HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLIDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYS!!!!!!!!!! Yippee!!!
Marco and I will spend now the next two weeks together, from end of July to mid August. We're going on holidays! The destinations: Croatia (Island of Hvar) and Sicily, at Marco's parent's :-)
30th of July:
Pretty early in the morning I took the Torp Ekspressen, the shuttle bus to Oslo's middle-of-nowhere airport Torp in Sandefjord. I had my flight (a shitty Ryanair flight!) at 10:35 to Milano Bergamo where I landed at 13:00. Marco had come by car to pick me up :-) Via Bologna, where we just stopped for some groceries, we drove to Ancona on Italy's Adriatic coast.
First thing we did was checking in at the Jadrolinija ferry which would later bring us across the Adriatic Sea to Croatia. After handling the formalities we went out for dinner to some restaurant in town of Ancona, which didn't leave the impression of being a too lively city.
At around 10 p.m. we headed back to the cruise terminal to go on board the ferry.
However, the ferry didn't leave until midnight. Soon after departing Ancona harbour we tried to get comfortable at the "poltrone", the seats, that we had booked for the overnight. I underline we "tried"... All cabins had been fully booked so the seats were the only available places for us. They were actually alright as long as we could make use of the third seat next to our two reserved ones. But unfortunately in the middle of night a person came to claim his seat back and so we had to free it... and over it was with the relaxed sleeping position...
31st of July:
Today we were going to arrive in Hvar, a city and harbour of the island of the same name, located in the Croatian county of Split-Dalmatia.
As the many people on board were pretty loud, Marco and I woke up super early.
But the night anyway wasn't supposed to be too long as our arrival in Stari Grad on the Croatian island Hvar was scheduled at 08:20.
Just disembarked we were actually in need of some fuel and it actually wasn't that easy to find a gas station in that small place. Eventually having been successful on that we continued with our car from the harbour in Stari Grad to the village of Hvar. Upon arrival we met Iris, the girl that was renting out the apartment that we had booked for the next 5 nights. She was really nice and friendly and showed us the place. It was a really light, big and clean aparment, well equipped and (except for the bedroom) pretty modern.
We didn't lose too much time in the apartment and left after a quick shower to take the 200m down the hill to the "city" centre.
Cathedral of Sv. Stjepan (St. Stephen) at the Hvar Town Square
We went for some fresh groceries, procured some local money and shopped some swimming shoes, which are highly recommended and common due to the many sea urchins along the Croatian coast. After our acquisitions we hurried back up to our apartment, got changed and headed quickly to the next available water spot: the "Monastary Beach". How refreshing, the first bath of the season! And it was so beautiful and hot!
Another quick shower and dinner out in a restaurant ended this day which was already full of good impressions! This looked pretty promising to become really good holidays!
1st of August:
It was Marco's and my first day of the holidays together, so we allowed ourselves to get up relatively late. After a quick breakfast, though, we went down to the shops on the lookout for a hat (or anything else to protect our heads from the powerful sun during the next days) and a new bikini for me (mine is so old by now!). Unfortunately I couldn't find anything that suited, so I had to live with what I have...
Still before noon we approached the harbour, which is not only docking place for those many yachts sailing around the Adriatic, but also the departure point for the many excursions and taxi boats to the surrounding Pakleni Islands.
For this day we had chosen to take a "taxi" to the island of Stipanska (right after the island Jerolim) where we stayed the whole day sunbathing and swimming.
For lunch we enjoyed the atmosphere at the beach bar/restaurant "Carpe Diem".
At 6:30 p.m. we finally took the boat back to Hvar. That was probably enough sun for the first day!
Back in our apartment we cooked some pasta al tonno (with tuna sauce). In the evening we stayed in and later watched the film "Giù al Nord" (the Italian counterpart of the French movie "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis") on TV.
