Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Adriatic Island Hopping Finale: St. Klement-Hvar Town-Stari Grad

With only two nights left on our week at sea, the horizon was near and we began to get depressed that this amazing trip is coming to a conclusion. As we woke up in St. Klement, you walk to the back of the boat and see 15 feet to the bottom of the sea as if we are floating the water was so clear. We had a short hike on the island before pulling up the anchor and making way to Hvar. We left at about 12:30 to get there in attempt to get a mooring spot along the promanade. This would not be so however, as for some reason the most busy harbor we made it to during the week had some of the fewest mooring spots. We quickly gave up on getting a spot and instead took one of the mooring lines on the other side of the harbor. While we had to dingy into the promanade, the commanding views of the city were great. Also, despite the traffic in the harbor, the water was some of the clearest of the week, we could jump in the water without hesitating. We got settled, helped an english couple with a bum propeller get moored up, then had some pizza in the historic square of Hvar, dating from the 1500s. The city was definitely more touristy then the others we visited, but it was still beautiful, with old buildings, churches, and lots of history. We walked around for a while, took a nap on the boat (Erin was especially cute), and then had some cheese, bread, and wine for dinner. We had more wine than needed, which got the girls into the dancing mood when we made it back to land for the evening. After dancing on the promenade for 15 minutes at one bar, we went to the imfamous Carpe Diem, which was a cool bar in a great location (like all bars we went to this week), but definitely not worth all the international hype it gets. Afterwards we made it to our second fortress night club of the trip, which was an awesome club with a great setting perched on top of the harbor of Hvar town. There was even a swimming pool that people were dancing in. It was almost a cancun-style party in a 13th century fortress, definitely a unique experience and it was nice to have people our age, unlike our Rick Steve's recommended Dubrovnik spot filled with kids nearly half our age (depressing).

We didn't get much sleep that night as the club took us till 4:30am, and we were up at 8:30am, waking up to a beautiful sunrise over the renaissance city. We had a quick cappuccino, got a few more essentials for lunch and set sail to the other side of Hvar island, to Stari Grad (it was either Stari Grad or Vbroska, but Erin beat me in paper, rock scissors, so it was SG). We stopped in an idilyic cove that was full of sunbathers (mostly nude, but we were immune to those particular sight). The ladies made a terrific lunch while Ryan and I explored on land for a couple minutes, and we enjoyed our final cove swim of the trip in the most calm waters of the trip, we didn't even need to drop anchor if need be...and we are at sea!?!?
After the lunch, swim, and such, we headed to Stari Grad, the oldest of the stone villages we moored during the trip, dating to the 1300's, but some of the foundations of the current city buildings were built on roman ruins, as this was a roman outpost 1800 years ago.
We walked around the city for a while, taking in the scerenity of the narrow cobblestone walkways (to narrow to call streets) surrounded by quaint stone cottages and buildings. After a few games of cards and finishing the last of the Croatian butterscotch liquor we bought in Jelsa, we headed to Emeritas for dinner, an old hermitage on the outskirts of town whose chapel is still in use today....as the wine cellar (only house wine served here). We had an amazing meat tray, followed by a mediocore fish tray, walked home for the championship of the weeklong cribbage tourney (Ryan beat Erin in a landslide - hard to accept still), and Ryan and I finished the last bottle of wine on the trip; we purchased most of our wine on the trip based on the existance of a donkey on the lablel or not. When in Croatia, go donkey label or go home!!!
The next morning we had one last dip in the Adriatic surrounded by killer bees before we returned the boat to learn that we had to purchase an unusual souvenier during the week....our anchor that we allegedly bent during the week. Too bad for the low-cost european airlines luggage restrictions, because that would've fit well above Meaghan and Ryan's fireplace back home!
It was definitley a trip of a lifetime and might be our last time to pretend to live the high life yachting the adriatic in seach of Buoey Boy and Bridgette. Maybe next time we'll see them at Carpe Diem:-)

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