us to water the plants.  The apartment is a little over furnished. We have to jostle through the narrow pass-ways a bit. The terrace view, however, is really nice, overlooking the harbor and port for the cruise ships. We see at least two behemoths docked at the pier, blocks long. We do our usual groceries & laundry, and settle in.

I go to the terrace, grab a plastic chair and sit to enjoy the view of the harbor. The chair snaps apart and throws me to the floor, teacup and phone flying through the air, trapping me in the doorway on my back in the chair like an overturned turtle. This is not so enjoyable. Luckily, nothing but the chair is broken, and order soon emerges from the chaos.

The sun sets in a brilliant fluorescent pink splash, and the harbor lights up. We see the homes on the hills across the bay, the moon coming up, and the disco lights on the high deck of the cruiser.

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Bus to Dubrovnik

July 14th, Hvar Music Fest

7/14     Sunday

            I wake up with a bad sore throat, oncoming cold. I stay in bed and sleep until 2pm. I feel better, so we walk out to see what’s happening with the Electronic Music Fest. The harbor is packed with boats. We can hear a rhythmic hum throughout the city, and the promenade is streaming with determined-looking fest-goers, toting bags of snacks and water and bottles of vodka and/or tequila. We can walk right up to the bridge over the hotel pool, behind the stage, where the music is fully available to all, despite the blocking canopies on the fence. No VIP pass required. It’s early, though, and nothing exciting is happening yet. Electronic music gets dull fairly quickly, not unlike an all-day Reggae party without the ganja.

            We watch the antics of some of the yachters pre-partying on their boats. It certainly seems like some of them are not going to make it through the night without getting a punch in the nose. A happily obnoxious crowd.

            Back home for our last evening. Dalia is making dinner for us! She explains, the fish she wanted to make was not available, so she is cooking OCTOPUS, it needs to cook longer, is this ok? Oh, yes! Is ok!

            She sets our table for the three of us and serves us a wonderful dinner. She gives us a traditional aperitif of a homemade sour cherry liqueur, from her grandmother’s recipe. We have Carpaccio of anchovies, fresh, light and delicious little fish. Then our octopus, roasted in red wine with baby potatoes, incredibly tasty. Desert is crepes with plum jam, flavored with zest of wild oranges. We have such a good time talking with her. I tell her, “Dalia, if we lived here, you and I would be good friends!” She agrees.

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Hvar Music Fest

July 13th, Hvar City Beach

7/13     Saturday

            Marco comes over before we leave for our day with a plastic jug of homemade wine.  He sits with us on the patio and chats a while, all of us talking a sort of pidgin English. He pours a second glass for us, and we get a little alarmed, “No, no, one is enough!,” and he waves us off saying “later, for fridge!”  Okay, we get it! He leaves, telling us to “Have nice day.”

            We stay in town today, and walk past the harbor to one of the big luxury hotels, the Amfora. The beach is actually public, though. It has nice lounge chairs and umbrellas and services like the hotel, but anyone can come in. They’re setting up a big sound stage at the hotel, and we can hear a lot of hammering and banging over the piped-out music. We learn that there’s a big electronic music festival tomorrow. This is very popular in Croatia. There have been big fests in Pula and Split and Zagreb recently, the tv was full of commercials for them.

            Bob gets caught up in the luxurious atmosphere, with Kardashian clones populating the beach beds around us, and orders a Long Island Iced Tea from the waiter. Woo hoo. It’s a disappointment, though it was destined to be, at $10. Tastes just like a nice coca-cola.

            We decide to go out for dinner after our beach day, for something simple. Bob wants pasta, I’d like to try black risotto, a regional specialty of risotto with cuttlefish ink. The first restaurant we try on the plaza has a table under the canopies, but we want to be in the open. The maître’d has the waiters move the table and chairs over everyone’s heads out to the open air, “Here you are, sit please!” But he puts it right next to their sidewalk sign, and flips on the spotlight. I can’t abide it, we have to leave. So he’s all annoyed. We walk up through the narrow walls, trying to find the corridor of restaurants we’ve seen before, but in this small block, we’ve lost them all. It’s like we found a secret doorway and now it’s gone. At last we find it, and go to an upstairs terrace restaurant that’s very nice. Too nice. We see the menu full of pricey fish dishes, no pasta, no risotto. Strike two, we leave again. We head back to the harbor, feeling our plans for a simple dinner night reeling out of control. But we find the right spot at a harbor side restaurant with everything exactly as we want. 

