Tag Archives: Landscape

Day 12 – It is a Hvar, Hvar better thing that we do

September 26th. Today’s destination was the island – and the town – of Hvar, the sunniest island in the Croatian archipelago, with 2,718 hours of sunshine a year (over 7.5 hours a day on average!). It was a couple of hours sailing from Brač, and, though the bura wind had dropped, we were running before it and its resultant seas, which meant a fair degree of rocking and rolling.

This was actually moderately dramatic at times as it had the seating on deck shifting around – whether people were sitting in them or not.

Perla is 100 feet long, which is too long to be permitted into Hvar harbour, so we anchored in a sheltered location by (and to) a piece of rock which forms part of the Paklinski islands,

and a chap with a motor boat came to take us off for our visit to Hvar town, which enabled a nice view of Perla at anchor.

You get a good overview of Hvar as you approach from the sea

and particularly a splendid view of the fort which overlooks it (and helped protect it during the 16th century).

Indeed, it was the fort – Fortica, locally called Španjola after Spanish workers who help build it during the 15th century – which was our first destination as we explored Hvar. Building it started in 1278 and a new fortress – the one which sheltered the inhabitants during a Turkish Ottoman invasion in 1571 – was built on the site starting in 1551.

It’s a handsome construction

and offers some great viewpoints over Hvar itself,

as well as having on display several artifacts from Greek and Roman times (Hvar’s history actually goes back thousands of years BC). There are also some interestingly-shaped chimneys, reminiscent of the “praying hands” style which we have seen in the Azores.

There’s a walkway which leads between town and fort, offering more great views over Hvar

which we walked and then stepped down

finally arriving at a Benedictine convent, now also a museum named after local poet Hanibal Lucić. The main attraction of the museum is the display of the extraordinarily intricate and fine patterns made by the nuns in Agave (also called Aloe) Lace. The patterns really are breathtakingly lovely.

The lace is made with fibres painstakingly extracted from agave leaves, which are graded for thickness and then woven into these patterns using an unusual needle, which has an eye at each end. Apparently, gloves are needed these days to protect the hands of the nuns from an allergic reaction to the oil in these fibres.

After a well-earned coffee break (which also featured beer), Jane and I went for a wander round Hvar, which is a really attractive place. This being September 26, it was right at the end of the season and so relatively quiet; I’m told that the town has quite a young crowd in during the height of the season and thus can be somewhat raucous. But we liked it and the various views and sights such as: the cathedral;

the main square as viewed from on top of the theatre;

various lion carvings, which are evidence of its Venetian influence;

a lovely tree being propped up on the harbour side;

more interesting chimneys;

the (now neglected) church of St. Mark;

a Franciscan monastery (which still has about three monks in it, we’re told);

(I note with amusement that the statue of the boy in the foreground appears to presage modern fascination with social media); and nice harbourside walks with views of the town and fort.

All too soon it was time for a cocktail and to head back to the boat in the fading light

after which we just had time for a swift one before dinner. The crew played guessing games with us about the fish which formed the main course. It was delicious, but I think no-one (and certainly not I) would have guessed that it was shark – local white shark, apparently, a fish that grows to about two metres long. Dinner was supplemented by some very nice red wine which our two Australian (and clearly oenophile) group members, John and Greg, had generously bought for the meal, so a merry time was had by all.

Tomorrow’s itinerary takes us to Split, and it will be an afternoon visit with different light and hence different photographs from our previous visit. All that will be covered in the next gripping episode. See you there!

Day 9 – Korčula, and drama on the high seas. Or rather, a tiff in the harbour.

September 23rd. At bang on 0600, the engines of the Perla roared into life and sleep thus became impossible. To be fair, we were warned in the information we got that there would be engine noise, and so had packed the recommended earplugs. But they were in my spongebag rather than my ears, and less effective therefore. I shall not hesitate to use them should we be moving at night.

The mission of the day was to get to Brač before the weather closed in – Filip was talking about northerly gales, and I trusted his information sources (Tom, our skipper) better than the BBC Weather App which was forecasting showers and a north-easterly stiff breeze. Anyhoo, Tom put the hammer down and we were off!

There was one break in the journey, to visit the island of Korčula, which is a couple of hours’ motoring from Slano. This gave us time to suss out the breakfast, which was nice but made me very glad about all those Twinings Earl Grey teabags we’d packed, and then we were being ushered off the boat to meet local guide Željka. If nothing else, at least week one had prepared me for being able to spell her name correctly. It became clear that much of the (perforce) short visit was going to be spent in the local museum, which Filip had arranged to be opened especially for our group, which was a nice touch. However, faced with a new and handsome town,

and with camera in hand, my thoughts tend not to turn to museum visits, but rather to pottering around looking for nice scenes. So we excused ourselves from the rest of our group and wandered about, trying to find parts of Korčula town which were not full of Asian tourists taking selfies. It’s a small town, so this wasn’t altogether straightforward. But we managed to find some scenes which I hope you agree are reasonably photogenic.

