Croatia & islands: Brac and Hvar

The Journey!!!

Here I am again, telling you about yet another trip taken by camper (cambri, as friends call it). I apologize if this time I can't give a day-by-day account, but the logbook was burned and the places seen and things done are too many to narrate in detail here, so I will describe this journey within a journey in broad strokes. We set off on Friday the 3rd at night — so late that it was already 1 AM on the 4th. At least it's cool, and after a couple of stops we reach the Slovenian border, where we stop to let ourselves and the cambri rest a bit, then continue, skipping the Slovenian vignette at the border with Croatia. Once we cross the border, we head toward the lakes and Plitvice Nature Park, where we arrive at night and spend the night in the parking lot of a bistro. The next day we wake up comfortably and go to see the nature park, which truly is stunning with its colors and waterways.

The visit to the park takes up the entire day, not to mention our breath, given the very long walk, but it was worth it. Next destination: Split and the ferry to the island of Brač.

Brac Island!!!

As I told you, I'm skipping ahead and cutting the story very short, so here we are arriving at August 7th on the island of Brač. Stunning, wild, hot, sunny, but also crystal clear — wherever you look, you find yourself gazing at a crystalline sea that makes you want to drop everything and go for a nice swim. And so we head straight for the most famous beach on Brač, located in the town of Bol: Zlatni Rat, which, as you can see from the photos, is truly a natural spectacle. Its shape changes with the tides; it's a large beach not of sand but of pebbles, like almost all of Croatia, and it's a playground for windsurfers.

A perfect beach for surfing from different angles, often hit by a constant and frequently strong wind; in any case, it fully deserves the name "Golden Horn." After spending 3 days in Bol and seeing a bit of everything (just wandering around a little is enough to see it all), we decide to spend the rest of the week touring the island to see what else it offers. Every town and every little beach is enchanting and serves as a backdrop to an ever more crystalline sea; the water is so beautiful that people often swim even in the harbor.... absurd but true.

So, leaving Bol, we first head to the island's highest peak, Vidova Gora, then to Konoba Kopacina, a typical and characteristic little restaurant in an inland village (truly excellent cuisine), then toward another natural monument, a rock arch suspended in mid-air, and finally to the town where the first human settlement arose, complete with a visit to the museum for just 2 euros. As our last destination, Split, where the next day another travel companion awaits us before taking another ferry to the other island of Hvar.

Hvar Island!!!

After a night in a parking lot in Split, we go to pick up our friend at the airport. Having some time before the ferry departure, we decide to tour Split by day too, and I must say it's really lovely as a city, especially the historic part (whether you call it ours or Roman) which is very well preserved. We get off the ferry and head toward the town of Hvar, but since we didn't book, they tell us the campsite is full, so we opt for nearby campsites, but the only free and decent one is the one in Jelsa. We make that our base for walks to the nearby beaches, all enchanting though all rocky, so much so that I get the urge to fish again.

So I rig up my old fishing rod and off we go with the fun, so much so that later we even bring the little we caught to the Konoba (little restaurant) we've adopted (both us and him, as a friend), to have them prepare a little soup with those bream caught the same afternoon. Obviously there was more of an appetizer's worth; the real meal was the famous lamb cooked in peka, a large pot that must be placed under the ashes and left to cook for 24 hours. Having seen Jelsa and Vrboska, we decide that at least one night in the VIP town of Hvar must be spent, so we go. I remember reading in a guidebook that the only free parking in the city is right near the Spanish fortress, so we go there and decide to camp there.

Of course it's not the most comfortable spot because it's right next to the fortress and therefore high above the life of Hvar, but walking is good for you, so after visiting the fortress — which apparently had nothing Spanish about it except the masons, since it was built by Venice — we head down the narrow alleys. We thus come to see the Loggia and the Venetian arsenal, as well as the city's most famous church and other monuments scattered about, then we park ourselves on its coast to rest and bask in the sun. The obligatory photos of the beautiful sunset enjoyed from that town, directly over the sea, are not to be missed, and so we walk back "home" to get ready to come down again and go to dinner at the only restaurant in town where they served neither pasta nor pizza nor Coca-Cola, but only typical local products.......wow......just what we needed!!!! Excellent...truly excellent!!!

The Return!!!

On the day of our return, we decide to move closer to Stari Grad, the town from which the ferry to Ancona departs. There, after a very short stroll, we go to the beach; the sea is always stunning, and already the thought of returning tears at us for those last moments of vacation. So we fall asleep in the sun, hoping to wake up in early August so as to still have days and days ahead of us in that magnificent crystalline sea, but unfortunately that's not the case. We return to the cambri, have a quick dinner with some big wursts bought at the supermarket, corn, we finish off the last junk food bought just for the craving, and head to the port where the Jadrolinija ship awaits us for the sad return to Ancona.... waiting for the weekend or vacation time for the next trip.....for the next dream!

See you next time from the Accidental Camper.