Happy in Hvar

Wednesday, March 21 and Thursday, March 22, 2012

After a rather unsettling day in Split on Tuesday, March 20, we decided to head to Hvar Island, the sunny jewel of the Croatian islands on the Adriatic, but I’m going to digress and tell you about Split first.

After our visit to Plitvice Lakes National Park, we headed down the Dalmation Coast to Split—a medieval town that’s home to Diocletian’s Palace. We learned a lesson on why you should not just drive a car into a city and try and find a place to stay—and also about preconceived notions. I thought Split was going to be a small town on the coast despite having read in the Lonely Planet guidebook that’s it’s the second largest city in Croatia. It’s akin to driving into Philly or DC and figuring that you can find a free place to park when you don’t know what you are doing.

Room with a view but little else!

Long story short, we found a place to park for the night (after sitting in the car for nearly two hours) and took a room above what turned out to be one of the main squares with buses stopping every 5 minutes, but we made the best of it by having the most enjoyable meal we’ve had in the past two weeks in a wonderful restaurant in the Old City and walking around Diocletian’s Palace which turns out to be the coolest place to shop I’ve ever experienced! We wandered around the streets, and I took some pictures, but it was getting dark and I didn’t get much. The influence of the Italians was evident; the waterfront reminded us of the Doge’s Palace in Venice.

Split monument

I had a Fawlty Towers experience. I walked into a hotel’s reception area and told the guy behind the bar right next to the reception desk that I had a question about parking and could he get the person for reception? He walked through a door between the bar and reception area, assumed a mischevious grin, and said, “Can I help you?” and we both laughed—and then he did help me.

Waiting in Drvenik for the ferry

We woke up early to the garbage trucks doing their thing, and decided to head to the ferry port of Drvenik some two hours down the coast and pick up the ferry to Hvar Island. We could have taken the ferry right from Split (and most people do), but it was a lot more expensive as well as a longer ferry ride to leave from there. The Drvenik ferry was cheaper, we could get more driving along the coast in, and then we’d have to drive 77 kilometers through the island because the Drvenik ferry drops you at the other end.

Remind you of Lomnica Stit?

After a 30-minute ferry ride with no visibility in front of us because of the mists rolling over the mountains, I took a picture and asked Don if going into the unknown was the theme of our travels! Somehow the picture I took of the ferry heading into the unknown looked exactly like the picture we took of the cable car in Slovakia when we ascended the Lomnica Stit!

A quick shot whilst driving the 77 k to our apartment

Here's the dining room and kitchen

View from the large balcony--I don't think we are going to want to leave here!

Right after sunset from the balcony

Having the internet and the international GPS on this trip is a godsend. We found a place in Hvar using the internet and found the place physically using the GPS. I don’t know if we could have found where we are staying without the GPS. Those of you who know Don, know that he’s always up for an adventure, and I thought we were driving through people’s backyards to get here—but the GPS was right and got us to the Apartmani Marinka Viskovic on Ivana Bozitkovica in Hvar.

Don has found his favorite room in the apartment!

Roughing it for the last few days, we decided that we wanted to kick back and spend a few days at the next destination. We could not have found a better place. We rented a third-floor apartment that overlooks the Adriatic and provides an unrivaled view of the sunset. Don keeps saying that he doesn’t think he’ll ever leave the tiled deck which is as big as some of the rooms we’ve had the past few days! Don will be posting those pictures as well as some of the pictures from our drive up to Hvar Town—where we are told it’s always sunny—kind of like Philadelphia right?

Don spoke about shopping in the grocery store in an earlier entry. Ignoring the fact that I really don’t like grocery shopping period (it always takes me too long as I ponder what to buy), I find it really difficult to figure things out. I’m trying to see if they have Half and Half, am finally convinced that I’ve found it—and then Don tells me that it’s goat’s milk—which I think is pretty funny because now I see where it IS goat’s milk—I guess it’s just wistful thinking on my part.

We've seen lots of dramatic sunsets, but this one is one of the best! We'll see if we can get a better one tonight

As stated previously, we have to be careful about technology. While it can make our travels and arrangements easier, we need to be sure that we don’t get taken over by it and spend too much time mediating life through the computer instead of going out and seeing it firsthand—which is what I am going to do right now...