Very near the quay where Perla was moored is a handsome staircase which was part of the old city’s walls (much of which are still intact).

The top debouches on to the cathedral square, which would have made a lovely photo were it not for the hordes of people there. Adjoining this square there is a another, smaller one

which took several minutes to photograph, as I had to wait for the oriental tour party to move on.

Just off the cathedral square is an art shop, which has a captivating display on the outside walls.

We’re not sure whether they’re for display or for sale (though I’d hazard a guess at the latter), but it’s a lovely way to display items to get people’s attention.

We did pop into the cathedral, but only for a few seconds as someone scolded Jane for wearing shorts, so we apologised and beat a hasty retreat. I felt somewhat aggrieved on Jane’s behalf, as there were ladies inside with skirts far shorter and men in shorts, none of whom were being berated. I suppose that the modern thing to do, having taken offense on someone else’s behalf, is to stir things up via a social media shitstorm with a catchy hashtag – #handsoffmywifesshorts, or something.

Anyway, we wandered on and discovered, radiating out from the cathedral square, several narrow lanes along which you can clearly see evidence of the lives of ordinary people being lived, alongside the inevitable cafes and restaurants.

All in all, Korčula town is a very agreeable place to potter around for an hour or so and I could have spent longer getting some more imaginative shots. But I hope that these give you a flavour of how pleasant the place is.

Next stop – Brač. In our previous week, we visited Bol (the principal town on the island), but our target today was a different place, Milna, which we thought would be just this little place and a venue for a meal out on the town.

The reality was a little different, and the weather played quite a part in this.

As we approached Milna, an interesting landmark was a sunken boat which was being supported by salvage buoys.

and it became clear that (a) there is a significant marina here and (b) the sailing world and his dog were headed towards it, driven by reports of the gale that Filip had mentioned – the channel in was quite crowded. Our captain had a shouting match with another vessel which clearly didn’t understand about navigation priorities under these circumstances and, as we tied up at the quay in the marina, the guy in charge there was frantically challenging all arriving boats and turning away any that didn’t have a reservation, as the marina was full. All of the boat crew said that they’d never seen it so crowded.

The late afternoon and evening light in Milna made it a pretty place.

The moon was full

and the sunset colours were lovely.

We had a very tasty and fishy evening meal to round off the day. Walking back to Perla, it was very difficult to believe that there was a storm brewing. But there was – and you’ll have to read all about it in the next entry. See you there!

Day 6 – Too, The Woods!

September 20th. I billed the start time of today as “relaxed” – 0830 – but things still seemed to be a bit rushed as we went for a (rather sparse) hotel breakfast and then dashed about getting ready, including me trying to remember which bits I needed to take with me in order to whizz the drone up at lunchtime and discard anything excess in the backpack (we’d been told that there was about a 300m ascent which, in the context of the week, isn’t much, but – still….) and so I wanted to carry the minimum I could.

So I discarded a heavy DSLR and a fairly heavy video camera, thinking, “Hah! that’ll make the backpack lighter!” However, there appears to be a discontinuity in the laws of physics around my backpack, which stubbornly insisted on being exactly as heavy as it had been all week with those things in it. Go figure.

Ominously, on this morning, we were transported by a pair of LandRovers instead of our usual comfy tour bus MPVs. Everything seemed OK for a few kilometres as we followed a (much more comfortable-looking) Mercedes people carrier and a couple of pickups up an (admittedly steep) road. I was beginning to think that the LandRovers were just theatre when all of a sudden we swung off a perfectly good road on to a narrow and rough gravel track – with passing places and potholes. Despite the best efforts of the lad driving our LandRover, all my teeth were just about still in place by the time we stopped and got out to start on our walk.

(in the photo above, you can see our high point – the lefter of the two saddles in the mountainsides).

So we started out, and entered – bliss! – shade for the uphill part of the walk.

The trees in the photo above are showing that they suffered some damage in the forest fires of June 2017, but not enough to kill them – though the hillsode was littered with the corpses of pines that didn’t make it; trees just cut down to make them safe and then abandoned because noone could figure out what to do with the trunks.

The track wound up

and up

enabling me to establish my place in the order of things, which is firmly at the back of any group going uphill. Every so often there was a decent view on offer.

and Željko explained some of the geography of the route. At one stage, he darted off the path and came back with a vast wild mushroom

which we actually ate later that day, over lunch (of which more later).

The walk wound down through some lovely beech forest (which, as well as being attractive

was in shade, so for a few short moments I actually enjoyed the walking instead of cursing uphill effort or downhill stones).

