Hvar- CROATIA TRAVEL DIARY

I struggle to find the words to describe Hvar Island. Its beautiful, amazing, unlike anywhere I’ve been before. Its’s known as the party Island of Croatia but its much more than that. The Island itself is bigger than most but everyone that travels here stays in the town. I didn’t venture outside this area although I did hear there were some nice beaches in other parts but we were more than happy with what we had around us. Everything is within walking distance, the town and area by the port is not assailable by cars. It’s a truly unique and wonderful place.

We took the Judita catamaran boat from Split port to Hvar town which took approx two hours. We found it difficult to figure out which boat to get. Even in the summer months it seems to be only a few boats a day to Hvar and even less to Hvar town. Timetables can be found here.

Accommodation

We stayed in a fun hostel called Villa Skansi hvar.

“2nd best seasonal hostel in the world on HostelWorld.”

This hostel was great for making friends as it has nightly pub crawls. You drink on the terrace at the hostels bar and leave by 10.30 pm to head to the bars. It was clean and safe with lockers to store your things and nightly security guards. Everyone that stays here is young and on the Island to have fun.

Staying in the hostel meant we made friends with like minded people from all around the world. Australians, Americans and Canadians love this place! It was great to hear everyone’s travelling story’s as they backpacked around Europe. Most only stayed in Hvar for two nights and would be surprised to hear we were there for a week as a holiday. But as each group’s two day stay came to an end they would tell us how lucky we were to have chosen to stay for a full week. No one wants to leave this place!

Restaurants:

Fresh Pasta House

If you love pasta and Italian dishes then you will love the fresh pasta here.

Dalmatino

Ranked No.1 on TripAdvisor. The food and service is top notch. They also offer you a few extra tasting dishes on the house. They even offered us a range of wine’s to taste to help us decide which one we would like.

The fig cafe

Ranked No.2 on TripAdvisor. We loved this place so much we went twice.

Nightlife:

Hvar town bars and nightclubs:

Nautica, Kiva bar, Pink Champagne.

Carpie Diem

Everyone’s favourite place to party. This nightclub is an Island of its own, you take a 10 minute boat ride from Hvar town beside all the bars. It opens up at 1am and is approx €20 euro entrance fee & boat ride. Drinks are expensive here so drink up in the bars of Hvar beforehand.

Hula Hula beach bar

Hula Hula is a day time beach and bar that later turns into a nightclub. We rented a sun bed here for the day and stayed well into the night.

Top things to do:

Hvar Fortress

About a 20 minute walk up steps and a hill just outside the town. It has great views but it can be a very hot walk in the summer however we went in the evening and it was fine.

Boat trip to Blue cave, Green cave

There are many boat tours that will take you to these Islands and caves. Tickets are sold in many places around the town. It’s an absolute must when in Hvar (you can also visit these caves from Split and Dubrovnik but Hvar is the closest). Our tour lasted from 10:30am to 6:00pm and was probably the best day of our week there. You will visit the two caves and also a beach where you jump into the water from the boat and swim to. Bring lots of sun-cream, camera equipment (water proof ideally!!) snorkel equipment and a towel. Our boat was a speed boat that fitted 10 people but it was tight and it was hard to escape getting pretty wet as crashed against the waves. Of course this is not a bad thing with how hot it is.