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Croatia Day 3: Bol (Brač) and Hvar

/ kw1385 / Leave a comment

We have loved every moment of our 22.5 hours in the town of Bol on the island of Brač. We woke up this morning still feeling so happy about our wonderful evening, so before I continue with an account of today, I want to go back to yesterday and bring in Rachel for some additional commentary.

So. First. Bol. Wow. This island is beautiful, quaint, fun. Dinner last night blew our socks off. As we walked, searching for it along the coast, it was the last place we were going to check out before turning back. Lo and behold, the most affordable yet most beautiful restaurant on the water, the one we were looking for. From the view, to the food, to the free shots of grappa from the owner, we were home. They even asked if we were coming back the next day, and sadly we had to say no. Note to the family: we are all coming back to Bol for a week and eating here several nights.

After dinner we decided we’d see what else Bol had to offer and check out this cool/chill cocktail bar that at night became a cool/wild cocktail bar. We danced until we had said we would leave after this song a couple of times 🙂 this island is beyond. Now back to Kendra!

Yes, you might say we were Bol-ed over by Brač. 🙂

This morning the plan was to go up to the highest peak on the island and actually in all of Dalmatia. You can hike up there, but we were told it would take two hours each way, and we thought we probably couldn’t sacrifice the time since there is also a very famous beach here (and I for one am in desperate need of a tan). Our host Jelena told us we could rent a car or scooters to go up there, so for quite a while we’d been toying with the scooter idea. I’ve been a passenger on a number of scooters and have no idea how to drive one, but it seemed like exactly the sort of adventurous thing to do.

I’m glad we didn’t end up doing that. In the end, we learned it would be cheaper to take a taxi (not to mention significantly easier), so we went to the guy at the front of the taxi line, who was very happy to drive us up there and wait while we took our photos. More on him in a moment.

The route up to Vidova Gora was long and winding. Brač, Hvar, Korčula, and their neighbors in this area are all pretty big islands – they each have multiple towns and lots of unused space, plus they go pretty high up. The road took us along the coast for a while, then we went more inland while we worked our way up. We passed some vineyards and a couple of the half-finished/half-demolished houses that seem omnipresent on the mainland. We also passed a pop-up restaurant selling roast lamb! It took us all of 20 seconds to realize we’d never have made it up on foot, scooter, or bike. (But my brother would love the challenge. We saw a guy biking with his full backpack on!)

We couldn’t drive ALL the way to top, but our driver parked and told us he’d walk with us the rest of the way. He spoke a good amount of English (he’s apparently spent a bit of time working in the US and has family in California), so we chatted on the way up. I have long maintained that cab drivers are the key to a good experience while traveling. I love picking their brains about local culture and politics – you can learn so much from them! Emil was also more than happy to take some pictures of us, and we took a number of each other while he wandered on along the path. We caught up to him eventually, and he asked if we wanted to have a coffee, so we went to the little cafe (there is always a cafe in places like this, no matter how remote). I can’t drink coffee, but Emil asked if we liked cheese, and I told him I loved the cheese from Pag (an island north of here). “Ah, Pag cheese is very good, but Brač cheese is number one.” Emil explained that there’s a lot less Brač cheese to go around, so it’s much harder to find in restaurants – people mostly just have it at home. I found the two cheeses almost indistinguishable – perhaps the Brač cheese is slightly less sharp. It was an excellent late-morning snack, and we sat there continuing to talk to Emil for about half an hour. He was anxious to impress upon us the “number one” status of Brač in a number of categories, and for a while we were talking about available real estate on the island and starting a business to bring in more American tourists. We told Emil we wanted to bring our whole family back there for a week next summer. He then suggested that we buy a house that he knew of that was very reasonably priced. 🙂 We also learned that Emil spends his winters working in Chile – we didn’t get the back story as to how that got started, but it just goes to show how interesting people can be!

