As you've likely noticed, the average Wanderlust day generally involves waking up (always a good start), climbing or hiking something, seeing some cultural edifices perhaps on a tour, eating a local delicacy, and ultimately checking out the night life and libations of a given area. With the exception of work (most grotesque 4-letter word in the English language), I feel that provides a very topical yet reasonable microcosm of what you might expect to encounter in an average day-in-the-life at that destination.
Hvar, however, is known mostly as an excursion/nightlife/partying destination, and as such, for the sole purpose of providing accurate coverage I was required to abandon any and all thoughts of hiking, culture, tours, and local food and drink. For you, dear reader, I set aside all other notions and focused my full energies on squeezing every last drop of fun out of my three days that time and my body would allow. There will be a hefty amount of images below because in this case pictures will tell a better story than I can.
Just a quick background- Hvar is an island off the coast of Croatia, directly out from Split. It is one of the largest islands in Croatia. The largest city is Hvar and there are a number of smaller cities scattered around. There is an ancient castle in Hvar and the town itself dates back at least hundreds of years. But I don't know much more than that as I didn't get a chance to see any of that stuff.
To get to the town Hvar where our hostel was located there is only one direct ferry per day: a catamaran that goes off from Split at 11:30. Monica, Joc and I caught it in a fine state after our fun night in Split and an hour and a half later we departed in search of the hostel. The direct ferry puts you off right in the middle of town and right around the corner from a smaller bay with the old Benedictine church which was a short walk from the hostel.
The only problem was we couldn't find the hostel based on the directions they provided. And googlemaps was no use on a place that small. We ended up walking for about 30 minutes before we finally did locate it. Turns out it was only about 200 feet from where we had originally gone, we just somehow took a wrong turn before we got to it.
We arrived tired and sweaty and the first thing out of the mouth of the girl at reception was: "are you guys going to do the booze cruise? We only run it every few days and the weather is supposed to be bad for the next two. We leave in half an hour." Ugh. Well, one of the main reasons I heard to stay at this hostel is because of their infamous booze cruise, so yea, screw it let's cruise baby! We threw down our stuff, jumped into swimsuits and 40 minutes later we're boarding.
Our two lovely hostesses greeted us with welcome sangrias and we prepared to shove off. The itinerary of the day was to boat around the islands, find some nice coves for a swim or two, eat a BBQ grill lunch on the boat, play drinking games, dance and party, and eventually make our way back to the docks in about 5 or 6 hours. Pretty awesome, eh? As we pulled away, we got a nice view of Hvar disappearing in the distance.
We found a large cove about 30 minutes away and had it all to ourselves except for a sailboat and a small yacht. I can't really express how clear and blue the water is in Croatia, and these pictures don't really do it justice. But where we were was probably about 40-50 feet deep and when the water was still you could see all the way to the bottom as if it was 4 feet. It's also crazy salty so you can more or less float vertically. It would be a challenge to drown in this water.
After a refreshing swim and some beer it was time for lunch. They made an incredible spread of grilled chicken and steak skewers, chicken wings, cevapi, sausages, and salad and bread with the tomato/pepper/pimento spread. It really hit the spot.
After the food, we resumed the swimming, drinking, and inevitably the captains, oh captains, started pouring out the shots. We did some sort of Hungarian Challenge where they poured this really strong drink and you had to hold it in your mouth for 10 seconds, swish for 10 seconds, then gargle for 10 seconds, then swallow and do a tiger face. If you did it, your reward was a shot of Jager. Hey, wait a minute! My reward should be NOT having to do a shot of Jager! But by the time I thought of that, I had already done the shot of Jager.
In between all this mayhem I decided to help Sanna, a new friend from Sweden, with perfecting her diving form (despite that I know next to nothing about diving except from watching the Olympics). After 8 or 9 tries she was really putting together some nice dives from the front of the boat.
Back in the main part, the party was raging on as we departed for our next destination. As we went we played the clip game, where you clip a clothes pin to someone and then start counting down from 5. If they don't find it by the time you reach zero, they have to have a shot. This cruise not really designed with the mild-drinkers in mind. The guys were very effective at this game, especially as the girls danced in the center of the boat to "Get Low."
By the time we were on our way back it was all out chaos, capped off by a raucous dance-party to the Backstreet Boys which I have on film and will ultimately post to flickr when I get the bandwidth.
As we approached Hvar, I got a nice shot of the main harbor at dusk.
And then as we walked back up to the hostel, I got one of our little harbor and beach with all the boats in the sunset.