There were a few items of note on our way downhill to lunch. For example, evidence of some scientific experimentation being done to explore insect life which was beginning to affect the local pines,

some unusual rock formations,

which Željko referred to as “radiators”, because of the vertical grooves etched by erosion, and some mystery berries.

Željko referred to these as “Cornell berries” and offered them to people to taste. Jane had a bite and immediately condemned them as being too sharp, which meant that they would have turned my face inside-out, so I declined the opportunity. But it transpired that one can use them to make a liqueur, more of which later (again).

Nice as the woodland was, I beginning to get decidedly fed up with kilometer after kilometer of shambling downhill on an occasionally rocky track. So it was, on the face of it, wonderful when we stumbled across our lunch stop, which is a mountain hut called Ramića Dvori, run by a charming rogue chap called Mario, who specialises in serving a local-recipe bean soup. We knew about it, because we’d had to put in our orders the day before, and Željko asked us if anyone particularly wanted vegetarian bean soup. It didn’t take long for someone on the group to point out that bean soup should in and of itself just be vegetarian, and it turns out that this bean soup actually includes sausage and so is technically a stew. It is my hard and fast rule not to post photos of food, so you’ll have to imagine a kind of ragoût, ‘cos you won’t see a picture. It was delicious and by the time we got there, everyone was palpably starving.

I mentioned that I’d taken the drone with me, and I managed to get a couple of snaps of Mario and the terrace we were lunching on.

Mario was fascinated by the drone:

I mentioned “Cornell berries” earlier. Jane, having tasted (and spat out) one, thought that perhaps these were cornelian cherries. This thesis was confirmed as it turned out that Mario actually made some of the aforesaid liqueur (along with various other hooches of undoubtedly more suspicious provenance). On tasting, it seemed to be wonderful, so a few extra Kuna went Mario’s way so that we could buy a bottle of it. And the proof of the berries is on the label

It tastes lovely in the Croatian mountains – let’s hope the taste transfers seamlessly back to the UK, ‘cos otherwise that’s seven quid down the drain, or maybe saved for unwelcome guests.

Before we left, Mario insisted not only on singing us a song, accompanied by his accordion, but also dragged random passers-by into help him. Just goes to show what a charming rogue the man is.

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And so we departed and continued the long road down back to the Starigrad entrance to the Paklenica National Park.

To paraphrase Hoffnung, on the journey down we met a donkey coming up. Well, actually, I think it’s a mule, but that’s got the wrong number of syllabs. OK, there were other donkeys as well, I just didn’t get the photo of them.

This underlines that the only way to get to and from this mountainside is on the track we were walking – no roads, no cars. So, for example, Mario has to walk two hours down the track at least once a week during the tourist season, and load up his donkey(s) with the supplies necessary to keep himself, his helpers and his restaurant going. There’s dedication for you.

On the way, we passed other places where we could have stopped for lunch or for refreshment, but Ramića Dvori made up in charm what it lacked in menu variety. And anyway, it had beer – there’s nothing more important that that!

As we headed to the park’s exit, we passed (and were subsequently passed by) a mountain rescue team who had been out on a practice session which, sadly, had ended badly. And it became clear that we were in serious mountain climbing territory. There’s a particular face, called “Anića Kuk”, which features some serious climbs, including one in the global top 10 most difficult. Looking at the rock face, one can imagine this is so.

and all around us there were people climbing and practising.

By this stage, we had walked some 13 kilometres and, given an 8-seater bus to take the twelve of us back to the hotel, were offered a choice, for those not lucky enough to get in the first shift: carry on walking; or wait 20 minutes for the bus to come back. Reader, there were those in our group insane enough to volunteer to walk. Aged and wise as I am, I sometimes struggle to understand my fellow mortal. You can be sure that my sharp elbows got me on the first bus home.

After a shower and a rest, Jane and I decided to go for a stroll to explore the fleshpots of Starigrad Paklenica. This turned out to be a swiftly-executed task – it’s not a big place – but did involve seeing a nice sunset,

which set us up nicely for a couple of G&Ts before taking a well-deserved early night.

During the long, long stumble down 1,000m vertical, I decided that I’d had enough of walking in this heat. Uphill, which I hate anyway, is torture for me in 30° heat, and downhill on uneven, lumpy, stony paths had taken their toll on my knees, ankles and goodwill. Knowing that the next day’s walking was going to involve a 600m ascent in unbroken sunshine enabled my subconscious to come up with an excuse to stay at home – these blogs don’t write themselves, you know, and I was two days behind. So I resolved to use Day 7 to catch up with this blog. So the one about Day 7 – the final day’s walking – will actually be photographed and written by Jane. That, if anything, should be the tempter you need in order to keep you reading…..