Travel Blog: Hvar, Sibenik and Split

Hvar, Sibenik and Split

Here in Hvar we took an island tour by 4x4 that included a stop at a well-known winery on the island. Now these were 4x4 Jeeps, but not the kind you get on a Caribbean island. They were very comfortable, fully enclosed and air conditioned. The only 'rough' road we ever drove was going up to 'Napoleon's Fort', an old bastion that was built on the highest point overlooking Hvar Town. Now it is actually a solar observatory because Hvar apparently gets 220 days of sunshine every year. But this wasn't one of them, in fact, it was an overcast, blustery day with a chance of thunderstorms.

The castle - our viewpoint was much higher

Looking down over Hvar from Napoleon's Fort

A quick view of one of the solar telescopes. It wasn't open
because it wasn't sunny.

On the way to the winery, we passed by Stari Grad, which loosely translates as "the old town", which is one of the oldest and best preserved in the Adriatic. It had been established during Greek or Roman times (these are all starting to blur together now) as a marine base. It was successful because it was very well hidden at the end of a narrow bay and there was also a large flat area where agriculture was established by the Romans. Looking at it from above, it was easy to see how it was never found or invaded.

Overview of Stari Grad

The sky is darkening as we drive by the olive groves...

...and the vineyards.

Croatians are apparently smarter than Greeks; they prune the olive trees after the harvest every year so they don't grow too high, and they continue to produce well. In fact, the oldest olive tree in Croatia is about 1,000 years old and still gives a good annual harvest! In Greece many of the trees are so big that they can't shake the olives down; they have to wait until they fall and the collect them from the ground. That makes the harvest last 2-3 months instead of a few weeks.

Croatia produces quite a lot of olive oil, which is quite surprising given that most of the coastal areas are rock, mainly limestone. This part of the world was once ruled by the ancient Greeks and then under the Roman Empire, and this is when both olives and grapes were introduced. What they have had to do to establish any kind of agriculture was break down and dig up the rock, and then use the resulting 'soil' to plant their crops. That's also why there are so many small brick walls everywhere. The rocks were used to build retaining walls in a sort of terraced fashion so they could take advantage of every inch and plant on the sunny side of the hills. Plus, as our guide so aptly put it, they had to put the rocks somewhere after they dug them up!

One thing both countries have in common is that they all grow olive trees and grapes side by side. They both seem to need similar growing conditions. The difference is that in Greece, almost all of the wine is drunk locally while in Croatia they are making some pretty nice wines for export. Our amazing sommelier, Ramon, was offering them on board during the second part of the cruise.

Hvar is known as the 'St. Tropez' of Croatia because it is a bit of a party town for people from the mainland and especially from Britain. There is a big techno-music festival in Split in August that draws tens of thousands of young people and many of them continue the party in Hvar when it is over. It has become so bad that the local government has had to establish rules of conduct and fines for not obeying them. Here's a picture of the sign:

Our guide also told us they have painted all of the walls in the main square with a special paint that causes pee to bounce off and spray all over the one doing the pee-ing!!! We THINK he was kidding, but in Croatia anything is possible!!!

Our next stop was supposed to be Vis Island, but as the weather reports for Wednesday were for high winds and possible rain, the captain (and ShoreEx) managed to switch the ports of Vis and Sibenik, so we had a very cool and windy trip north. From that, we determined that, as great as Crystal Esprit is in hot weather, it is just the opposite in the cool. Not that the wind created any issues with the ship's stability, that was fine, but the Sunset Bar, where many people would go in the afternoon or before and/or after dinner, is absolutely not usable in inclement weather. So everyone was inside at The Cove instead, which made it a bit crowded.

In Sibenik, we booked a morning tour that went to Krka National Park to see the spectacular waterfalls. It was a good thing we hadn't come a few weeks earlier, as the summer had been so hot and dry that there was very little water in the hills, so there was practically nothing coming down the falls. There had been some pretty heavy rain in the previous week or two so that replenished the sources, and we ended up with some really awesome photos.

Yes! We were both here at the same time!

The local flora (mini cyclamen)...

...and fauna (mallard ducks)

After the park we returned to Sibenik and had a brief tour of the city. After that, as we had free time, we walked up through the narrow alleyways toward the town's fortress.

The cathedral is surrounded by a line of these images of
local people whom the carver thought had interesting faces,
so he incorporated them around the building. There are 72 in all.

The cathedral

The garden of St. Michael's monastery

From the top of the city fortress

Even if we don't see a cat, we see a cat - dressed in the
Croatian flag!

A makeshift garden in one of the narrow streets

Larry giving Crystal Esprit some perspective.

The sun was just starting to come out of the clouds as it was going down.

Once again, we were steeped in local history as our tour from Split took us to the medieval town of Trogir. Since almost everything here dates back to way beyond medieval, it is becoming somewhat repetitive. Another small town with lots of tiny alleyways, steep staircases (although none in Trogir; it is pretty flat as it is on a tiny island), souvenir shops, bars and restaurants - lots of restaurants. The unemployment rate in Croatia is about 24% and we think they all spend their days sitting in outdoor cafes drinking coffee in the morning, and beer or wine in the afternoon!!

A tiny convent courtyard in Trogir

The cathedral bell tower

A local Klapa group. Klapa is a UNESCO recognized
tradition of acappella singing that goes back
hundreds of years.

A portico from Roman times that is now part of the town square.

Guess what? Another bell tower!

Inside the church

Look what we found hidden in a tiny street!

Everywhere we went were little bars and
restaurants in the sidestreets and alleys. Some
had really novel ways of setting tables up on
steep staircases, too.

Returning from Trogir to Split we then toured the Old Town of Split. This is, in fact, the remnants of Diocletian's Palace, Diocletian being the only Roman Emperor who retired from the job rather than be bumped off! After he retired he built an enormous retirement residence in what is now Split, a rectangular structure measuring about 200 x 500 metres, complete with temples, his mausoleum (he was eventually entombed there), his personal living spaces, meeting spaces etc, etc, etc. Over the years, the palace fell into disrepair and ultimately became the Old Town centre. While much of it has been rehabilitated in the last 20 years, there is still a LOT of work left to do.

What is left of the huge reception foyer where
Diocletian would greet his visitors.

People are still living inside the old palace, as they have been for quite some time. It originally housed immigrants in the early 1900s as it wasn't otherwise being used, so the palace became something of a slum. Then people started buying the homes inside as they only cost 10,000 Kuna which was quite a deal. Unfortunately, the houses were confiscated by the government and the whole area was left to ruin during the Yugoslav period. Since independence the current government is trying to return the houses to their rightful owners, but they can only have them back when the current residents (who may have started out as squatters) pass away. So the owners don't want to put any money into them because they can't get any return, and the residents don't want to put any money into them because they don't own them anyway. So, as a result, not much is being done to make old Diocletian's palace look at all palatial.

And who knew that along with settlements and forts the Romans left PIZZA everywhere they went?? We had to keep asking tour guides where we could get authentic Croatian food that wasn't pizza. After almost a week, we finally "hit paydirt" in Split. After our tour we asked our guide if there was anywhere we good get Croatian food that WASN'T pizza, and she recommended her favourite restaurant, Konoba Varos. Lunch was beef stroganoff with boiled potatoes for Larry and a mixed grilled meat plate with grilled veggies for Monica. It tasted as good as it looked!

After a very, very light dinner (we were still stuffed from lunch) we went on our evening tour, a private classical music recital in the Split Library, within Diocletian's Palace. A string quartet played several pieces for our group of about 20 guests.