So you might think, "wow, booze cruise sounds like an awesome time. bet you guys were ready to crash out when you got back to the hostel, right?" And the answer is yes, yes we were... but we weren't allowed to! The whole hostel was rounded up and taken to this beach-side bar called Hula where more insanity continued.
For some reason Joc brought a permanent red marker with her and we all ended up with drawings all over us. One poor guy laid down on a table and within about 5 minutes was completely covered in drawings. Thankfully I only ended up with both arms and part of my neck in ink. Despite the high level of overall team intoxication and rabblerousing, I somehow managed to get a nice shot of the Hvar harbor and castle at night.
From Hula we went to another bar which would turn out to be our last of the evening. The stalwart Nautica bar. Everyone from the hostel gets a free jagerbomb (just what I needed) and they ran a ton of specials for us. But what the Nautica bar is really known for is their mixed drinks that come in vases adorned with lit flares! What?? Alcohol, drunk people, and fireworks? That sounds extremely dangerous! And it is! Some guy ended up with one sticking out of the back of his pants (not me!).
A some point Joc and I were handed another shot and this picture was taken. It was a bit fuzzy by this point, but by pacing myself on the booze cruise (thanks for re-teaching me the old lesson Zadar!), I was in more or less reasonable shape. Although you wouldn't guess it from this picture.
Seriously though, I made it back to the hostel with Joc perfectly fine, a feat I was unable to accomplish sober earlier in the daytime. And, reaching back to my college and tough nights on the road days, I drank an immense amount of water before going to bed. Unfortunately I woke up way too early as I was in a 14 bed dorm and everyone was leaving at 9:30, but I was thrilled to wake up more or less hangover free! Out on the balcony I ran into Joc and Lan, who had just arrived from Split, and we all, in our weary states, decided the best remedy was a relaxing day of swimming and lounging by the sea.
It was slated to pour rain all day but it luckily held off. After swimming, soaking up some rays, and somehow napping along the jagged rocks, we headed back to the hostel where along the way I had the obligatory photo of Hvar snapped.
That night, the plan was to take it easy. Relax at the hostel, maybe have a beer or two, but just chill out. I managed to loaf around until about 10:30 when the hostel hostesses (henceforth "booze nazis") came by and literally dragged us by the arms out of the hostel and down to Nautica bar for "one drink." As you might imagine, things spiraled out of control from there. I must say, the "one drink," our free Jagerbombs, were unlike anything I've ever witnessed. Here is the set up:
And then, just for good measure, why not light them ablaze?
We were planning to cut out but we met three hysterical dudes from London and we ended up joining forces with them for the remainder of the night. It basically unraveled into spring break. At one point Joc was motorboating everyone who came by, Monica climbed aboard a yacht she believed to be Tom Cruise's (who was in Hvar at that time) to "look at the fish," we all jumped aboard four or five different boats, and ultimately Joc stole someone's raft and put it on another person's boat. Too many funny pictures, you'll just have to check flickr. I'd be embarrassed if it wasn't so much fun- like being a teenager all over again, ha. Someday I'll grow up. ;)
The night went on into the wee hours and ended only as all great nights do- when someone gets poked in the eye with an umbrella during an umbrella-dance-off. Yep. But not me. This time.
The next morning I was surprisingly not hungover again. I was just as confused as you may be. But I decided to take advantage of that fact and stroll down to the main part of town to get some daylight pictures and purchase my ferry ticket back to Split for the following day. I don't really know what any of the stuff I took pictures was (besides restaurants, shops, and churches), but here is a nice one:
My plan for the remainder of the day was simple: relax on the awesome terrace of the hostel, perhaps do some writing, delay drinking anything other than water until the booze nazis showed up, and generally just enjoy my day. That plan lasted about 15 minutes once I got back from my morning stroll. It seems that due to high demand the hostel decided to run the booze cruise a day earlier than planned. Initially there were about 10 of us who had gone on the prior cruise who I would say at the beginning of the negotiations period were 70/30 against doing it again. As the next fistful of minutes wore on, the arguments were stacked against us.
One, everyone in the hostel who hadn't been on it was going- which means it was going to be exceptionally dead around there for about 6 hours. I was fine with that. Two, because the wind was calmer this day they were going to boat out to the cove where we could climb up and jump off rocks. Ok, that's somewhat enticing. Three, because there would be almost double the amount of people as the last time they were going to stay out an hour or so longer. That does seem reasonable. Four, if you are a repeat customer you get 30% off plus a small rebate from the last trip. Now that is a bargain... And finally, it's drinking on a boat in the Croatian islands, stop being a bitch and go. Ah.
