This September, a group of artists from California joined me for a week’s sketching and painting in some of my favourite locations around Hvar. And as we usually do on these occasions, we explored some of the excellent local wines (very important, that!) and the rich cultural heritage that makes this island so special. The theme each…
Our week of exploring the Dalmatian coast is up and it’s time for us to head back home. On the way, though, we’ll be visiting another of Croatia’s National Parks – the spectacular Paklenica canyons. Velebit mountain is a huge coastal ridge, part of the Dinaric range bordering the eastern side of the Adriatic coast…
Arriving on Pag at the southern end across a big blue bridge, it felt like we’d landed on Mars. This is a very stark landscape, with red rocks strewn everywhere, no vegetation whatever, and the massive wall of Velebit looming across the channel. The lack of anything growing on the side of the island facing…
Just inland from Šibenik lies the beautiful Krka National Park. Basically, it’s a deep canyon cut into the high karst plateau by the river Krka as it wends its way down to the sea. There are spectacular waterfalls, lakes, caves, natural rock formations, interesting flora and fauna – plus there’s cultural heritage, starting with the…
I love the look of the traditional Dalmatian houses – they fit so perfectly into their environment. Which, when you think about it, makes a lot of sense, as the building materials are also likely to have come from the very same landscape! The stone and red clay would at one time have been locally…
My mother-in-law never really thought much of us getting a house on an island. Far too inconvenient for her liking. Ferries are such an unreliable form of transport, not to mention dangerous. And of course she was proved absolutely right within a very few months of us getting our house when the pride of Jadrolinija’s fleet,…
We always love to visit Carić winery, not just for their excellent wines, but also for the friendly chat and a chance to catch up with owners Ivana and Ivo Carić. Theirs is a small, family run operation with a growing reputation both within Croatia and internationally – in fact their Bogdanjuša wine was recently…
Do old vines make wine with more character? It certainly seems as if they should! We drove past this wonderful vineyard near Svirče a couple of months back, when the vines were all neatly clipped. With no leaves, the old twisted trunks showed boldly against the rocky terrain. From the road, it almost seemed as…
From our visit up to Sveti Nikola, the highest peak on the island, on the way down we followed the road towards Svirče. Now I have to say that your modern small car is not best suited to the island’s backroads. It simply doesn’t have the clearance of, say, an old Renault 4 which is…
We walked up to Sv Nikola yesterday, that’s the island’s highest peak. I won’t try to pretend that we walked all the way up, in fact we drove most of the way. The road leads up from the end of the Selca tunnel, the turning nicely signposted. The larger, more noticeable sign is for Kolumbić…
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