Friday, June 22, 2007
Friday 4th May
After a day of teaching and Jon studying, caused by the rain, we decide to move further north. We drive along the Adriatic highway. The road twists and turns along the coastline with the mountains on one side and the sea on the other. Croatia has a beautiful and dramatic coastline. The purple hued mountains are covered in green pines interspersed with Cypress trees standing straight and aloft, the mountains literally tumble down to the water where they are caressed by the aquamarine of the sea. (Sorry got a bit poetical there!) Later we pass some beautiful lakes, it was impossible to resist the draw to stop and take some photos and sample the serenity.
We come across our campsite and park immediately above the sea. Jonny luck has followed us as we discover Friday is a free fish party day at the camping ground. The host Mladen spoke very good English and was extremely friendly. Another German couple joined us, as did a mad Irishman called Darra who has been cycling around Europe for the past 3 months by himself. Not content with a 70km cycle he went for a run before joining us for the excellent fish supper. They all endured our drunken ramblings as we enjoyed too much of Mladen’s excellent home made wine. I’m afraid to say the next day the world was continually spinning and we spent most of the day moving very slowly and talking very quietly. Darra to his credit spent a good while drawing pictures for the boys and smiled as the boys "helped" him pack away his tent. He was a great guy and we wish him luck with his Asian adventure in a few weeks.
After this we go to the island of Hvar. Jonny luck again means that we drive down to the local port to find the boat is ready to leave and drive straight on. The roads are quite bad and it takes an hour to drive to Jelsa after only a rare glimpse of civilisation along the way. Jelsa has a pretty harbour but unfortunately there was much building work going on so the air was full of Diesel and noise. After lunch and a quick walk around the small town we carried on to Stari Grad. This too had a beautiful harbour and building work.
We drove further to the town of Hvar, dubbed as a small Dubrovnik. It has again some impressive walls, although not wide enough to walk on. However, we take a walk through the towns small alleyways and climb to the fortress at the top looking down over the town and the surrounding sea. There is a pleasing view from the top where one can see the familiar terracotta roofs, the small neat harbour with a selection of yachts and small fishing boats and a collection of small islands. The islands are like droplets of green land that have bubbled up to the surface of the tranquil waters.
We drove calmly back to the port Sucarej safe in the knowledge that the last ferry was midnight so we wouldn’t be stranded. We arrived at the port just after 8pm and as luck would have it the Ferry was just coming in to dock, but we could not get on because it did not go again until…yep midnight! OK maybe this was something we should have checked but there weren’t any visible timetables. So there we are at the port 8pm with 3 kids in a car with lettuce, cucumber and raisins for tea! We took a stroll around the port for an hour then headed back to the car and broke the videos out. Finally back home for 1am. Needless to say we all slept in until about 10am the next morning.