It was argument number five that inevitably sealed the deal for us. Over the 15-20 minutes or so we were debating this, every minute or two we'd re-ask someone if they were going and gradually, one by one, every "maybe" turned to a "yes." Haha. Booze cruising again. But we had about 2 hours until it let off so our newly formed gaggle of me, Joc, Monica, Lan, Sanna, and the Brits all went down to the "beach" for a swim. After that, it was time to cruise baby.
It's basically impossible to not have fun on this thing. Our Brit buddies got the party started with the first swim of the day.
We also found out there was a Brazilian girl aboard who was turning 21 that day so, as any group of gentlemen and ladies would do, we congratulated her by making her chug a beer. Here is the 2-shot montage:
The overall itinerary was the same as before so I'll spare you the details again, but here are some fun photos from the cruise. I'm on a boat!
Also at some point I acquired a "Croatian Captain" hat. No idea where this came from.
Perhaps my favorite picture is Joc and I in our Captain's hats with the sunset. This would make a great "greetings from Croatia" card.
Wow! Another long and awesome day at sea. We should probably turn in early tonight. What do you think Croatian Captain Mike (who was also known as 'Brazilian Mike' at this point)? Should we stay or should we party?
Party it is! I love that one. Needless to say it was another ludicrous night but I made Sanna promise to send me home exactly at 12:30. Brazilian Mike loves a good time but he learned his lesson. Even in the midst of craziness, keeping your wits about you and knowing when to fold em to get enough sleep and not be a wreck on the ferry is the most valuable of assets.
So at promptly 12:30, I said goodbye to all my new friends and headed back to the hostel. Some stayed at Nautica, some went on to other bars, some even to Carpe Diem (really expensive club on an island). I heard some good stories in the morning, but I guarantee no one from the booze cruise felt better than I did at checkout. But if you saw this guy the night before, you wouldn't believe it.
In sum, Hvar was an awesome time. Maybe too awesome, especially for someone of my advanced years. It really was like being handed a bonus spring break. And compared to Split (and later Dubrovnik) Hvar wasn't really that expensive. If you plan to hit Croatia, and even if you aren't up for a massive blowout party-time, I'd still highly recommend Hvar. It was beautiful there and I saw a ton of families during the day- I just have no idea where they went at night. But if you are up for a party- Hvar is not to be missed. Hostel Skansi & the legendary booze cruise. Do it, be on a boat. Live the dream.
Bonus Photo: Croatian coast line on the way out of dodge the next day.
Hvar, however, is known mostly as an excursion/nightlife/partying destination, and as such, for the sole purpose of providing accurate coverage I was required to abandon any and all thoughts of hiking, culture, tours, and local food and drink. For you, dear reader, I set aside all other notions and focused my full energies on squeezing every last drop of fun out of my three days that time and my body would allow. There will be a hefty amount of images below because in this case pictures will tell a better story than I can.
Just a quick background- Hvar is an island off the coast of Croatia, directly out from Split. It is one of the largest islands in Croatia. The largest city is Hvar and there are a number of smaller cities scattered around. There is an ancient castle in Hvar and the town itself dates back at least hundreds of years. But I don't know much more than that as I didn't get a chance to see any of that stuff.
To get to the town Hvar where our hostel was located there is only one direct ferry per day: a catamaran that goes off from Split at 11:30. Monica, Joc and I caught it in a fine state after our fun night in Split and an hour and a half later we departed in search of the hostel. The direct ferry puts you off right in the middle of town and right around the corner from a smaller bay with the old Benedictine church which was a short walk from the hostel.
The only problem was we couldn't find the hostel based on the directions they provided. And googlemaps was no use on a place that small. We ended up walking for about 30 minutes before we finally did locate it. Turns out it was only about 200 feet from where we had originally gone, we just somehow took a wrong turn before we got to it.
We arrived tired and sweaty and the first thing out of the mouth of the girl at reception was: "are you guys going to do the booze cruise? We only run it every few days and the weather is supposed to be bad for the next two. We leave in half an hour." Ugh. Well, one of the main reasons I heard to stay at this hostel is because of their infamous booze cruise, so yea, screw it let's cruise baby! We threw down our stuff, jumped into swimsuits and 40 minutes later we're boarding.
Our two lovely hostesses greeted us with welcome sangrias and we prepared to shove off. The itinerary of the day was to boat around the islands, find some nice coves for a swim or two, eat a BBQ grill lunch on the boat, play drinking games, dance and party, and eventually make our way back to the docks in about 5 or 6 hours. Pretty awesome, eh? As we pulled away, we got a nice view of Hvar disappearing in the distance.
