8:40 a.m., on the catamaran to Dubrovnik

Well, our time in Hvar has come to an end, and it’s been the stuff of great stories I shall be telling for years to come (though not necessarily here…). Hvar is essentially Croatia’s equivalent of Las Vegas, so what happens in Hvar stays in Hvar.

You know you’re in a party place when, while sitting on your backpack at the dock waiting for your boat, you find yourself in front of the club that you left mere hours before. The few young people who are actually up and about have a sluggish, bleary-eyed appearance; as we’ve discovered over the last three days, there’s absolutely no need to get up before 11:30. And let’s be clear: Rachel and I have not at any point been drunk or hungover; we’ve just embraced island time and its corresponding lifestyle.

We spent our last afternoon in Hvar not actually on Hvar but rather on one of the very small islands across the bay from Hvar town. Several of those islands have beaches (including several nudist ones, apparently!), so there’s no shortage of boats waiting in the marina to take you over for a mere 40 kunas (less than $7) round trip. We ended up on Mlini beach, home to precisely one restaurant and host of maybe 300 day trippers scattered over its pebbly coastline. We spread our towels over the stones just at the edge of the water so that the sea was gently lapping at our feet all afternoon. I rose to the challenge of surviving without my Kindle and instead studied my Croatian book for periodic 15-minute periods. I learned a few helpful pieces of grammar and a handful of phrases, several of which were useful to us about 12 hours later, as I will explain.

We grabbed a late lunch/early dinner of LAMB right before heading back to the main island, and it didn’t disappoint us – the lamb was deliciously and simply prepared and served straight off the bone. We wished that all of our family could have been there too!

Back on Hvar, we made our way as quickly as possible up the half-mile uphill path to our apartment and showered so that we could make it up to the top of the fortress overlooking the town before the sun set. It’s a good thing we’ve been doing a lot of uphill walking in the last week because the fort was no easy feat. It was 100% worth it though – we arrived at the top just as the sun had sunk, leaving behind a beautiful peachy glow that illuminated the landscape and surrounding islands in a way that made the natural beauty even more awe-inspiring. (When faced with incredible views like we’ve had in Croatia, I always wonder how anyone can doubt the existence of God.)

After taking LOTS of pictures, we took the much easier way down and had a light second supper at a lovely tapas place nestled into one of the narrow back streets, away from the main square. We drank local wine and shared Dalmatian prosciutto and a number of regional cheeses, all of which were delicious, while a guy played an acoustic guitar and softy sang along. Once again, we found ourselves in a very romantic situation! One day I’ll have to come back and do this with a man…

After dinner, we went straight for the crème de la crème of Hvar’s bars: Carpe Diem. (You might recall that two nights before we’d ended up at their island outpost with some Germans; last night we went to the original.) Carpe Diem has been on my radar for eight years, and it shows up all the time in travel coverage of Croatia. It is THE place to go on Hvar.

Now, last night we weren’t dressed up at all. I had already worn my designated Carpe Diem outfit on Monday, and we’d needed pretty simple clothes and shoes to make it up to the fort, so Rach and I showed up in a plain grey maxi dress and a $5 black dress from H&M. We also had crazy hair because of the wind up on the fort and minimal make-up on. But none of that ended up mattering.

We’d been sipping our drinks for maybe five minutes when two older Italian men came up to us and pretty much immediately invited us onto their yacht. Seriously! We’d been joking about how our goal should be to score an invitation to a yacht; we hadn’t thought it would be that easy. However, one of these guys was more wasted than anyone I’ve seen in a long time, and we were soon mostly engaged in keeping him from grabbing and kissing us (in a harmless way). Eventually even his brother got tired of this and took them both home.

We spent another 20 minutes or so at the bar surveying the crowd (we’d arrived just before it exploded) but finding no one of interest, so we moved to a different vantage point. We’d been standing on the stairs for about ten minutes, mostly watching groups get bottle service (which came with much ceremony, including flaming sparklers), when a guy came up to us and said “hi, would you like to come join our table? We need more girls!” We followed his pointing arm and realized their table was THE table, in a corner of the bar cordoned off not only by ropes but also screened in. This is where the celebrities (like Prince Harry and Beyoncé) who frequent Carpe Diem get bottle service. Needless to say, we went back with him.

