Walking the Walls, ATVing, and Lace

More Museums and Some Impressive Walls

Our last day in Dubrovnik, we awoke before dawn in order to catch the taxi with Ann, Mary, and Louise back to Dubrovnik. Ann and Mary were going to continue traveling with the Louise as a good through Croatia and Slovenia and were starting with a 7 am ferry to the island of Kocula. Since Em and my’s ferry to Hvar didn’t leave until 3:30, we dropped our bags at the bus terminal and headed back into the Old Town to explore for a few more hours.

I still love walking these ancient cities as dawn breaks. It’s incredibly peaceful as the only people out are locals delivering goods for the shops, travelers looking to move on early to their next locations, and other photographers trying to catch the mystique of the city before its calm is broken by the hordes that will arrive in mere hours. 

We wandered the nearly empty streets snapping away on our cameras to our hearts content until 8 am when the city walls opened and we could be one of the first to wander her walls for the day. The city walls of Dubrovnik are one of the main attractions of the city, as you can circle the entirety of the Old Town and see everything (both inside and outside) from its ramparts. Along the wall there are three forts, sixteen towers, six bastions, two corner fortifications, and two citadels. The circuit is 1940 meters long and takes between an hour and two hours depending on how leisurely you stroll, whether you go up every tower to take in the view, or weather you stop for an overpriced coffee or juice along the way. We did all of the above and finished our stroll as the hordes descended. 

After the wandering the walls, we hit up the last two museums that we’d missed the previous day: the Natural History Museum and the Archaeology Museum.

The Natural History Museum was hilarious in my option. The museum was originally founded in 1872 from the private collections of ship owner Antun Drobac. Over time, the collection expanded, the curators changed, and the museum evolved into multiple other museums (the maritime, ethnographic, and cultural history museums all started as collections in this museum). The current museum is designed by someone that wanted to appeal to children (of all ages), with bright, fun exhibits that are interactive or more than 2D. 

There is an entire exhibit on insects and how they hear that includes a sound track of chirps and clicks, as well as giant 3D replicas of ants poking out from the walls. I loved the sea animals room as the curators had created a psychedelic water world using CDs, crape paper, and multicolored lights. I loved this museum, while Em though it looked like a child was let loose in an IKEA with some scissors and glue sticks. 

The archaeology museum was small and tucked away. It apparently contained information on the five phases of the construction of the fortress in situ, as well as finds from the archaeological explorations of the fortress during 1985-1986. The museum also exhibited sculptures and religious relics dating from the 9th to 12th centuries from churches from within the city walls and those from the surrounding areas. I’m not sure if I missed a section or not because the only stuff I saw were the religious items.

Since we still had some time to kill before boarding our ferry, so we decided to go “swim in a Yellow Submarine.” The Yellow Submarine was small yellow tourist boat with an underwater area where one sit and watch the fishes swim by as the boat lazily toured the harbour surrounding the Old Town, headed out to the island off the coast and then circled back along the coast. Em and I were giddy as school children and spent the ride waving to people along the walls drinking their coffee (most did not wave back), going down below to glimpse the small schools of fish, and singing off-key “we all live in a Yellow Submarine” on repeat. It was great fun.

Our ferry ride to Hvar was little rocky and I was thrilled to be back on land three hours after departure. We were met at the local bus station (a short walk from the pier) by Tatjana, the kindly older woman that was the proprietor of our AirBnB for the next two nights. Tatjana loves to wait for her guests and walk them through the town to her place so that she can give them the lay of the land and help insure they don’t get lost. She was a lovely woman with way more energy than either Em and I and helped us make ourselves right at home in her converted apartment.

Badasses in Hvar 

Hvar is a nice sized island in the Adriatic Sea, just off the Dalmatian coast. The island itself has been inhabited from prehistoric times and the ancient Greeks founded the colony of Pharos in 384 BC on the site of the current city of Stari Grad, making it one of the oldest towns in Europe. The island was home to one of the first public theaters in Europe and birthed Juan Vucetich (born Ivan Vučetić), who is near and dear to me as a pioneer of fingerprinting in relation to criminology.

