Go Take a Hike

First of all, let me apologize for the errant "Zs" and "Ys" you will undoubtedly see in this post.  Apparently they are switched on the Croatian keyboard. Silly Croatians.

Anyway!  For the past several days, to console ourselves after my mom and Lee's departure, we have been in repose on the beautiful island of Hvar about an hour off the coast of Split.  With five dazs to kill between leaving my mom and Lee, and before we meet the Bells in Italy, we decided taking it easy and recouping a bit would be a good idea.  (Those of you who have met our fabulous mothers know that one needs a lot of energy reserves to handle such forces of nature.)

Admittedly, Hvar, currently the hottest tourist destination for the rich and trashy, is admittedly not our usual scene.  We have, however, been able to look past the huge yachts and skimpy (or nonexistent) clothing, and have found a jewel of a historic little town set amongst some of the most incredible natural scenery to be found in Croatia.

Yesterday, as most of the tourists who flock to this island sunbathed on the sidewalks (Europeans apparentlz will call anything a "beach"), Jeff and I decided to explore some of the island outside the town.  Armed with our map, two large bottles of water, and sandwiches made with some of the delicious salami they make in this country, we set out to find a trail that would take us to a beautiful secluded cove.

According to the map, we needed to follow the street outside of town for a few kilometers before veering off onto a foot path that would take us over a mountain and to the cove.  Sadly, as we found out during our time with mz parents, Croatians apparently don't know how to make maps or give directions.  Despite our diligent efforts to follow the map (or should I more accurately say Jeff's best efforts), we were unable to find the correct path over the mountain.  We found a lot of paths, but all of them wound up in a dead end with us convinced that some angry Croatian was going to jump out from behind an olive tree at any moment and start yelling at us for being on his property.

After the third failed path, with our legs slashed up from walking through thick underbrush (you know those nice little cuts that sting like the dickens), Jeff had clearly given up on trying to find the elusive trail.  Though Jeff's spririts were clearly slumping, I have to admit that I was having a wonderful time lagging behind and taking pictures of the beautiful vineyards, olive tree orchards, and amazingly blue ocean.  The only lavender field I was able to find (this island is famous for its fields of lavender) had unfortunately just been harvested, but the smell was still intoxicating.

Finally, we had to admit defeat and come up with another plan for the rest of our day.  According to the map (why are we still looking at maps here!?), there was a small town nearby that was supposed to be a "scenic stop", so we decided to start heading in that direction.  After walking a short distance, the town came into view, along with a beautiful cove right on its outskirts.  From our elevated position we were unable to see a path from the town to the cove, but we both knew instantly that we wanted to figure out how to get down there.  After trespassing on God knows how many people's property already that day, we decided one more couldn't hurt, and started off through an olive tree orchard situated on the steep slope down to the cove.

How do we get down there?

After slipping down the side of the mountain and wandering around in the trees a bit, we finally emerged onto the beautiful little rocky beach. As you saw from Jeff's post on Krka, Europeans are quite fine with huge crowds, so we were pleased to find this area relatively uncrowded aside from those that had come by boat.

As we made our way onto the beach, relieved to finally be somewhere, I took a second to really survey the crowd that littered the beach.  "Jeff there's a naked woman!" I gasped as my eyes fell upon a woman reclined at the water's edge (there with her topless teenage daughter and preteen son).  However, she did not seem that out of place as we noticed over half the women on the beach were topless.  The only one in a one-piece, it was clearly I that was the miscreant in the crowd.  Unsure how to behave in such a situation ("I mean, is it rude to quickly look away?" Jeff asked), we made our way to some rocks in the shade and ate our lunch, staring out at the beautiful blue water.

Some strategically placed heads make this shot PG

After we ate, we decided to take a quick dip in the ocean, but found that it was much colder than we had anticipated.  Jeff quickly aborted his swimming efforts, but I decided I was going to get in even if I froze - besides my bladder was full and there were no bathrooms in sight.  After about twenty minutes of slowly wading in (the fact that I was stepping on rocks did not help matters), I made the plunge.  I hoped that once I was fully immersed I would get used to the cold, but found that was not the case and was quickly back out of the water. Luckily, Jeff was at the water's edge with a towel to warm me.

We lay on our rock for a little while, Jeff dozed a bit, before we decided to make the hike back. Though Jeff was bummed to have not found the path we were in search of, he agreed that in the end it had been an exceptional day.

*I have a few more pictures to add to this post, but the computer is being painfully slow to upload and we are paying 30kn an hour - about $6, so I had to put up what I had before the price tag got too ridiculous.