Hvar

I get a strange feeling that Hvar must be a crazy place in the high season. There are lots of fancy restaurants and nightclubs, all Adriatic sunshine with room for yachts to dock. Now at the start of the season, it is not quite sleepy, as there definitely are tourists here but I get the feeling we are considerably more sedate than the summer clientele.

Breakfast was a buffet of lots of healthy foods and fruits on a terrace overlooking the water. When we finished we headed over to the Venetian built town square and then up to the Venetian fort, some 100 steps above the town. The fort had a moderately interesting display of jugs pulled from shipwrecks but one visits it for its magnificent views, over the town and the neighboring islands. On a cool sunny day it was magnificent. We saw a nunnery where nuns make lace it of agave but alas they only open for an hour a day. We also saw lots of agave plants - some 40-50 year old plants getting ready to flower before they die.

After finishing the fort, we headed by car to the top of the island to look at the lavender mounds just starting the flower blooms. Years ago, a blight wiped out vineyards so Croatians started planting lavender. They now have a small industry making lavender items and of course the lovely spring mounds getting ready to bloom. We also saw at agricultural terraces built by piling the rocks found in the dirt while making the land ready for agriculture. These create terraces and borders. We also saw the houses built by families who have been on this land for hundreds of years. Many houses have extensions built on to them - you can tell them by their roofs - as when a new generation needs a new house, the family just adds on.

We decided to walk to our beach lunch and Willis decided to collect natural of food related items we found. He ended up with 14 different kinds, wild oregano, rose hops, calindre, thyme, dill as we meaded to the beach through olive groves.

The beach afforded a chance to swim and so we did, my first full body Adriatic dip, before we settled down to lunch? I had scampi bouzara, whole, large shrimp or prawn things in a local sauce. The scampi were a lot of work to get open but the meat was good. Note the hiking boots with the beach coverup. There is a swimsuit photo or two but they won't see the light of day.

The afternoon hike was along the coast, over rocky trails, in and out of coves before we came back into Hvar and treated ourselves to gelato.