Day 10 Biking Hvar to Korcula

Today is Island day.  We spent most of the time on Hvar and eventually ended up in Korcula.  It was quite the active day..my fit bit had me at just 100 calories shy of 4000 calories for the day.  Highlights of the day were a big uphill bike ride and then a scary downhill mountain bike ride, seeing the sites in Hvar and then a longish Ferry to Korcula

Map of where we were today.  We started at Barko Rooms on Hvar and ended up in Korcula.  For reference this is the coast near Dubrovnik which includes the Bosnian coast

We had just finished having our own breakfast on the balcony when our host brought these delicious cakes.  Boozy cake for breakfast...why not right?

It took a little bit to get the bikes figured out but here Zach is at the start of our self done bike tour near the bus station

What a lot of the first 7 km looks like.  Up hill on a country road.  We did bike past the town dump which was disgusting, but otherwise the ride was filled with great views and lots of lavendar

Lavender field near Bruje with the ocean in the distance

Us very happy to be at the top

After a little flat section we were off down the giant hill on this path marked extreme mountain biking.  This cemented my view the mountain biking is not my sport.  I probably walked about 1/4 of the way when the loose rocks were just too scary

Old town we passed with very little inhabitants.  Somebody was still ringing the church bell though

We finally made it to Milna where we searched out the bakery and tiny grocery store for lunch.  This is a cheese and spinach pastry.  Also notice the tons of liquid which we really needed

Milna is basically known for its beach which is where we had lunch and went for a brief swim to cool off.  Strangely here all the beaches have these chairs and umbrellas you have to pay for.  They wanted $10 for 2 chairs and an umbrella even though we really just wanted to sit for 15 min.  We ended up just sitting in the shade.  Also the water to rinse cost like 30 cents for 30 seconds.

Map and stats from our bike route (note this includes swimming and lunch time)

After biking the small highway back to Hvar town we decided as long as we were hot and sweaty it was time to hike up to the castle above town.  It was only about a 15 min walk, but it was kinda steep

Walls up to the castle

View of Hvar port from the top

Our reward at the top was ice coffee (which here always seems to mean coffee with ice cream and whipped cream)

After hiking down we stopped at our room.  The owner nicely let us keep the room all day since nobody else was coming.  We showered looked some stuff up (really this was me trying to figure out what was going to happen in Korcula since we didn't have ferry tickets yet).  After packing up we had about 1 hour to see some sites.  This is the convent where they make fancy lace out of a local plant.

Sculpture inside the town church the Cathedral of St. Stephen

Last supper painting in the monestary near our place

More inside the monestary 

After our brief tour of town sites we grabbed our bags and got some ice cream while we waited in line for the ferry

Dinky with the lovely lavender that our hotel host gave us

Our ferry to Korcula was nearly 30 min late

Finally our hotel in Korcula at about 9:45.  It was a great room but we didn't hardly have any time here

We quickly wandered town, found a place that did fish chips and beer for like $20 total

Town gates in the wall on the way back to our place

And finally it was bed time.  Not nearly enough time for sleep, but now I know the ferry schedule and would not have planned it this way.  Still a good day in genearl

Day 9 Exploring old Split and ferry to Hvar

I am falling behind on the blog but I am going to try to catch up tonight (we are actually in Dubrovnik tonight).

Highlights of day 9 are visiting the main sites in Split including the cathedral, and the cellers.  Then we did a great city walking tour, hiked the hill overlooking Split, saw a few more sights and were off on the ferry to Hvar

Breakfast was from the grocery store and eaten in the patio of our hotel

We had to get up early to make sure we made it to the ferry dock to get tickets to Hvar since they don't go on sale until 7 am

Next stop was coffee in this place in the palace called No Stress cafe.  Notice how tired Zach looks. The Dioletian's Palace is the main part of old town.  It used to be a palace is 305 but is now a maze of little shops, houses and rooms for rent

After our rest we were off to the Cathedral of St. Dominus which was a redo of Diocletian's tomb.  The church is octagonal in structure and we spent much of our time in there dodging tourist groups from all over the world

There was a bell tower so we climbed it.  This one was built starting in the 13th century and took 400 years to complete

View from the top

Bells that thankfully didn't go off while we were up

Exiting the church we made our way to the Jupiter's temple/St. John's Baptistery.  This was a roman temple that that Christians turned into a baptistery sometime in the 6th century.

Final stop before the tour was the cellers which are all underneath the palace.  This place used to the town dump, but is now cleared out and is a mostly empty place to tour.  I guess game of thrones was filmed here

We didn't have much time for lunch so we stopped at Nona's fast food for some pretty good Calzones which we ate while overlooking the golden gate waiting for the tour

First stop on the tour was seeing a reenactment of the emperor coming out of something.  It was very crowded and somewhat cheesy but it is a tourist town.

