Croatia 2025 – Day 7 (Hvar and Korčula Islands)

We had a leisurely morning before taking a catamaran to Hvar Island. Dražen and Ella took our luggage in the van so we wouldn’t have to carry it with us. They met us in Korčula. Here’s a photo of our luggage that Dražen managed to Tetris in to the back perfectly.

Dražen standing next to our luggage, perfectly stacked in the back of the van. — Dražen is a master luggage packer!

Here are a few photos of Split, as seen from the harbor, as well as our catamaran.

A view of Split from the harbor – something that’s not part of Diocletian’s Palace!

Hvar Island

We stopped on our way to Korčula (where we’d spend 2 nights) at Hvar Island. The town itself was underwhelming, and we didn’t really need the short walking tour, but the views from Hvar Fortress were worth the stop!

A shop named Antonio – I asked if I get a discount if my name is Antonio/Anthony, and they said yes! I bought a hat.

Hvar was hosting the Spartan Sprint & 100M World Championships. We saw lots of athletes.

Venetian Lions in Hvar. Open book, so it was a peaceful occupation.

The Church of St. Rocco, built in 1484 as a plague-ending vow. Above the door are St. Rocco and St. Sebastian, protectors against the plague.

Medieval air conditioning. They’d hand wet sheets on rods strung between the holders. The sheets would cool the warm air as it entered the house.

Some kids fishing from a wall. They caught a couple small fish.

Benedictine nuns produce lace from agave. The convent was closed while we were there.

“Coffee Snob” – a very overpriced coffee shop.

The a-Roma gelateria in Hvar has photos on the wall from when Phil Rosenthal stopped by during a taping of Somebody Feed Phil (Netflix).

Hvar is the fourth largest island in the Adriatic Sea, and has been inhabited since prehistoric times. The ancient Greeks established the colony of Pharos on the island in 384 BC. During the medieval period, Hvar rose to prominence as a major naval base within the Venetian Empire, fostering cultural and artistic development, including the construction of one of Europe’s oldest surviving public theatres, opened in 1612.

A few of us took a cab to the top of Hvar Fortress, then walked back down. Had we known the walk was so easy (lots of gentle switchbacks), we probably would have walked up as well. The views were amazing! We didn’t go inside the fortress, as some other folks told us there wasn’t much to see inside.

Hugh and I standing next to Hvar Fortress.

We had lunch in Hvar, and it was just OK. Dad learned his lesson ordering lamb “medium rare”, which was very rare. We had a local cat join us for lunch, hoping for some scraps.

On to Korčula

We took the 5:05pm catamaran to Korčula. We explored Korčula a bit after a quick trip to the market to stock the apartment, and had dinner at SILK. The Pad Thai and sushi were both excellent.