The Crusade

Day 8

8 June 2012

Weather: Well, I’ll let this give you the forecast…

T-shirt count: 0

Cat count: 0 (but our local guide owns 15)

I woke up to bits of litter leading to the square toilet.

Oh great. I’m gonna be paying for a cleaning out of the hotel’s pipe system.

Of course, they’re all gone back to the pool deck for the day. Can you blame them?

Today is a day that if you’re into lounging around a pool and taking it easy, then that is what you should do. Those of us who are not into that took the Hvar Island tour of Stari Grad, Vrboska and Jelsa. About 18 out of the 26 opted for the optional. The rest lounged around the pool or wen to the old town.

We met up with Gasper at 9 am and the local guide was with him. She’s a former war journalist who has converted to Buddism. Apparently, she had 15 cats.

Mums the word!

If they hear about that, I’ll have 330 cats.

We boarded the bus and Jo introduced herself. She told us her Croatian name but no one on the bus even attempted to pronounce it. We settled on Jo no problem. She said that if we come back for a wine tasting tour sometime that we’d be able to pronounce her name by the time that was done.

As we leave Hvar, she tells us that Hvar is generally a safe place to live. It’s not prone to earthquakes. The limestone is so porous that they don’t get floods, but can’t collect much water either (so it’s piped into the island by undersea pipes). They also have no sharks offshore.

But there are two dangers they have to face. Fire and politicians.

The latter is self-explanatory.

The former refers to a major fire the island suffered 9 years ago (one of many apparently, but that one was really bad). They figure a careless tourist tossed a cigarette into the tinder dry forest.

The forest is gone.

For five days, the flames consumed the forest as the high winds pushed it along. They could only work to save the towns (which all have mature trees around them – testament to their success). After five days, the winds died down and they could control the flames.

We took the old route out of Hvar so that we were travelling again on a narrow ribbon of road, meeting up with old friends along the way.

At one point, a car stopped in front of us because there was so little room. The wife jumped out and directed her husband passed the bus.

Foreigners, Jo tells us. They’re the nervous ones on this road.

Yes. We are.

And you think it’s crazy to be on this road in a bus? Try a bicycle!!!

We pass by a lovely little village and Jo tells us that only 8 people live there. 

Depopulation. Hits the small remote spots first.

We make a photo stop at the only place where it was physically wide enough for the bus to pull over. It still occupied ¼ of the road. Boris got out to direct traffic.

One the other side we could see a great example of terracing. They not only use the rocks to make walls, they make terraces. It helps preserve what little soil exists.

Jo said that with so much rock on the island, she considered a rock garden and one day, she moved a bunch of rocks.

The next day, she couldn’t move out of her bed.

Heh.

We drive down towards the coast and pull into Stari Grad. It stands for Old Town, and oddly enough, it’s the oldest town on the island. It’s ideally located at the end of a long narrow harbour so that it’s well protected. The Greeks first settled it 2400 years ago.

We pull into the quiet town and visit a Dominican monastery’s little museum. The most interesting part for me was the olive press remnant still in the floor.

The olives would be crushed in a contraption that isn’t there now but the oil would flow down into the little gutter and be collected. After the visit, we walked down to the harbour, we got an unexpected Hidden Treasure. There was a beautiful set of steps with flowers nicely tended and hanging from a line is a pair of underwear drying in the hot wind.

Gasper said he had ran ahead to put them there. LOL

We walk to the harbour, but there’s no time to take any free time (which would probably mean this could be a full day optional no problem). We reboard the bus and head to the next town a few minutes away called Vrboska. It is along a very long narrow harbour and has seven bridges over the water. It looks a little like Saint Petersburg. Some compare it to Venice.

We walk across a bridge and go in to visit a little fisherman’s museum. Well, about half of us found it interesting enough to stay with the fisherman. Half disappeared outside and Jo wondered why they had left. Being from an island and having fished a bit myself (fly fishing), it was an interesting little display in two rooms. He showed us a grate where they could burn wood and go out at night to fish which would be attracted to the light. The grate evolved into a series of lanterns for the same purpose.