We found a large cove about 30 minutes away and had it all to ourselves except for a sailboat and a small yacht. I can't really express how clear and blue the water is in Croatia, and these pictures don't really do it justice. But where we were was probably about 40-50 feet deep and when the water was still you could see all the way to the bottom as if it was 4 feet. It's also crazy salty so you can more or less float vertically. It would be a challenge to drown in this water.
After a refreshing swim and some beer it was time for lunch. They made an incredible spread of grilled chicken and steak skewers, chicken wings, cevapi, sausages, and salad and bread with the tomato/pepper/pimento spread. It really hit the spot.
After the food, we resumed the swimming, drinking, and inevitably the captains, oh captains, started pouring out the shots. We did some sort of Hungarian Challenge where they poured this really strong drink and you had to hold it in your mouth for 10 seconds, swish for 10 seconds, then gargle for 10 seconds, then swallow and do a tiger face. If you did it, your reward was a shot of Jager. Hey, wait a minute! My reward should be NOT having to do a shot of Jager! But by the time I thought of that, I had already done the shot of Jager.
In between all this mayhem I decided to help Sanna, a new friend from Sweden, with perfecting her diving form (despite that I know next to nothing about diving except from watching the Olympics). After 8 or 9 tries she was really putting together some nice dives from the front of the boat.
Back in the main part, the party was raging on as we departed for our next destination. As we went we played the clip game, where you clip a clothes pin to someone and then start counting down from 5. If they don't find it by the time you reach zero, they have to have a shot. This cruise not really designed with the mild-drinkers in mind. The guys were very effective at this game, especially as the girls danced in the center of the boat to "Get Low."
By the time we were on our way back it was all out chaos, capped off by a raucous dance-party to the Backstreet Boys which I have on film and will ultimately post to flickr when I get the bandwidth.
As we approached Hvar, I got a nice shot of the main harbor at dusk.
And then as we walked back up to the hostel, I got one of our little harbor and beach with all the boats in the sunset.
So you might think, "wow, booze cruise sounds like an awesome time. bet you guys were ready to crash out when you got back to the hostel, right?" And the answer is yes, yes we were... but we weren't allowed to! The whole hostel was rounded up and taken to this beach-side bar called Hula where more insanity continued.
For some reason Joc brought a permanent red marker with her and we all ended up with drawings all over us. One poor guy laid down on a table and within about 5 minutes was completely covered in drawings. Thankfully I only ended up with both arms and part of my neck in ink. Despite the high level of overall team intoxication and rabblerousing, I somehow managed to get a nice shot of the Hvar harbor and castle at night.
From Hula we went to another bar which would turn out to be our last of the evening. The stalwart Nautica bar. Everyone from the hostel gets a free jagerbomb (just what I needed) and they ran a ton of specials for us. But what the Nautica bar is really known for is their mixed drinks that come in vases adorned with lit flares! What?? Alcohol, drunk people, and fireworks? That sounds extremely dangerous! And it is! Some guy ended up with one sticking out of the back of his pants (not me!).
A some point Joc and I were handed another shot and this picture was taken. It was a bit fuzzy by this point, but by pacing myself on the booze cruise (thanks for re-teaching me the old lesson Zadar!), I was in more or less reasonable shape. Although you wouldn't guess it from this picture.
Seriously though, I made it back to the hostel with Joc perfectly fine, a feat I was unable to accomplish sober earlier in the daytime. And, reaching back to my college and tough nights on the road days, I drank an immense amount of water before going to bed. Unfortunately I woke up way too early as I was in a 14 bed dorm and everyone was leaving at 9:30, but I was thrilled to wake up more or less hangover free! Out on the balcony I ran into Joc and Lan, who had just arrived from Split, and we all, in our weary states, decided the best remedy was a relaxing day of swimming and lounging by the sea.
It was slated to pour rain all day but it luckily held off. After swimming, soaking up some rays, and somehow napping along the jagged rocks, we headed back to the hostel where along the way I had the obligatory photo of Hvar snapped.
That night, the plan was to take it easy. Relax at the hostel, maybe have a beer or two, but just chill out. I managed to loaf around until about 10:30 when the hostel hostesses (henceforth "booze nazis") came by and literally dragged us by the arms out of the hostel and down to Nautica bar for "one drink." As you might imagine, things spiraled out of control from there. I must say, the "one drink," our free Jagerbombs, were unlike anything I've ever witnessed. Here is the set up:
And then, just for good measure, why not light them ablaze?
