Hvar today, Venice tomorrow (Andy's pun)
Slept like shit last night. Apparently there's a club on the other side of the camp's wall and they get the party started around 1am. Girls like to talk hella loud and shriek for no reason. Yeah I'm old. Shut up so I can wake up at 630 and enjoy my day. Anyways, up and at em. Headed to Stari Grand for a cappuccino and croissants. The croissants had Nutella and jam, and like a pro I got jam all over my clean shirt. I just put it on! Grrr.
No map but we head out for the town of Hvar around 730. Hvar is a beautiful old town with white stone walkways. We didn't want to pay for parking so Andy found a grass parking lot. Not long after we parked, any angry Croatian walked by our car giving us dirty looks and saying who knows what. Andy doesn't think he like Germans (German license plate) so he was showing hostility. I didn't have a good feeling about parking there, especially after we saw a car getting towed in Split from a truckliftin bit off the ground. The farmers market was open so we got half a k of green figs. They were the sweetest moat delish figs we've ever had. Most places are closed so we do an early morning hike up be hill to the castle. It wasn't a long walk and it had spectacular views of Hvar, the ocean and surrounding islands.
A quick stop at a cafe for $7 sweet tea and were back in the car. We checked out the scuba diving option but its a 5 hr trip and they were already booked for the day. We drove around Hvar looking for a secret swimming area but all we found was a fish dock and a hunting area that said enter at your own risk. Since you rarely get warnings, I took this one seriously and wanted to turn back, especially after Andy went down a one lane rocky road and scratched the side of the car on bushes. Umm, we don't have insurance...
Before we left I quickly read about a semi-secret beach and we passed by it on the way to Hvar so we hit it up ont he way back. We parked in one of the few parking spaces along the side of the road and walked down the rocky path to the ocean. It was a small cove with only a dozen people, a rocky beach with blue water. We were pretty hot by now so we jumped right in. It's cool and refreshing, just what we needed! We hung out for over an hour, spending our time wisely until we had to catch the 2 ferry back to Split. I could have spent the whole day at the beach. We need to press on to Italy so off we go. At the port we had two large Bavarians (beer) and took in the last of Croatia. Way too short amount of time to spend on Hvar but I'm glad we checked it out.
A two hour ferry ride back to Split and back on the road ($7 pp, $48 per car). We are trying to Venice either today or tomorrow am. I leave Croatia with a little more color to my skin and pretty relaxed. I will def come back and spend a little bit longer. There's so much to do, scuba, mountain bike riding, ride a scooter around the island or boat island to island. The people are pretty friendly (well maybe not) and it's cheaper than the rest of Europe, but probably not for long.
We finally made it to Italy and stopped for dinner after 9 in Palmanova. We were starving and tired from the long day. Our first stop was a questionable place with old men sitting outside. After poor communication with the old lady, they were only serving panninis. No thanks. I needsome pizza. We pressed on getting hungrier and hungrier. It was a small town and not much seemed to be open this Sunday night. Finally a sign said Pizzeria and we said hell yeah! I've been so excited to eat some Italian food! We ordered a pizza for two, Andy had a beer and I had wine. The food was so amazing and so was the vino. The pizza had mushrooms and was huge! American size! We would have taken some to go but we were going to camp and eat more good food tomorrow so we stretched our stomachs and made it work. The toilet was India style. WTF?! I thought I was being punked so I looked in the men's bathroom and it was the same. That's news to me.
After finding a campsite not far from the restaurant we paid up (only 25EUR) and left because the teenagers next to us were getting a bit rowdy. Andy was ready to camp in another cornfield but I wasn't up to it in a new country. He had been driving for 5+ hrs and needed to rest, we past the 2k km mark. It's going to be another long day tomorrow.