CROATIA TRIP - DAY 10 - HVAR

By this morning the wind has calmed down enough to travel, but barely. Matthew tells us we need to skip the island of Vis, and will go directly to Hvar. I remember Hvar from my 1990 trip to Croatia, when I saw entire side of the island covered with lavender (I came home and covered my garden with lavender plants). More recently, I hear about Hvar as the new Italian Riviera and the place-to-be-seen if you are a movie star or a wannabe.

We didn't experience any of this.

Our first stop is Jelsa, another charming village, but much more "lived in" than Milna, that is, we saw ugly new apartment buildings, busy roads, and a subdivision of tourist homes, as well as walking paths in among vineyards and along the beach.

We experienced a sudden storm (thank goodness we were safely in the harbor and under cover). The skies just let loose and dumped everything they had into this little village. We were sitting in the patio of a pizza house under the cover of an umbrella, but the rain was so strong it bounced off the pavement and got us and our food all wet. As a result, all of us outdoors folks had to double up at tables with the indoors customers, and shared a table with a very interesting Swiss couple who organized ski trips in the winter and mountain climbing and sailing trips in the summer.

This photo shows Jelsa right before the storm.