Listening to Crabba

Day 7

7 June 2012

Weather: sunny, high 20s!

Cat count: 0

T-shirt count: 2

It’s days like this that you begin to really appreciate the At-Leisure part of the tour. How often can you say that you sleep in on tour? I did this morning. I will tomorrow morning.

The sun is up and there’s no sign of the cats. There are 316 loungers on the pool deck. That leaves one for the pool boy.

I haul on my Slovenia t-shirt and shorts (woohoo!!) and head up for breakfast at 8. I realized what was missing from the other hotels. French toast.

Ummm…um. And I had time for tea.

The view from the reception and restaurant is amazing. 

We meet up with Gasper in the reception for 9 am. As we’re waiting for the guide, Gasper asks me where I got my Slovenian t-shirt. It says Slovenia on it and has a coat of arms of some sort. I tell him I got it at the Bled Castle.

He chuckles and says the coat of arms is actually a kind of symbol for the ultranationalists in Slovenia.

As he describes this, I slowly cross my arms to cover the front. LOL

But he says I’m okay in Croatia. Southern Austria might be another story. It might raise a few eyebrows.

So, I’ll leave it in Canada the next time I go to Austria.

I imagine the clerk who sold it to me chuckling herself. Kinda like going to Quebec and buying a t-shirt that says Vive la Quebec Libre and wearing it in English Canada. LOL

Our guide, a school teacher, shows up and tells us it’s a holiday on Hvar. We seem to be hitting the holidays everywhere we go. We go down to the pool deck and walk out to the coastal walkway that seems to go for miles in both directions.

It’s a short ten minute walk to the Old Town along this walkway. It’s wide, well maintained and very safe. 

As we walk, the guide tells us that de-population is a big problem on Hvar. Except during the high season. Then their dwindling 11,000 inhabitants swells by 20,000 to 40,000. There is a fortress called the Spanish Fortress above the old town. Apparently, it’s best for its views. There no artifacts and that there. I plan to go up during our free time tomorrow afternoon. There’s a second fortress on a higher hill and she said it’s an astronomical observatory now.

Darn. Too far for me to walk.

The guide tells us that water is a real problem on the island. Since it’s limestone, the rain tends to run right through the rock. There’s enough water on the island for the population, but not for the tourists.

Good thing I brought some of my own.

To rectify this, they pipe it in from the mainland in pipes on the sea floor.

The guide brings us around to the main square then around the alleyways. 

 

We pass by a monastery where the nuns make lace from a plant very similar (and related to) aloe vera. It was closed today so that we couldn’t see how much something the size of coaster would cost us.

I can just imagine.

And since it’s closed, that’s all we can do.

There are not a lot of souvenir shops. It’s mostly lavender, swimming gear and pastries.

And hats.

Lots and lots of hats of every description. They sell hats the same way they sell umbrellas in the UK. Not unexpected in the sunniest spot in Europe.

Next to the harbour, our guide showed us a map of Hvar that also noted it had been voted among the ten most beautiful islands in the world. The others were Anguilla, Bali, Bora Bora, Capri, Kavai, Mykonos, Ponza, Upola and Zanzibar.

I’m assuming it’s only small islands. That would explain why Newfoundland isn’t there.

Heh.

She went on to say that there are no hospitals on the island. Only an ambulance. Because of this, pregnant women go to Split a month in advance to have their babies, but sometimes, they leave late or the baby arrives early. If it’s born on the ferry, it gets free passage for life.

But only the baby. The mom still has to pay to get back to Hvar.

The guide let us loose on the town at 10:30 and Gasper told us we had 3 hours in the town and we could make our own way back to the hotel. We have to meet him for our Be My Guest lunch at 1:30.

I walk off to check out the shops and the pastries. Pickings are slim for the souvenirs, but I’m hoping it’s because of the holiday. I pick up a couple t-shirts and fridge magnets. I even find my “cat” figurine for Hvar.

I wander back to the hotel at 12:30 and rest my feet.

Ahhhhhhh!! This is At Leisure!

The cats think the same thing. They have taken over the pool deck though some of them are checking out the dentists coming in for their convention. They’re looking for the cylinders of laughing gas.

At 1:30, we board the bus and head across to the north side of the island for our BMG lunch in a little ghost town call Humac. It’s about an hour’s drive and the last half hour is on the scariest road I’ve ever been on in a tour bus. 

