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Published: July 26th 2015
This was our last day in Hvar, so we decided to spend some time exploring the town and started by heading up to the old fortress overlooking the town. We grabbed breakfast and checked the status on the hotel pool – staff were hard at work cleaning up after Ultra. They had already drained the pool and were halfway through pressure washing the dirt away (there was lots and lots of dirt). Once entering the town, we stopped at the top of the Arsenal, a large building with a terrace overlooking St. Stephen’s Square. It is also home to the first public theatre in Europe – in the 17
th Century or so, the working class citizens got fed up with being second-class citizens to the rich merchants and Venetians. Eventually part of the compromise to appease them was to provide this public theatre. We got a little later start, so we started up to the fortress in pretty high heat. This was really our first day where we noticed the heat, which translated to a “red flag warning” (like our heat advisory) and was apparently the hottest temperatures in the last 3 years (hanging out by the pool and on a
boat all day gives you plenty of opportunity to cool off). The walk up to the fortress, called Fortica Spanjola apparently after Spanish engineers that helped design it, was partially shaded, which helped a lot. The views from the top were beautiful, and it was a great historical site to see – well beyond what we had expected. There was a maritime museum inside, which housed wreckage from three different ships on display. The oldest wreckage on display was from a ship that sunk in the 3
rd Century BC! It was amazing to see everything in person and read about the stories of the boats and what they were carrying. We also got to tour the old prison cells of the fortress, the only thing going for these prisoners was the cool temperature. Definitely a nice break from the heat, but the cells were TINY. I don’t even think one could lay down in it, basically made for sitting/fetal-position only. Lastly, we got to see the cannons that protected the town of Hvar. They’re a little rusty, but still in position to view ships in the harbor – it was pretty neat to imagine what it must have been like
several hundred years ago when soldiers of the fortress were tasked with protecting the town and its harbor. One of the signs mentioned that the residents took shelter here shortly before the Battle of Lepanto, a major naval battle between Europeans (Christians) and the Ottoman Turks (Muslims) in the 14
thCentury in which the Europeans won a major victory that halted the expansion of the Ottoman Empire for several centuries.
After seeing all the sites, including all the different lookouts (great photo spots), we began the walk back down the town center. We passed a cool spot (figuratively and literally) on the way down for drinks – Ka Lavanda. James got a cappuccino and Stacey finally tried a smoothie – smoothies are popular on the Dalmatian Coast. She can definitely see why, it was delicious. She got a passion fruit frozen yogurt smoothie – perfect amount of sweetness, the US tends to make smoothies too sweet. This was perfect. We also decided to come back later for a drink – best cocktail list we’d seen on the trip so far. After, we stopped back at Park Restaurant to purchase some sage brandy but the hostess and hotel receptionist
had no idea what we were asking about. So we decided to go back to Dalmatino to try to purchase some of their sage brandy. The waiter that provided the sage brandy a few nights earlier helped us out. Apparently the restaurant gets the sage brandy from a local distributor in a massive container, so to sell it they filled up an old water bottle. For about $20, we got 0.75L of the sage brandy (about the size of a wine bottle) to take back home with us. We spent another hour or so walking around town, purchasing some hats that are very popular on the coast and provide much-needed shade for your face. After working up quite a sweat just strolling around town during the hottest part of the day, we eventually decided to head back to Amfora and hit the beach cabana.
When we arrived at the cabana, it was clear that this was the place to be. Amfora had promised guests a sun chair, and we made had reservations the day before Ultra. Of course, they didn’t have our reservation and they were booked, but fortunately they managed to find us two sun chairs
Hvar Harbor
View from the top of the fortresswithin a few minutes where guests had left. Guess we had perfect timing. It was so nice to sit by the sea and read – however, there were big signs about sea urchins, so we decided not to swim. Instead, James worked on his tan (ha) and Stacey stayed under the umbrella. It was nice to take some time to relax and read a book. After about an hour, we were both ready to be inside and cool off a bit.