2nd of August:
In contrast to the day before, we got up early, at 08:15. The reason being an excursion by boat that was going to take us to Zlatni Rat (Golden Cape), a narrow white pebble beach on a promontory near Bol, located 2 km west of Bol harbour, on the southern coast of the island of Brač:
The boat "already" left Hvar harbour at 10 a.m. as this was a two hours sail to Bol.
We had grabbed two sunbeds on the top deck were we started sunbathing from the morning on until lunch was served on board. They had prepared grilled tuna, coleslaw, bread and wine.
Upon arrival in Bol we took a taxi boat to that famous Zlatni Rat beach.
This is surely a pretty touristy, but still very beautiful place. We stayed for about three hours, had some ice cream and went for a drink at the bar.
Later on it became pretty windy which made it quite some fun being in the water with the waves.
At around 4 p.m. we left Zlatni Rat beach...
...and took the taxi boat back to Bol. With the upcoming wind it was the perfect windsurfing conditions. I would have so much loved to surf there as well. It looked so much fun!
Back in Bol we strolled a little through the shops alongside the promenade. But still, I didn't find any bikini for me.
At 5 p.m. we went back on board our little boat to head back towards Hvar.
Back in Hvar at around 7 p.m. and it was still such gorgeous weather!
Also this evening there was nothing big on the programme. Just a stop at the supermarket, a nice relaxing shower and again some yummy pasta made by amore mio :-)
3rd of August:
This was yet another morning of getting up early. 08:00 a.m. again! Marco being Italian and thus not too much into excessive breakfasts, I quickly sat down alone on the terrace to enjoy my cup of milk combined with the early sunrays :-)
Today's excursion to two famous caves started even earlier.
At 09:30 the boat "Edi", the same as the day before, left Hvar harbour in the direction of the Green Cave.
On the way we even happened to be accompanied by some dolphins!
After two hours on the boat we finally reached the first of the two caves we were going to see this day, the Green Cave. It is located at the islet of Ravnik in front of the island Vis. A stop of about 45 minutes gave us the time for a refreshing jump from the boat deck and for a swim to discover the caves with goggles and snorkel from the inside.
Back on the boat, while having again lunch served on board, we got to know an Italian couple: Viktoria and Stefano from Pesaro. They were our age and we got super well along with them. While the boat left the Green Cave to sail to our next stop we used the time to chat excessively with our new acquaintances.
A little bit more than an hour later we arrived at our next point of interest, the island of Biševo. Here we had to disembark and wait until some tiny rowing boats would pick us up to bring us in groups of ten into the Blue Cave.
As I was so used to having my sunglasses on and being so impressed by that cave, I totally forgot to take the glasses off, so that I actually missed part of the beauty of the cave until Marco - stunned by my stupidity - made me aware of that fact. "Ouch!" How stupid can one be??? I admit that what I saw through the sunglasses in the beginning wasn't as blue as on the below pictures. Obviously!
We didn't remain for longer than maybe five minutes in this cave. It was actually pretty trafficked and further boats with tourists were queuing outside the cave.
Back on our excursion boat we went on to the beach on the island of Vis where they dropped us off for approximately two hours.
Together with our new friends we strolled through that little, cosy village...
...and just relaxed on that little beach Komiža.
On the way back to the boat in the late afternoon we couldn't resist and bought ourselves a huge ice cream.
The return to Hvar seemed to take ages. It seemed we would never arrive and that hours had passed until we finally reached Hvar again at around 7.30 p.m.
As soon as we were back in our apartment we hurried under the shower. It was already late and we were super hungry. For dinner we had planned to go out. We actually had a certain restaurant in mind, but then eventually decided on another one: Restaurant Alviž. It had a very cosy backyard with open BBQ where we had wine and a grilled meat platter including the typical Croatian Ćevapčići which I was so much looking forward to eat again since my last Croatia holidays with my parents sometime ago in the 90s.
At this point greetings to my friend Jana! You're even part of my holidays ;-)
After dinner we strolled along the mole admiring all the big yachts.
