Hvar!

Hi, everyone!

It was warm and sunny all the time we spent on the island of Hvar!  Grandma and Grandpa’s hotel room looked right over the harbor, so I even had a nice view before the sun rose! On Thursday, we started the day by walking around the town of Hvar.  Lela-san showed us the mosaic at the center of town.  There are waves and fish swimming, but from a distance it looks like a big fingerprint!  Then we walked through some of the old city streets.  The oldest walls and buildings have been here over 700 years!  At one point, people from Venice were in control of Hvar, so there were new lion friends on some of the buildings.  Of course I had to make friends with the strawberries at the market, too!

When we got on our bus to go to our first walk location, Harry-san said I could help drive!  We went to Jelsa, on the north shore of Hvar Island.  Lela-san showed us a statue that marks where a famous passion procession starts every year during Holy Week.  Then we walked five kilometers on a path along the Adriatic coast to Vrboska.  It was a very pretty walk!  When the sun shines, the color of the sea is very blue!  The exact shade depends on how shallow the water is.  Five kilometers is a long walk for a little lion!  Lela-san said it was OK to take a rest partway through.  When we got to Vrboska, Lela-san showed us the fort walls around the church.  In the 1570s, the governments of Turkey and Venice were fighting for control of Hvar.  All the towns built fort walls around their tallest building to protect themselves from attack.

Then we got on the bus again to take a ride to Stari Grad.  That is the oldest settlement on Hvar, set back from the shore on a nice bay.  Greeks arrived here to settle in 384 B.C., but there were tribes living in the area for two thousand years earlier!  After the Greeks, the Romans, Venetians, Turks and Napoleon all claimed the area and built over the foundations of earlier settlers.  Lela-san showed us a mill used for grinding olives into paste.  There was a beam put into the center so a donkey could pull the wheel around and around in the basin.  Grandma and Grandpa bought lunch at a bakery and we ate right next to the harbor!

On our trip back to Hvar town, Harry-san drove us up to the top of the hill behind the harbor.  We all got off at the fort to enjoy the view!

Then we decided to walk down to the harbor and our hotel!  First there was a paved path zig-zagging down the hillside through a nice garden.  When we got to the edge of the town, there were stairs the rest of the way!  I was glad there was a chance to rest partway down!  When it got dark, I liked looking up at the fort to see how far I’d walked!

The next morning, we took another bus ride for our walk.  First, we stopped at the town of Brusje.  We looked at the World War II memorial, showing how both men and women contributed to the war effort.  Lela-san showed us a stone used to weigh down olive paste to press out oil.  Then we climbed up to the local church.  A local craftsman made a door for the building in the burial ground that showed all the activities townspeople were doing.  In a garden, Lela-san showed us another kind of olive mill that two men could operate.  The garden also included one of the collecting stones at the bottom of an olive press.

We made one more stop before we reached the beginning of our walk.  On top of a hill, there was a little eight-sided chapel dedicated to St. Rock!  The view from the lookout was very pretty in all directions!  The view was also very rocky in all directions!  The early settlers in this area made dome-shaped huts for shelter.  The one I saw looked like a rock igloo!

Our walk for the day started at Velo Grablje.  There are only eleven people who live in this village now, but it is the site of a lavender and olive oil cooperative.  I made friends with a straw donkey carrying lavender from harvest.  I recognized the olive grinding mill!  Lela-san showed us how the olive paste is spread on straw mats so the oil can be pressed out.

We started our walk in Velo Grablje and walked down a gorge through Malo Grablje.  Nobody lives there anymore!  At the bottom of the gorge we reached the coast at Milna!  That’s where we ate peka our first night on Hvar, but this time we walked all the way to the shore for lunch.  There was an extra dessert, so I got it!  Then I sat on the beach for a while.

Our bus ride back to Hvar town was the last ride with Harry-san for this trip!  I was sad about our tour being almost over, so Grandma let me eat one of the honey and saffron cookies we bought in Stari Grad.

On Saturday morning, we walked around the harbor to the fast ferry landing.  We took the ferry to Split, Lela-san’s home town.  The ferry was a very big catamaran and the ride was very smooth!

There is a very old palace right next to the harbor!  It was built as the retirement home for Roman emperor Diocletian, who lived there from 305 to 311 A.D.  We entered through the basement, but when we got upstairs we could see some of the original mosaic floors!  In the years since Diocletian lived there, lots of additional structures have been built.  Now they fill in most of what was open courtyards and have made the streets very narrow!  Lela-san pointed out the many different eras of construction that are mushed together!

Every day at noontime, some people dressed as Roman soldiers appear in the main courtyard.  Then someone playing Emperor Diocletian gives a short speech, welcoming visitors to his palace.  Emperor Diocletian didn’t think the crowd was suitably excited in greeting him!  After the Roman soldiers withdrew, I made friends with one of them.

After the tour of Diocletian’s palace, it was time to say goodbye to the other travelers on our tour.  Grandma and Grandpa and I had lunch at No Stress cafe, just outside the palace.  Then Grandma told me that we didn’t have to say goodbye to Lela-san yet!  She was driving us to Slovenia for the start of our next tour!  We drove north, and gradually I could see fewer rocks and more open fields.   We stopped for a picnic snack that Lela-san’s mother made for us.  It was yummy!

When we arrived in Ljubljana Slovenia, it was time to say goodbye to Lela-san.  Our hotel room overlooks a Franciscan church.  Today is Pentecost Sunday, so the church bells have been ringing for a lot of services!

Love,

Lion-san