After receiving wristbands identifying us as Carpe Diem VIPs(!), we sat down and received drinks poured from an obscenely large bottle of Belvedere vodka. This bottle was every bit of two feet tall and so heavy that you had to use both hands. We learned that their group was five Austrian investors who were all vacationing together on a yacht. We really only interacted with the two seated near us; one was really young (he said he was 25, but his boss told me he was actually 21) and the other was probably late 30’s or 40ish. The younger one monopolized us for a while, and the conversation was always very serious though energetic. I found it hilarious that he accused me of being very serious and analytical when he was the one who drove the conversation towards, for instance, a discussion of male vs. female psychology based on a book he’d recently read. (Sidenote: I am now learning what the standard reaction is to telling people you are a lawyer. They invariably either look mock scared, raise their eyebrows in uncertainty, or tell you you’re too analytical. Guess I’ve just gotta live with that now!)

Carpe Diem closes “early” (at 2:00), and when that time came around, we told them truthfully that we needed to get home and pack before our 8:30 boat to Dubrovnik, at which point they launched a full-on sales pitch trying to get us to come back to their yacht. (Yacht invitations count: 2.) for reasons that should be obvious, we turned them down and thanked them for the invitation. It was all a bit weird, but ultimately I’m proud that these guys found us intelligent and interesting – always nice to see those traits admired in women.

Rachel and I made what we thought would be our last trek up the hill but discovered upon arrival that the keys had fallen out of Rachel’s wallet. We tried in vain to get our landlady to answer her phone or hear the doorbell, so we eventually figured we might as well try to retrace our steps. We walked all the way back to Carpe Diem, passing lots of struggling drunk people, and thanks to an intervention from Saint Anthony, were able to recover our keys there.

At this point we were anxious to be home and too tired to do the hill again, so we grabbed a taxi to take us home. The driver spoke no English, so I got to test my Croatian, with success! I managed to point out where we were going by piecing together “here”, “right,” “wait,” and “how much?” Simple but got the job done!

So we finally went to bed around 5:15 and had to get up at 7:30 to get on the boat. Hvar has been an absolute blast, and I truly think that anything can and does happen there. We are happy, however, to leave the party island and be back on more normal turf. We’re presently sitting on our terrace enjoying a jaw-dropping view of Dubrovnik.

We spent all of today at Hula Hula Hvar, a beach club located about 10 minutes west along the coastline from the main harbor. We’d heard about it from various sources and have been following them on Instagram this summer, and we weren’t disappointed. We grabbed lounge chairs (complete with comfy cushions) just at the end of the rocky outcrop above the water. There are probably 150 chairs along the rocks on Hula Hula’s part of the coastline, and then there’s a bar, which we never actually went to. It was great to settle onto the comfortable chairs and enjoy the sun and the sound of the water hitting the rocks just a few feet away from us. Our neighbors were a couple of French Montenegran guys, who asked “vous êtes françaises?” and then chatted with us in French for a few minutes. They complimented me on my French but then said that I look American and not Croatian – something I’ve never heard before! They thought Rachel looked Croatian though, so at least we were 1 for 2…

We spent the next seven hours watching yachts pass by and occasionally getting in the water to cool off. There were often big waves due to the passing boats, so it was fun to float. The only low point was the death of my kindle, whose screen remains frozen despite my attempts to reset it. I’m taking this as a sign I’m supposed to be studying the Croatian book I brought with me…

We watched the gorgeous sunset from our prime seats and finally headed back to our room around 8:00. We are now both pretty tan, and I’m looking forward to spending a little less time in the sun tomorrow!

We’ve capped off the day with a great dinner, which we practically inhaled because once again we barely ate anything all day. I got some calamari, which is always yummy here because they give you lots of whole squid, and Rachel got an enormous plate of what she said were the best mussels she’s ever eaten.

Just another day in paradise!

