Day 34: Swanky Hvar off the Croatian Coast

With the northern part of my Eastern Europe trip behind me, it was time to hit the Balkans.  After so many stinking hot days in all the cities I was desperate to find a beach to lie on and a sea to swim in and so I made a bee-line straight for the island of Hvar in Croatia, one of the Dalmatian Islands off the coast of Split.  To get there I took a bus from Bled to Ljubljana, a 3-hour train to Zagreb, a 10-hour night train from there to Split (with a sleeping compartment all to myself – aaaah!) and then a three hour ferry to the island.  Needless to say I was glad to get there!

After a bit of searching I found the Green Lizard Hostel in town, dumped my pack and headed straight to the beach with some of the cool crowd staying at the hostel.  While the “beach” was disappointing – ouchy pebbles and crammed with lounge chairs and screaming kids – the water of the Adriatic more than made up for it.  Clean, crystal clear and a deep green-blue in colour.  Hvar itself was really pretty, with a mix of sandstone buildings, white marble cobbled streets, a couple of impressive churches, and the harbour strewn with some damn impressive yachts and motor boats.

The next few days were variations of each other – wake up, down to beach, swim, sun, swim, back to hostel, shower, dinner, bar, club.  The one bar in town that absolutely everyone went to was “Carpe Diem”, a hip little place with an interesting mix of rich wankers, super-rich yachties and us scummy backpackers.  Prices for drinks were set for the big spenders so we took to having our own boozy pre-party at the hostel beforehand – cheaper and more fun!

The crowd at the hostel…  The Commonwealth is well represented: Aussies, Poms, Canadians, Northern Irish!

At Carpe Diem with Catherine and Rowena, two Northern Irish girls from the hostel.  Yay I’m starting to look pretty tanned!