4th of August:
With an alarm set for 09:30 I could say we slept in. After another breakfast in the sun on the terrace we drove to Zaraće, a little, nice and isolated beach, pretty unknown among tourists.
Viktoria and Stefano had discovered is beach before and invited us to come along today.
We basically stayed the whole day and had a lot of fun with the two. For lunch we tried some local food at the beach restaurant "Gego".
At around 6 p.m. we decided to have had enough sun and sea for the day and so we left.
We didn't head right back to Hvar, but further on to Stari Grad where Viktoria and Stefano had rented an apartment. Stari Grad was bigger than I initially thought when we strolled through the streets looking out for a place to have an "aperitivo" (a drink) together.
Two hours later we left again and made us on the way back to our apartment in Hvar and back to the restaurant from the evening before: to the restaurant Alviž. We just liked that atmosphere in that backyard and also the food.
We just couldn't resist the smoke from the open BBQ filling the nearby side streets.
5th of August:
First thing on today's programme was packing. Our time in Hvar was already going to be over. However, the suitcases were quickly done so that we headed straight down to the harbour again. The plan was actually to take again a taxi boat out to the Pakleni Islands, this time to Mlini Beach which had already attracted our attention on the first day. Unfortunately the first returns from that island were only at 4 p.m. in the afternoon, which was simply too late for us :-( We still had to take a ferry to Split this day.
So Marco and I stayed at one of Hvar's beaches like on the day of arrival. Luckily we were granted to keep our apartment a bit longer which allowed us to still take a shower before finally leaving.
After we handed over the apartment keys and said goodbye to the very nice landlord, we went back into town to get some postcards, have a walk around the little side streets of Hvar and to enjoy a refreshing drink in a bar.
When it was finally time for us to leave.... :-( .... we made a little detour up to the Spanish Fortress allowing for a superb view over Hvar, the big yachts in its harbour and the Pakleni Islands.
Leaving Hvar at around 3 p.m.
We had to be back in Stari Grad two hours before a ferry would take us at 17:30 to Split. In order to assure our place on board, we had already bought our tickets the evening before with Viktoria and Stefano. So now we were just sitting there two hours and waiting for the departure. Two boring hours we used to write our postcards and to cheer us up with some ice cream.
The crossing didn't take more than two hours and thus by 19:30 we reached Split.
However it then took us nearly 45 minutes to find our apartment. We were without map (and the TomTom didn't have the Croatia map loaded) and got totally lost in some small side streets. But we eventually found Tonka who was already waiting for us to hand over the keys.
Due to that late arrival we just decided to stay in and cook some pasta.
6th of August:
We only had to leave the apartment by 11 a.m., so we took it easy with getting up this morning. Despite having just nearby some stairs down to the city centre, we decided to take the car down as we anyway had to leave the apartment and its parking spot. This, however, turned out not to be the best idea: it took us over an hour to find a parking space in the city. It was totally crowded and a total chaos.
On top of that it was just hot hot and hot, the sun was burning like mad! Thus we eventually ended up walking from one bar to another having one refreshing drink after the other to escape the heat. Always on the lookout for some shadow in a side street we tried to avoid the heat while trying to get at least some sightseeing done.
As we no longer had the apartment and a long ferry ride in the afternoon and night back to Italy, there was unfortunately no way for us to make it to some beach jumping in some fresh water.
For lunch we stopped at a nice restaurant called "Grgur" in the side street of the historic centre where we found a table comfortably placed on the shady terrace. Also the food was pretty ok. After extending our lunch break to the maximum at this cool place, we continued our bar hopping. The last of our refreshment stops was then actually an ice-cream parlour.
In the late afternoon we picked up our car again and made our way to the big ferry harbour to check in at the BlueLine terminal. Between check-in and boarding hours and hours passed which we were just standing and waiting in the heat. We were so much looking forward to getting on board and relax. Unfortunately this wasn't the case. Everything just got worse and worse! What a total disorganisation and asininity!