Next stop was the church to learn more of the history

Roman mosiacs pretty close to the church

These lovely flowers are everywhere.  This is actually a private house inside the palace that was selling for 3000 euro per square meter

Venetian windows. The more windows and the more decorated the richer the owner at the time

We managed to sneak into the Split synagoge at the last minute.  It is the 5th oldest Jewish community in Europe, but most members died in the Holocost

Better view of the theatre from the Hapsburg times which was the end of the tour

Before attempting to hike we got 1.5 L of lemonade.  It was very hot.  This picture also doubles as the view of our hotel

View from the Marjan hill.  We didn't go all the way to the top but stopped at a 13th century church before turning around

That hike required some ice cream.  This was the best place yet called Lucas. I had apple pie and Zach had lavender honey

Our guide on the walk told us about the 3 person chapel hidden in the golden gate wall so our course we had to go see for ourselves

After some shopping we caught the ferry to Hvar.  The lines were long, the ferry was late and the sun was really hot waiting

Inside the ferry

Around 8 pm we finally made it to our place in Hvar.  Barko rooms.  The place was great and so very cheap only 35 euro a night for a large room with almost our own bathroom and our own balcony

The Hvar habor as seen on our walk to dinner

Town Cathedral

After our first choice was full we snagged the last table at Konoba Mengro.  It is a local place that only does local food (nothing from italy).  It was really good.  We had different gnochis that were both very good.  I love that even moderately priced places in Croatia mean you spend under $40 for an app, main course and wine for 2 :-)

Monestery and swimming beach on the way back to our place

We stopped at Nonica's to pick up dessert to go with our wine on the porch at night

Never enough sleep, but tomorrow we sleep in a little because we are doing a self guided biking tour of the island before heading to Korcula at night on the ferry

Day 8 Biking and Kayaking near Split

Today was a more relaxed day (by our standards).  We did mountain biking (mostly downhill), kayaking to a secluded beach for a great lunch, laundry, and wandered Split at night.

One thing I can say is that if you have ever considered getting a selfie stick, please don't.  I really want to break every single one of those in half.  The only thing people do with them is take self absorbed pictures while blocking every elses way.  Such a terrible invention!  Also generally Asian  tourists are terrible.  Always taking forever with their cameras and trying to get everyone out of the picture.  If you go to a tourist town you are going to have tourists in your picture and you just need to get over it.  Anyway end of rant on to pictures of the day.

Breakfast was food we got at the grocery store.  We ate it out on the patio

A little after 8 the guys from red adventure http://www.red-adventures.com/  We had to wait forever at the office for the Aussie couple coming with us, (Halley and Micheal) but they did get us a coffe while we were waiting.  We were finally off and drove through Trogir which is a super old town near Split

After Trogir we drove up a hill outside of town were we hopped on the mountain bikes

The mountain biking was maybe not hard for people who bike all the time, but there were actually a lot of rocks and downhills.  Most of the time we had views like this of Split in the distance

Flat part where you can see the walls they built to divide the different land owners

Next stop was kayaking after reaching the bottom.  The sea kayaks were great and they even had a rutter that Zach had to figure out.  Of course of guide insisted that Zach sit in the back so he could steer because girls could never be trusted to steer (Our guide was actually really great, but I have noticed some crazy sexist attitudes around here generally)

We paddled around the pennisula for about 3 miles to this secluded beach where we stopped to swim and have lunch

Our great lunch

All of us enjoyed the stop

Once we were done with lunch and swimming we paddled across the bay to split.  The waves were really bad for a little bit, but it eventually calmed down

Monastery in the hill near the beach where landed

We arrived in Split to pay and then got dropped off at our place.  We quickly hurried to the car rental place because I accidentally took this book with me yesterday.  I managed to sweet talk the guy out of charging us another day since we did actually have the car back in time

After stopping at the car rental place we walked around Split briefly just to see what was around.  Here is the town clock

Since we actually had some downtime (like 4 hours which is a lot for us), we did some laundry at the place near us.  This cute little guy greated us and really only liked chewing his tiny bone on our feet as we folded laundry

Zach folding laundry (yes I did help)

Laundry took a few hours and during that time I managed to book ferry tickets, book the wrong ferry tickets and figure out some logistics for the next few days. Our dinner reservations weren't until 9:30 so we walked around a little, saw the sunset and figured out the ferry for the next day

Dinky enjoying the harbor

Still not quite time for dinner we stopped for ice cream.  I got blueberry and Zach got cherry

Dinner was at Konoba Matejuska.  This is the tuna salad.  We shared two different types of sea food risotto for dinner and it was excellent.  Not so great was the smoke from the grill drifting in, but the food was worth the watery eyes

View of the main promenade on the way back at night

After dinner we had just a little more wine in our rooms while catching up on email and by midnight it was finally time for bed.

Tomorrow we explore Split most of the day and take the ferry to Hvar