The penultimate day on our Intrepid tour of the Balkans and the Dalmatian Coast is a free day. We were in no rush to get going after yesterday’s early start. It’s important to take any opportunity to actually rest a bit when on holidays like this one. The days at this time of year in this part of the world are long so nothing’s lost by starting the day a little later.
By about 10am we found ourselves in town, intending to take the bus from Hvar Town to somewhere. Kerry had purloined a bus time-table yesterday to give us an idea of what our options might be. Quite limited, as it turned out. The bus service on Hvar Island has four destinations, each with limited services, services that are closely aligned with the arriving and departing ferries that visit each if them. Consequently, our only viable option was the 12:15 bus to the town of Stari Grad in the other side of the island. We bumped into James and Geraint who were on the same wave-length as we were and then Guido who had no firm plans so together we took the bus to Stari Grad – a whole five Euros for the 30 minute journey. Because of the aforementioned ferry service dictates the return bus was going to leave for Hvar Town at 2:30pm leaving not much time for exploration. Oh well, we agreed we’ll deal with that at the time.
We’d been led to believe that Stari Grad is one of the oldest towns in the whole of Europe. Not sure what caveats are applied for that claim to be made though. It would have to be as old as or older than many towns (like London) that were once a part of the Roman Empire for that to be true. UNESCO thinks its worth preserving and giving special status to so who am I to disagree. After lunch at a little cafe owned by a cheery young chap and his wife, just starting out, we walked to the tourist bureau for information about our return travels options. Seems that, cost-wise, the bus is by far the best option, pity about the restrictive time-table. A taxi is about 40 – 50 Euros while a boat is right out of the question at more than 100 Euros. A chap and his taxi waiting at the tourist bureau said he’d take us back for 50 Euros and give us a running commentary about Hvar Island all the way home. So we took his card, decided that we’ prefer to miss the bus and not the town and wandered off to explore the lane-ways.
A lot of UNESCO money is being sunk into addressing water-related issues in the old town so as to not pollute the harbour. Everywhere we walked there was drainage work underway and the subsequent re-of the lanes and squares. In a few year’s time when the work is completed Stari Grad will be more popular with tourists, I reckon. Today it was very quiet. They need to review the bus time-table too if they want more tourists to visit. When we’d seen all we could see we returned to the taxi-stand and took the services of the chap we spoke to earlier. Five passengers at 50 Euros for the trip makes the taxi ride twice as expensive as the bus, but it turned out to be money well spent. As promised, we got a non-stop commentary from our driver all the way back to Hvar Town. He was an amusing fellow whose knowledge of Hvar Island and the locals who lived there kept us entertained for the whole journey.
While the boys hooked up with some others from our group for a drink by the marina, Kerry and I walked around the headland in search of perhaps our last swim on the Dalmatian coast. We found a quiet little pebbled beach not for away and dived into the waters there. For me it was my fourth swim in four days! The water was a bit fresh to wade into and the air temperature was just warmish but in we went anyway! As is always the case, one should never pass up rare opportunities like that, to swim once more in the Adriatic Sea, because there’s no telling when or if the chance will ever arise again.
Back to our room we went to change for dinner. We were due at a restaurant not far from where we had just swum by 7:00pm. The view of the setting sun on the houses on the hill on the far side of the marina was glorious. Our table was on an airy, covered decking in the front of the restaurant. The prices in the menu were as steep as the hillside opposite so everyone was searching for the most affordable meal for themselves. While the wait staff were nice people the level of service fell well short of the what one might expect at an establishment with a price list like that. The meals were served in a rather hap-hazard fashion with James’ meal being returned to the kitchen a couple of times before he considered it to be satisfactory and, believe me, James is an easy going chap. A couple of reminders were sent to the kitchen for missing dishes, including part of Kerry’s order. My calamari was good, nevertheless. After dinner some kicked on in town for a drink or two while Vicky, Kerry and I called it a night.
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