It’s funny how hard it can be to find the beach when you’re on an island…

Rachel and I are staying in a house that’s located what would be about a 10-minute walk from town if it weren’t for the fact that the walk is almost entirely uphill and very steep at points. The sunset picture I’ve posted is the view from where we are. It’s a good workout! Anyway, we weren’t sure exactly how to make our way down to the approximate location of the beach, so we had a journey with some backtracking – not big deal. We eventually got to an area where essentially several hundred yards of the rocky coastline is the default “beach.” Being here definitely requires an expansion of the beach concept since in the US we only have sandy beaches; most of the beaches in Croatia have pebbles or, in this case, are not beaches at all but rather shallow outcroppings of rock that lead into the sea. We spread our towels on the rough rocks just as we would for sand, but eventually a couple who’d been occupying two chaise lounges near us left, so we took the chairs. We had a great view of not only the main harbor but also several of the small islands right across the bay (where there are apparently other beaches, including some nudist beaches!). I can’t post any pictures because we didn’t bring phones with us, but I’ll try to post a pic later if I have time to go back there.

Without phones or watches, we spent the entire afternoon there in the sun before finally deciding it was time to have “lunch.” It was around 4:15 at this point, but we wanted to go ahead and have our big meal of the day so that we wouldn’t be stuffed for our big night out.

[now writing at 11:30 Tuesday morning]

We had a pretty great night! I am proud that I was able to stay awake until 5 with no problem. We met a lot of great people – first a group of Black New Yorkers who are here for Yacht Week; they could dance like nobody’s business, and when we said as much, we were invited to join their group for a while. This was at Top Bar, the open air, top floor bar at the Hotel Adriana with great views of the whole harbor. Eventually the place filled up with Yacht Week people (most of whom were around my age), and Rachel and I concluded that we need to do Yacht Week at some point. It seems like too much fun!

From there we went to Kiva, a bar situated in an alley that was crowded with people. We’d heard tell of a “helmet shot” and did one of our own. The bartender put a military helmet on our head, wrapped the glass with the shot in it in a towel, and then hit the glass against the helmet REALLY HARD maybe 10 times before handing it to us to drink, while onlookers cheered us on. I have no idea how or why this practice originated, but it’s certainly unique!

We met a group of really nice German guys who were happy to have us join them at THE nighttime destination, Carpe Diem’s outpost on a nearby island. Led by Filip, who is Croatian but grew up in Germany, we hopped on a boat and soon found ourselves on the island and enjoying bottle service. Because I’m also German, I got language lessons in both Croatian and German (my phone now has Note pages with phrases in both). We had a great time hanging out and came back over to Hvar around 4:30 I think.

Great night!

We’re now on Hvar, an island I also visited during my first trip to Croatia in 2006. Last time we also stayed in Hvar town, but our hotel was essentially an all-inclusive deal and was pretty far removed from the town itself, so I didn’t get to know the town at all. That may explain why I was so surprised by the hordes of people in the harbor last night, but I don’t think so. Hvar’s always been a popular destination, but there’s no doubt that tourism in Croatia has risen significantly in the eight years since I last came to this island, and during that time Hvar has become more and more famous as the place where the elite come to party. I read in a guidebook that Hvar town has a population of 3,000 but that there are 30,000 tourists here on any given day in the summer. I believe it – we got down to the center for dinner around 9:30, and it was PACKED.

We wandered through a few side streets and ended up at Giaxa, which happens to be a very highly rated restaurant. The food was great: we got little shooters of gazpacho served with a sort of pizza strudel and homemade biscuits, then we split some roasted vegetables in a delicious olive oil, and I finished with sea bass while Rachel had a tuna steak. I remarked that I felt like I was back in Paris: it’s so nice to really take pleasure in food. We’re gotten into a routine of eating very little the rest of the day and then having a late but full dinner – it’s a nice way to cap off the day.

After dinner we explored the rest of the waterfront, which is a mixture of bars, restaurants, shops, and souvenir stands. We found the world-famous Carpe Diem (Google it) which is where we’re planning to end up tonight (after working our way through a few others). I wanted to come to Carpe Diem eight years ago based on the recommendation of a Croatian friend, so this has been a long time in coming!

We’re off now to hit the beaches and do some shopping. 🙂