Hvar

Beauty spot for the jet set and for you too 

Hvar is a regular in glossy magazines where celebrities are pictured on yachts sipping cocktails. Hvar Town is the cool, uber chic haunt of the bronzed jet set and resembles either St Tropez, Mykonos, Marbella and so on. You name it, they keep saying it. If you believed all the hype you might think that the only people ever to have a holiday here were footballers, and the super model brigade. Not so! Please be aware that during the peak season of July and August the party people play loud music into the early hours and it can get noisy at night: do check our hotel descriptions carefully.

While it is a fashionable place and Hvar Town itself can get crowded in summer there is another side to Hvar which everyone can enjoy.

This island is incredibly beautiful, the longest in the Adriatic with a steep central ridge of grey rock and limestone terraces with traces of old
Illyrian settlements. Famous for its lavender which covers much of the interior in spring - and is sold on almost every stall and shop on the island - inland Hvar is quite rugged in a stark, alluring way.

We’ve chosen to feature Hvar Town itself and it’s here that you’ll find a sophisticated Mediterranean experience with some wonderful bars, clubs, restaurants and shops.

We believe that we offer three of the nicest hotels here: Adriana in the centre of things, Amfora Grand, just a ten minute walk from the centre and Podstine, a 25 minute walk or via hotel shuttle bus. Hvar Town could be a film set, all white stone plazas, tiny cobbled streets and medieval stone houses twisting up hills and down the other side past tangerine trees and old chapels, with churches, cloisters and colonnades at almost every turn. It is truly stunning.

The centre of it is a large main square that meets the sea at what Croatians call the ‘mandrac’ (like a little inner harbour). On the square you’ll find the impressive Cathedral of St Stephen, the 17th century arsenal and the old town theatre dating back to 1612. This is the oldest, continually functioning public theatre in Europe, and following some recent investment, performances are happening again. These are must-see sights.

A path zigzags up the hill above the city to the Citadel, built by the Venetians in the 1550s and worth the climb for the breathtaking views to the famed offshore island group known as Pakleni Otoci (this translates roughly as ‘Hell’s islands’, but hell they are not!). Water taxis take you from the centre of town to the three largest islands, one of which Marinkovac, has a sandy beach at Zdrilca.

Most of the access into the sea from Hvar Town is via rocky shores or bathing platforms and steps.

These are efficient enough but, if you want a special experience, nip out to the islands using the water taxis at least once during your stay.

Stari Grad (meaning ‘old town’) is around 20 kms across the island from Hvar Town, reached by local bus or hire car, and is more relaxed than Hvar Town. Set around a deep bay, it is full of tiny squares, stone houses and alleyways. Croatia’s most recent inclusion (2008) to the UNESCO World Heritage list is near here. South and west of Stari Grad, the fertile plains made it onto the list due to the ancient Greek system of field division having been preserved here almost unchanged – groves of fruit trees are divided by dry stone walls and the whole area is worth exploring.

Be sure to visit the house of Renaissance poet Petar Hektorovic born on Hvar in 1487, signposted from the waterfront in Stari Grad.

In Croatian, every letter of every word is pronounced (apart from j which sounds like a y), just try and say “Hvar” how it looks and it should more or less come out right! 

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