Anyway, we just felt so lucky to have ended up with Emil as our de facto tour guide for the morning. It was just so nice sitting there and having coffee together! He gave us his card, and I will look forward to seeing him again at some point. I will absolutely be returning to Brač.

Emil dropped us off at Zlatni Rat, the famous beach that apparently shows up on all the Croatian tourism literature. It’s a 200-meter strip of white pebbles extending out from the coast like a tiny peninsula, and the water is clear as can be and delightfully cool. (google it for now until I can post pictures.) Rachel and I grabbed two chaise lounges and joined the mostly Croatian people around us in soaking up the sun, which was very hot. We listened to the music playing at the big cocktail bar just a few meters inland (it was exactly like all the ones on Schevenigen beach in The Hague) and watched people windsurfing further south. Brač is the windsurfing capital of Croatia, and there were tons of people out there this afternoon.

We walked back into Bol on a wide sidewalk of smooth stones that seems to be the base of most sidewalks in Dalmatia. It was all in the shade of pine trees, and we got to take a closer look at all the windsurfers and the yachts anchored offshore. Everything we saw and experienced on the island was 100% charming.

Our catamaran to Hvar left at 5:50, and we arrived in Jelsa about 40 minutes later. Jelsa is another town on the island, and we’re staying in Hvar town, so we hopped on a bus for another 40 minutes to get over to this side of the island.

I’m going to write more about Hvar tomorrow – so far we’ve had dinner (seabass, YUM) and scope out all of the bars and clubs that have made Hvar the undisputed summer party headquarters of the Adriatic. We’re looking forward to settling in for the first time on this trip; we don’t leave until Thursday. Tomorrow we’re planning to do beaches and shopping during the day (there are lots of boutiques here) and then make tomorrow night our designated party night. Because I’m a 29-year-old who’s never been great at staying up/out all night, this will be a challenge for me, but I’m determined! 🙂 I’ll write again before we head out for the evening.

Croatia Day 2: Split and Brač

/ kw1385 / Leave a comment

4:30 p.m., on the boat to Brač

After a much-needed 8 hours of sleep, Rachel and I awoke this morning to a sunny, warm, and hazy day on the Adriatic coast. We were out of the apartment by 10 and ready to hit the beach for a couple hours. We stopped on the way at a bakery to buy another of my Balkan favorites, burek: layers of greasy pastry and cheese (like a strudel but a bit crispier). We then set off on what proved to be a surprisingly complicated walk to the beach. We knew where it was, but we kept encountering walls or streets that didn’t lead where we thought they would. At one point we walked down a little trail and across the train tracks, and we finally found the beach after about half an hour.

We weren’t expecting big things of this beach because Split in general just isn’t going to be the same water quality as any of the islands and also because this was not the nicest beach in Split (the rest are west of town and too far for us to have ventured in our limited time this morning). This beach was a cove and mostly walled in by concrete (though much of that was improved by cafés that rented chaise lounges). We settled down right on the of the wall about four feet above the water. The water just there wasn’t super clean, so we opted to stay on our towels rather than venturing in. After my long, stressful summer of studying, it was great to lay there, soaking up the sun and enjoying the burek.

We went back to the apartment at noon to collect and stow our backpacks, and on the way we walked back through the old city and visited one of several fresh juice bars. This one was set up in the corner of the original wall, and they were very popular. My “Green Hulk” vegetable juice was delicious, as was Rachel’s “Summertime” mix of fruit juices. As she said, “that juice was day-changing.” We know we’re not going to making the best dietary choices in the next two weeks, so it feels good to have had something so healthy. (On that note though, we’ve certainly been active enough to balance the increase in calories from drinks and ice cream – my UP band tells me we’ve already taken 12500 steps today!)