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Hvar City Beack

July 12th, Palmizana Island

7/12     Friday

            We’ve been told that Palmizana Island is a beautiful spot, another easy ride on the water taxi. It has the look of a botanical garden, with huge cactus trees and agave along the walk to the beach. We’re less happy with the swimming here. The harbor is full of boats and the water is full of children. All the beach chairs are taken, but there are nice spots for us along the rocks. A couple of guys pass by us and one says “Dude, I’ve found the coolest beach bar EVER,” meaning the one near us along the hillside. It is very cool, but I would not go that far. There are several small inns and restaurants on the island, and there are probably really nice trails over the island for better swimming coves. It’s hard to say it isn’t gorgeous, but its not our favorite place so far.

            We take the taxi back later in the afternoon, earlier than we expected. I have time for a swim off the rocks near the Hvar harbor, where all the local kids go. It’s nice and deep.

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Palmizana Island

July 11th, Island Swim

7/11     Thursday

            We go back to Jerolim Island to check out the other side of the narrow island, where there’s a pebbly beach and platform sundecks to rent.  There’s a nice breeze today so it’s not as hot as yesterday.

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Jerolim Island Swim

July 10th, Jerolim Island

7/10     Wednesday

            We take a water ferry across the channel to Jerolim Island, another fine swim spot. We walk along the paths for a while, then between the hot sun and the rocky access, we decide the best choice is the nude beach by the harbor. We get a couple lounge chairs in the shade and enjoy the day.

July 9th, Hvar

7/9       Tuesday

            The town square and harbor are practically across the street. We pack our beach stuff and find a water taxi to take us for a 15 minute ride to Carpe Diem Beach, run by a local nightclub and notorious for all night parties. There are posters all around for celebrity DJs “starting at 1AM” But for us, the last water taxi leaves at 7pm.

The beach club is really nice, with giant palapa umbrellas and wooden sun platforms, surprisingly not expensive. We have a spot just next to a party of six, hosted by a guy from Dubai, who is showing off by badgering the waiters. “Where have you been? I need you to check on us every ten, no, fifteen minutes. You take care of us I will give you a big tip, you see? What is your name? Nicolas? Nicolas, take off your sunglasses, show me your eyes, You have very kind eyes Nicolas, I will give you a big tip if you take care of us.”  Nicolas goes off to get their fruit trays and ice buckets, while they all discuss the level of service “It’s not their fault, they are not trained…” Apparently the service in Dubai is better. He shows off further by ordering two bottles of champagne and more wine, about $300 per bottle. This is all very entertaining to us. It’s like an episode of Shahs of Sunset.

That evening, we have pizza in restaurant on the square. Groups of people are waiting for a table, but we two are seated quickly. Hvar is a beautiful city, with an ancient church on the square and the Spanish fortress on the hill. There are no cement apartment buildings or giant hotels to spoil the medieval look of the town, even the newer buildings are designed to fit in. In the night, everything has a warm glow of lanterns and moonlight.

After dinner, we walk around the harbor, and find a corridor of nightspots full of rowdy young people. The bars are small, but fun, one after another along the street. We have to stop in for a drink, check out the scene.

We’re all shoulder to shoulder, the music is awful top 40’s from the bottom of the list, but loud and bouncy. A tall young man talks with us, asking where we’re from. He’s from south of London. He asks me “Can I lift you up in the air?” “Huh?” “Can I lift you in the air?” To Bob, “Can I lift your wife in the air?” “Are you insane?” I ask. “No, really, you’ll love it, can I lift you?” Bob says, “No way, get outta here!”  To me, “He wants to grab your ass!” I hardly think he’d have any trouble doing that in this crowd. He stays close by, with a hopeful look on his face, “Please?!” “You are out of your mind.” He’s only interested in lifting ME in the air, he’s not asking any of the party girls surrounding him. We have to shun him, shut him down, he’s practically stalking me. I have no idea why this happens.

Then a guy comes through the crowd with a horse head mask on his face. It has a long rubber horse snout and a mane of fake hair, and everyone is petting his head and pouring drinks down his toothy rubber horse mouth.  He takes it off and asks Bob “Do you want to wear it!!??” Oh yes, please let me put on your rubber head full of sweat and drool, please!

We stay until 2 am, then head home. We do have a beach to go to tomorrow.

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Hvar