Finally boarding started, but only drivers were allowed to be in the cars. All other passengers had to get on board over another ramp. It was so crowded and people were pushing and pushing and in the end nothing was moving. I think it took me one entire hour to move from the boarding gate at the terminal to the 50 metres away entrance on the ship!
On board itself I felt like having arrived in a chicken house or in a slum. People of all ages were lying and sitting around the floors setting up their "overnight camps", in the middle of the corridors and stairways.
Unfortunately already at the time of booking this trip there were no more cabins available so Marco and I had to stay among all those vagabond-like people somewhere on a seat. And as if that wasn't already enough, we had to figure out that they made a mistake with our seat pre-booking. This caused nearly some fight with a tourist group of totally ignorant and arrogant Italians with an even more unfriendly tour leader.
After hours of running around trying to find someone to give us information on which seats we were finally booked on and Marco having to become pretty unfriendly to be eventually heard, we were helped. This help consisted in being sandwiched with 30 others into a small spare room, without air conditioning. I think I fell asleep for about one hour on that seat, but it was so super uncomfortable that at 3 a.m. in the morning I took my jacket and just placed myself on the floor. I didn't care at all anymore about how dirty it was, if this wasn't appropriate or anything. I just tried to sleep at least for a short while.
7th of August:
Totally sweat and dirty and especially tired we arrived back in Italy in Ancona at 08:30 in the morning. We drove straight back to Bologna. The only thing we could think of at that moment was getting under the cleaning shower. It was nice to be in Marco's apartment. Not only for the shower, but especially as it allowed me to see this apartment for the first time. Marco and his brother had just moved into it a couple of weeks before.
Though the bed looked pretty attractive, there was unfortunately not even time to think of catching up with sleep... Only after 30 minutes we had to leave again and heading to Bologna airport. The trip continued. We still had to fly down to Sicily at 2 p.m.
Arrived at Palermo airport, Marco's father picked us up.
It was only by 6 p.m. that we arrived at Marco's parent's place in Porto Empédocle/Agrigento and that travelling was over! We were so exhausted from the passed 36 hours that we just fell to bed after dinner.
8th of August:
Already early in the morning Marco and I went to the beach. We met up with our friends Eugenio and Valentina at "la Spiagetta", next to Giallonardo Beach, west of Porto Empédocle.
For lunch we went back home as Marco's mother had cooked. After a lazy afternoon we drove to Agrigento for some shopping and visiting Marco's grandmother. The day ended with an evening in San Leone and a stroll and a drink along the "lungomare" with Eugenio and Valentina.
9th - 15th of August:
The next seven days passed as a relaxed mix of beach (sometimes early, sometimes late, sometimes whole day, sometimes only half-day), meeting friends, eating pasta and a lot of other good food and ice cream and some going out in the evenings.
Sometimes we attended some concert and one day we were invited to some friends of Marco who got married last year and wanted to show their wedding pictures and the video.
We didn't make a big thing out of "Ferragosto" this year. We just met some friends and enjoyed the last hours Marco and I had together.
15th of August:
In the afternoon Marco's father drove Marco and me the two hours back to Palermo airport. I had my flight back to Oslo at 19:20 and Marco only 50 minutes later to Bologna.
This was now the moment after two beautiful weeks together that we had to say goodbye again. How I hate this! I so much hate this separating every time over and over again!
Though it was an uncomfortable Ryanair flight, but luckily it was a direct connection from Palermo to Oslo. However, I still wasn't home and in bed before 2 a.m. in the morning. And the next day I had to go back to the office...
I miss Marco, I miss the sun and the beach, I miss the heat. But I can't deny having had fantastic holidays! I was amazed by the landscape and the clarity of the water and its green and blue colours. Even in the harbours the water invited to jump in immediately! I can really recommend this place and I'd like to get back there one day.
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