 

Holy cow, Croatia! Guard rails! Invest in them.

Or a wider road!

LOL

Actually, I don’t think there’s enough room on the edge of these roads to put a guard rail up. And when I say edge, I mean edge. It’s like a concrete shoulder that just drops off.

Add to the fact that the road is barely wide enough for two cars (or half a car and one tour bus). We have hairpin turns along the way. And cars that like to speed that come around those corners to face a monolith of a bus.

Gasper asked us to stay seated. Boris would have to slam on the brakes several times.  

From my perspective in the third seat back, I could look straight down the side and wonder how he managed to keep the bus wheels on the road.

Absolutely amazing driving. Good on you, Boris!

We get to the top and turn into an even narrower driveway that leads to the home. So narrow, there are branches extending over the road in places.

Remember, this is a new bus.

There isn’t a scratch on it.

Well, there wasn’t a scratch on it.

It’s a good thing we don’t know Croatian swear words.

LOL

We pull into a spot where there are buildings made from what looks like flagstones. Even the roof uses them.

Probably because of the winds. Nothing is blowing these houses down.

There is a whole town of similar buildings here but only the host family lives here. The rest have left because of the lack of work and good soil.

I’m guessing they didn’t want to drive that road every day to work elsewhere.

Gasper calls this a ghost town. We expect to meet his relatives later.

We sit on picnic-like tables that look out over grapevines and the coast of Croatia. 

With no wind and 28 degrees, it was amazing. Lunch was a choice of octopus or a lamb/veal combo. Gasper got me a vegetarian dish since we couldn’t tell the lamb from the veal. I sampled what I thought was veal (and it tasted like beef) but had the eggplant dish for the full meal. Gasper managed to convince me to try the octopus. 

LOL. He said it was okay if I wanted to spit it out and one of the others cut me a piece off his plate.

It was pretty bland but had a slight fishy taste. Not enough to spit it out, but enough to say I’ll stick with the eggplant.

We had two cookies for dessert – one was gingerbread. Mine looked oddly like a cat.

And Gasper brought out the house brandy. I went for the Grappa (sp?). 

I should call it the Flaming Grappa.

Then Gasper said it was time to visit the Hidden Treasure and say hello to the in-laws. He gets a huge, old-fashioned key from the owner and leads us through the ghost town. 

No one is home, apparently.

He brings us up to a church that the host family has been preserving. It’s a very small, plain church but he’s keeping it in good shape.

 

This sign was outside the church:

We took it to mean we all had to take off our bras and undies.

We step inside the church, which barely has enough room for all of us and one woman decides to sing a religious type of song. The place has good acoustics. 

Gasper said that no one has done that before and that it even gave him “chicken skin.”

Took us a moment to catch that one.

Heh.

He leads us back to the bus and we all prepare for the harrowing ride back down. It’s 5 pm and I’d hate to do this later in the year when it might be dark. Coming up to the town, we were on the inner lane, so approaching traffic had to pass us on the edge. Now we’re on the outside and have to pass on the edge.

And we met two trucks.

And a speeding car that couldn’t brake in time and managed to just squeeze in between the bus and the rockface.

What fool speeds on a road like that?

Cause if he had scratched Boris’ nice new coach, he would have had 26 of us to deal with.

Heh.

We make it down the side in one piece and Gasper asks if we need anything.

Yeah. My wits!

And we have to go back over that again on Saturday when we head for the ferry at the far end of the island.

As we drive, he puts on some Croatian pop music that really sounds like Abba in Croatian. He tells us it’s a Croatian group from the 80s called the New Fossils.

One Aussie asks if he’s playing the New Fossils for the Old Fossils.

He chuckles and says they are older than us now. He said they don’t exist anymore.

Guess that makes them really Old Fossils.

He adds that the group doesn’t exist anymore. He says they’re still alive.

And still Old Fossils.

But their Croatian Abba routine is pretty good. (We dubbed it Crabba).

We get back to the hotel just after six and have the night to ourselves. I settle down, do laundry, download photos and do a lot of typing.

I’m not much of a pool person – and even less-so given that it’s full of cat hair.

They spend the evening checking  out the square toilet. They still don’t believe it’s not a litter box.