After putting our bags in storage (there are tons of places along the harbor allowing backpackers to ditch their bags for the day), we settled into some comfy chairs at a cafe on the Riva for another round of people-watching and some chilled drinks. My Karlovačko radler (essentially a mix of beer and lemonade) was perfect. About an hour later we grabbed a slice of pizza and settled onto the steps in the Peristil (the main square of Diocletian’s Palace) for more people watching, followed by some gelatto in the same place.

We’re now en route to our first of several islands. Brač is right across from Split and is famous for its long peninsular beach, which we’re looking forward to visiting tomorrow.

1:30 a.m., in Bol

We arrived in Bol (a town on the western side of Brač) around 5:45 and quickly found our way (uphill, with our heavy backpacks) to the guesthouse where we’re staying the night. Our room has a terrace with a view of the water and Hvar, the island we’re going to tomorrow (well, at this point, today). After another round of freshening up, we walked back down the hill (which suddenly seemed much shorter) and along the waterfront heading south towards a restaurant we’d heard about.

Compared to Split, Bol is tiny and empty. There are just enough people here, and most of them actually seem to be Croatian. The water is clear and clean, and the Riva (there’s one here too) is quite narrow. It’s a charming place all around.

We found the restaurant, Rubarska Kućica, at the end of the road and sat down at a table outside overlooking a small pebble beach. The view was incredible. Hvar is just across the water, and the sunset was lighting up the sky in shades of pink, and the moon was visible already. We took an incredible number of pictures as the sun set and the moon started to sparkle on the water. [check back again for photos – trying to figure out how to post them via iPhone.]

Our food equalled the surroundings. We started with an amouse-bouche (still not quite sure what it was) and some “semi-corn bread” (right color, slightly corny taste, wrong texture) to go with our Croatian white wine, then we split some octopus salad, which is exactly what it sounds like: chopped octopus on some lettuce. Really good and a common menu item in Croatia. For our entrées, I got dog fish (advertised as shark, but I know the Croatian word for dog and figured it out) while Rachel had “frog fish” (monkfish?) with prosciutto. Both were excellent.

We also really liked our waiter, a cute guy somewhere between us in age who spoke good English and was just really lovely to us. Additionally, the owner came by at one point and offered us a free round of grappa on the house. I think it goes without saying that when offered a drink in such a circumstance, you accept! It was strong and had a licorice aftertaste (not my favorite), but we were so pleased to have received this kind and special attention.

We didn’t want to leave and had both separately thought “this is the kind of meal and restaurant where you need to have dessert too,” so we ordered the panna cotta with cherries that we’d seen pass by a few times. This too was lovely, and we just sat there saying variations of “life is so great right now” and “how lucky are we?!” Then the owner came up from the beach (did I mention the beach was right below us?), saw us, and immediately said a few things in Croatian followed by “another grappa for you!” When he brought the next round, I asked if he would join us in drinking it, and he looked very pleased and said “yes! Why not!” So he went off and returned with a tiny shot for himself. We had a nice chat during which we explained who we are, where we’re from, why we’re in Croatia, etc, and he told us we were drinking grappa made on Hvar by family of his wife. He asked when we were leaving, and we said we were already so sorry to have booked our tickets to Hvar for tomorrow. It was the sort of situation where (between him and the waiter) I honestly feel like if we’d asked them to put us up for the night or introduce us to some others on the island, they would absolutely have helped us. We wanted to get pictures of them to share, but both were busy when we finally left. The owner shook our hands though, and we left feeling very special indeed.

At that point it was around 11:45, and as we walked back to the main square, we started hearing music coming from the big cocktail bar there. This was clearly THE place to be in Bol, and almost everyone dancing there in the open air was Croatian. We hung out for quite a while, met a few French guys, and finally decided that even though we weren’t tired (hooray for jet lag!) we should probably get home.

Today was such a great day. This post doesn’t do it justice. Rachel and I want to elaborate on dinner so much – we’ll see if we can dedicate some more time tomorrow to blogging so that her voice is here too! But in summary: Croatia is AMAZING. I want to start spelling Brač with a heart on top of the c.