We were planning to cut out but we met three hysterical dudes from London and we ended up joining forces with them for the remainder of the night. It basically unraveled into spring break. At one point Joc was motorboating everyone who came by, Monica climbed aboard a yacht she believed to be Tom Cruise's (who was in Hvar at that time) to "look at the fish," we all jumped aboard four or five different boats, and ultimately Joc stole someone's raft and put it on another person's boat. Too many funny pictures, you'll just have to check flickr. I'd be embarrassed if it wasn't so much fun- like being a teenager all over again, ha. Someday I'll grow up. ;)
The night went on into the wee hours and ended only as all great nights do- when someone gets poked in the eye with an umbrella during an umbrella-dance-off. Yep. But not me. This time.
The next morning I was surprisingly not hungover again. I was just as confused as you may be. But I decided to take advantage of that fact and stroll down to the main part of town to get some daylight pictures and purchase my ferry ticket back to Split for the following day. I don't really know what any of the stuff I took pictures was (besides restaurants, shops, and churches), but here is a nice one:
My plan for the remainder of the day was simple: relax on the awesome terrace of the hostel, perhaps do some writing, delay drinking anything other than water until the booze nazis showed up, and generally just enjoy my day. That plan lasted about 15 minutes once I got back from my morning stroll. It seems that due to high demand the hostel decided to run the booze cruise a day earlier than planned. Initially there were about 10 of us who had gone on the prior cruise who I would say at the beginning of the negotiations period were 70/30 against doing it again. As the next fistful of minutes wore on, the arguments were stacked against us.
One, everyone in the hostel who hadn't been on it was going- which means it was going to be exceptionally dead around there for about 6 hours. I was fine with that. Two, because the wind was calmer this day they were going to boat out to the cove where we could climb up and jump off rocks. Ok, that's somewhat enticing. Three, because there would be almost double the amount of people as the last time they were going to stay out an hour or so longer. That does seem reasonable. Four, if you are a repeat customer you get 30% off plus a small rebate from the last trip. Now that is a bargain... And finally, it's drinking on a boat in the Croatian islands, stop being a bitch and go. Ah.
It was argument number five that inevitably sealed the deal for us. Over the 15-20 minutes or so we were debating this, every minute or two we'd re-ask someone if they were going and gradually, one by one, every "maybe" turned to a "yes." Haha. Booze cruising again. But we had about 2 hours until it let off so our newly formed gaggle of me, Joc, Monica, Lan, Sanna, and the Brits all went down to the "beach" for a swim. After that, it was time to cruise baby.
It's basically impossible to not have fun on this thing. Our Brit buddies got the party started with the first swim of the day.
We also found out there was a Brazilian girl aboard who was turning 21 that day so, as any group of gentlemen and ladies would do, we congratulated her by making her chug a beer. Here is the 2-shot montage:
The overall itinerary was the same as before so I'll spare you the details again, but here are some fun photos from the cruise. I'm on a boat!
Also at some point I acquired a "Croatian Captain" hat. No idea where this came from.
Perhaps my favorite picture is Joc and I in our Captain's hats with the sunset. This would make a great "greetings from Croatia" card.
Wow! Another long and awesome day at sea. We should probably turn in early tonight. What do you think Croatian Captain Mike (who was also known as 'Brazilian Mike' at this point)? Should we stay or should we party?
Party it is! I love that one. Needless to say it was another ludicrous night but I made Sanna promise to send me home exactly at 12:30. Brazilian Mike loves a good time but he learned his lesson. Even in the midst of craziness, keeping your wits about you and knowing when to fold em to get enough sleep and not be a wreck on the ferry is the most valuable of assets.
So at promptly 12:30, I said goodbye to all my new friends and headed back to the hostel. Some stayed at Nautica, some went on to other bars, some even to Carpe Diem (really expensive club on an island). I heard some good stories in the morning, but I guarantee no one from the booze cruise felt better than I did at checkout. But if you saw this guy the night before, you wouldn't believe it.
In sum, Hvar was an awesome time. Maybe too awesome, especially for someone of my advanced years. It really was like being handed a bonus spring break. And compared to Split (and later Dubrovnik) Hvar wasn't really that expensive. If you plan to hit Croatia, and even if you aren't up for a massive blowout party-time, I'd still highly recommend Hvar. It was beautiful there and I saw a ton of families during the day- I just have no idea where they went at night. But if you are up for a party- Hvar is not to be missed. Hostel Skansi & the legendary booze cruise. Do it, be on a boat. Live the dream.
Bonus Photo: Croatian coast line on the way out of dodge the next day.
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