He had a 6 kg lobster on display and a couple of huge crab. And what looked like the snout of a saw fish.

Very interesting.

And the cutest thing he had there was a manual propeller motor for a boat. It has a hand crank and all you have to do is turn the crank to turn the propeller.

Ingenious little device.

Outside the museum, the others joined up. Some wanted a washroom. I wanted a Coke.

Luckily, there was a stall next to the bus.

We didn’t have time to visit any more of the town (again, a full day optional would work. I’m sure there’s more to see there). We left for Jelsa which was only ten minutes away with promises of a washroom and a break. It was obvious to her that some were tired, so I think the tour of Jelsa was cut short. We got to the turn off for Jelsa and Boris stopped and said something to her. She replied and he turned left. She got on the mic and said Boris wanted to go to the nudist beach to the right.

LOL

The funnier part is that she’s not aware of the all the nudist beach jokes that has been going on. It’s like a crusade now. Sooner or later, we’re going to end up at one.

I’ll be on the bus with my camera. It has a 30x zoom.

We got to Jelsa and walked to the harbour and she pointed out the ice cream shop with the washroom and gave us twenty minutes. I visited the washroom and the ice cream display.

And got a Ferreo Roche ice cream.

I walked around the town which didn’t have many shops but picked up a fridge magnet. Jo gathered us up for a short walk through the town and showed us a small chapel in the middle of nowhere. It only gets opened a couple times a year.

We walked in a circle back to the harbour and as she spoke, all eyes landed on a little boy wearing a reflector vest and a police cap and he had the attitude to go with it. He stopped someone on a moped coming out of a street and then issued a “ticket” to someone else. He walked with a straight back and an attitude that said he’s going to be President of Croatia at some point.

 Precious.

So, we left Jelsa and took the new road back to Hvar. On the way, Jo pointed out where she lives in a village that has a population of 3.

That’s if you don’t count the cats.

I just hope it’s not up to 330 right now. Those guys better be with the dentists at the pool.

Back at the hotel, we bid farewell to Jo and I go back to my room to put on a second coat of sunscreen. At 2 pm, I leave for a walk to the Spanish Fortress. There are two ways to get to it. You can walk to the old town and take a brutal set of steps up to the street above the old town then cross the street, pass through a door and take a ramped switchback path up to the fortress.

Or you can leave the hotel and go up to that same street that gently rises up to the door on the street. So much easier on the knees. (The road actually comes to a fork, but there’s a sign for the fortress to the left.) Though, I almost missed the door on the road. You have to keep a sharp eye to the left for the sign.

 It’s not long after you walk under the wall that’s part of the town.

It’s about a 10 minute walk up the switchback which isn’t hard to do. 

When you get to the fortress, there’s a great view from the base. Some people settle for that, but if I’m going to climb that high, I’ll spend the $5 to go into the fortress and get the same view without trees in the way.

 

I’m a castle hound anyway. This one has little in terms of furnishings or battlements but the fortress itself is in good shape and it has a couple of cannons.

There’s also a long set of dark steps down into a prison but my knees said no.

 

I walked back down to the old town and got a calzone and a Coke and found a spot to sit in the shade and chow down. An old local woman with a blue bag was sitting next to me. Before long, I realized she was collecting bottles and I felt a sudden obligation to finish the Coke. And sure enough, as I stood up, she held up the bag.

Too easy.

I walked around to see if there were any more shops open today but it looked like the same shops. So, I found a couple spots and just sat and watched people. 

That’s not hard to do in a place like this. 

I finally made it back to the hotel by 5 pm and made the mistake of getting a cash advance with my Visa. At 7 pm, we showed up at reception to pay Gasper for the optionals, but my visa was declined. I’m hoping it’s because I made the cash advance an hour earlier. I emailed my bank just in case. Gasper said no problem, that I could try it again tomorrow.

I went back to my room to have a nice long hot shower in my funky bathroom and repack my luggage.

Only to find the litter bags had broke.

Guys!!!