After getting ready for the night, we headed back to Ka Lavanda where Stacey got a champagne spritzer – elderflower and mint drink that goes by the name “Hugo”; with an unimpressive beer menu, James went with another espresso. James had also noticed a craft beer selection at the bar by Dalmantino, and had decided to go there for his per-dinner drink. For dinner, we had already decided that Dalmatino was our restaurant of choice for the evening, so we got ready and headed over to the restaurant to put our name “on the list”. Dalmantino doesn’t take reservations, but if you talk to Danny, he will put your name on “the list” – a scrap
of paper in his pocket, and he will find you when your table is ready. Now, he doesn’t usually go in order, and if he doesn’t like you – he tells you the wait is VERY long (he told a very drunk British girl “at least 2 hours”; he sat the next couple in about 45 minutes). The drunk Brits also had sworn they made a reservation, to which Danny promptly informed them they don’t take reservations – he owns the list. We had planned to go get drinks next door anyway, so we told him we’d check back in an hour and proceeded to the bar next door that advertised some unique craft beers for Hvar – they proudly advertised their Brooklyn Lager and Brooklyn IPA. Looking for something European, James got the Rochefort 8, which is a Trappist ale from Belgium (i.e., made by monks). Stacey decided to sample James’ beer instead of buy one herself. Unbeknownst to us, there was a rooftop patio, which was not easy to find so we were escorted up. It is situated above a private residence, which made for some interesting conversations to watch between bar staff and the neighbors, who were
NOT happy that a bar was both below and above them (and this was about 8:00 at night; the conversations probably didn’t get friendlier). There was no seating when we got to the roof, but very quickly a group of guys introduced themselves and gave us a seat. One of them turned out to work there, so he didn’t miss his seat. He was from Australia, but moves to Hvar every summer to work as a bartender. One was from Rockland County, New York – he was actually interviewing to work at the bar. His grandparents apparently have a house on one of the islands, and he took a year off after college to travel – hence the application for part-time work in Hvar. He and James talked some about geomorphology, as that is what he studied, but he wasn’t quite ready to enter the real-world yet. The other guys were from California and Germany. The German’s brother just moved to Chattanooga, TN to work at VW. After talking for a while, the one guy had his interview and the other two headed out for dinner. At that point, things were fairly quiet, so the bartender decided to give us
some samples of rakija, a liquor unique to the Balkans. We were apprehensive after the boat tour yesterday – the Canadian couple had told us they tried some homemade rakija and noted it was strong, but tasted terrible. The first one we tried was a honey rakija, which was enjoyably sweet (not too much) but definitely had some punch behind it. A few minutes later we got to try the first tastes of a new bottle of carob rakija – similar the carob brandy we had at Dalmantino, but this one was a bit harsher. Later we learned rakija is Croatian for brandy, so even our beloved sage brandy is actually Kadulja Rakija in Croatian. Soon after, a group of 12 was coming up for drinks and burgers and was actually a bachelor party we had seen on the ferry to Hvar a few days earlier. We decided that was a good time to head to Dalmantino.
We checked in again with Danny and realized our estimated wait time hadn’t changed much, despite having spent about an hour at the bar. We decided to sit nearby and after a few minutes, Danny came over to seat us
at an outdoor table. We were served by the same waiter as a few nights earlier and both he and the ones that served us the carob brandy to start the meal recognized us (or more specifically, recognized James…presumably because of the red hair) and skipped the stories to have a brief chat. For dinner, Stacey chose to get the same dish as before – gnocchi with chicken and a white wine cream sauce – and James decided to try some different, this time ordering the gnocchi with Dalmatian-smoked ham and a white-wine cream sauce. Both dishes were excellent – we concluded it must be because they finish their gnocchi on a pan, rather than in a pot (there appeared to be some sear marks on the gnocchi),
thanks Janine Gallois and AJ Sutton for an excellent, authentic Dalmatian meal! After enjoying our meals, Danny stopped by the table to apologize for not recognizing us earlier – he was the one server that hadn’t recognized us – and had one of the other waiters bring a cherry brandy alongside the sage brandy for us to enjoy for his mistake. Totally unnecessary, but very much appreciated and enjoyed! The cherry brandy
was much sweeter than the sage brandy and very similar to the cherry brandy that James bought in Zadar a few days prior. Danny told us it is a “girls” drink, but that he himself thoroughly enjoys the cherry brandy and that we should too. While enjoying our brandies, we had a nice conversation with a Canadian couple sitting at the table next to us – they were enjoying Croatia while their daughter, who just graduated with an undergrad in law in England, traveled back home to Canada for the summer and subsequent grad school. We provided a few recommendations to them on wine and dinner choices and they did the same for us, although in Split, where they had just been and we were going tomorrow. As great as the chocolate-walnut cake was a few nights earlier, we opted to try something new and headed out after enjoying the rest of our conversation and our complimentary dessert wines. At the recommendation of TripAdvisor and our travel book, we headed to a café called Nonica’s (“Grandma’s” in Serbo-Croatian).
Courtesy of the Best Man, Aaron Gregory, we each enjoyed a dessert from their magnificent looking display – Stacey got a hazelnut-chocolate
mousse cake and James got an amaretto cake with a decaf espresso to enjoy it with. Both desserts were very good (as was the espresso), but the cakes were definitely sweeter and therefore unique in comparison to many of the other Croatian desserts that we had tried so far, which tended to be less sweet. At that point, it was fairly late and we decided to walk back to the hotel for some rest before waking up early to catch the ferry out in the morning. On the walk back, we walked past a children’s park where the trash cans where shaped like animals. Someone had stuffed an entire pizza box into a trash can shaped like a frog that was not big enough for the pizza box. Admittedly juvenile, it was very entertaining to see a big, grinning frog with a pizza box jammed and stuck in its mouth.
Link to Photos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/106540574540801835369/HvarDay8?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKG5_LC5jLu0Tg&feat=directlink
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