A birthday is a perfect excuse for eating somewhere special – maybe even somewhere new. We’d read about the Zlatna Školjka (Golden Shell) in Hvar town, and how the chef is part of the “slow food” movement. Now that doesn’t mean you’ll still be waiting for your starter a couple of hours after ordering, but…
The trip up to Velo Grablje from Stari Grad provides you with marvellous views as the road winds its way uphill. The slopes are covered in a distinctive lattice of drystone walls and mounds. As you reach the top, the view to the south opens up, with Vis floating in the distance. And just off…
To round off an afternoon of wine tasting, the Dalmacija Wine Expo brings in some of Croatia’s best chefs to prepare dinner at local restaurants. The menus of these Culinary Stars are published online, so you can choose in advance which of these gastronomic feasts you want to indulge in. Not an easy choice, as…
At the eastern tip of Hvar lies the pretty little port of Sućuraj. From there, it’s only 5 km, a short hop by ferry across to Drvenik on the mainland. From the island the effect is rather dramatic – you’re looking up at a 4,000 ft wall across the small channel, which looms ever larger…
Having missed the Dalmacija Wine Expo last year, we were keen to book early for this year. It’s the best place to try a range of Dalmatian wines, and find out what’s new and compare the various offerings. We set ourselves up with a room in the hotel right next to where the Expo is…
Step back in time as you enter the world of the traditional Dalmatian Konoba. It’s where the wine is made and stored, where tools are kept when not out working in the fields, and it’s where you sit around a table of an evening and enjoy a glass or two and a song. The konoba…
Walking around Vrboska at night is delightful, if a bit tricky in places. We have street lights that kind of cover most areas, but some familiarity with the pathways definitely helps for those darker corners! Of course, the most important buildings are always floodlit throughout the night – so the churches of Sv Marija and…
Remember when the night skies were full of stars? Not just a few random bright dots on an otherwise dark backdrop – but whole drifts of fine-grained pinpoints where the more you look, the more you see? The structure of the Milky Way on clear view as it wheels above you? Shooting stars? Such is…
One of the delights of Hvar is the variety of aromatic plants that grow naturally here. The island is well-known for its lavender (lavanda), but for many centuries, rosemary (ružmarin) was more important to the island’s economy. Rosemary is actually a close relative of lavender, both belonging to the Lamiaceae (mint) family of plants. The…
Stari Grad is an old town. If you wind back time by a couple of thousand years to the turn of the millenium, you’d find that settlements on the island consisted of Illyrian hillforts, mostly away from the coast, though the castle at Hvar town directly overlooked the harbour. And then there was Stari Grad,…
Go Hvar 
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