On the ferry ride to Hvar, Em and I had been subjected to an endless loop of the same few commercials so we knew about all the odd rules on the island and about a place to find Em’s White Whale, good coffee. 

First the rules. Due to the hordes of tourists flocking to the clear blue waters, plethora of beaches, and numerous bars and restaurants that the island provides (especially in the main city of Hvar Town), there became an unsustainable amount of drunk and rowdy foreigners destroying the city with litter, passing out in random locations, and insulting the religious people by wandering everywhere in bathing suits. Since the city couldn’t just ban certain nationalities from coming (and they tried), they instead figured out they could impose huge tariffs (they range from €400-800 for each offense) on the things that would most likely be done by an inconsiderate visitor. 

So now you can’t have picnics in public places (or wander while eating ice cream), sleep in a public space, drink alcohol or be intoxicated in a public place, or wear bathing suits as your only clothing in public spaces. The only one that really terrified me was the no picnics or ice cream in public places cause I wasn’t sure how liberal they were with their application of that rule (like would they fine me for eating my morning pastry as I wandered the pier?).

Now for Em’s White Whale. An ad that popped up ever10 minutes or so on the ferry ride was one for a coffee shop called Kava 37 that spoke of only being a 30 second walk from the ferry dock and showed tantalizing images of pour over coffee. So of course, Em was determined to find this jewel as soon as morning came. It turns out that Kava 37 is a newly opened (April of this year) coffee shop owned by a couple where the female counterpart is Croatian and the male counterpart is German. The shop has a minimalist and elegant design and serves pour overs as well as traditional espresso drinks. They even had fancy smacy milks. Em enjoyed her nirvana in the form of a pour over and I had a wonderful almond milk cappuccino. 

Fortified on good caffeine, Em and I set out to rent a scooter to explore the island. Since a circuit around the island is about 35-70km depending on where you go, it’s best seen on a scooter or bike. We walked up to a random kiosk and asked to rent a scooter, but since we had never ridden one before and some of the roads were unpaved and slightly off the beaten path, they said no. Then we attempted to rent electric bicycles, but they were all out. Eventually we ended up with a quad, which made Em’s eyes light up. The main issue I had with the quad was that they gave us helmets with large visors on the front so that if I tried to sit up straight or lean forward at all during the course of the day, I inevitably rammed my visor into the back of Em’s helmet.

About five minutes after we headed out of the main square, we became super glad that fortune shinned on us and forced us to rent a quad, as it turns out the whole island is a series of large hills (possibility deserving of the title mountains) and we never would have gotten anywhere on bikes.

Our first stop of the day was the abandoned town of Malo Grablj (“Lower Grablj” or “Lesser Grablj”). The inhabitants of this village were once peasants that worked the land for a tithe to their owners in Hvar Town. In the 1800s they did very well as the lands were good for wine production and the phylloxera that was killing off grapevines elsewhere in Europe didn’t reach them until 1915. The profits from wine allowed the villagers to build a school, mill, water cistern, impressive library, and parcels of land for everyone on the coast a few miles away. 

After WW I, the land could not be reused for wine growing, but was great for the growing of Lavender, Rosemary, and buhač (pyrethrum). In the 1950s, everything was going great and so the villagers all decided to just up and move to Milna; the town on the coast were they all bought plots of land in 1905. Since that time, nature has been slowly reclaiming the village. Now, there is only one person that lives in the town, Berti Tudor, the man that owns a restaurant and will regale you with stories (which we might have heard if the restaurant had been open when we were wandering the town).

Besides a random biker that enjoyed starting a conversation while biking away from me and three other German tourists that showed up a half hour after us, we had the run of the place. We got some great photographs and Em almost became another name on the list of people that die trying to get the perfect shot, as she attempted to climb some of the rotting wooden stairs to see the remnants of a bathtub on what was left of the second floor of one of the houses.

We climbed back on our ATV and headed up the windy dirt road to Velo Grablj (“Upper Grablj” or “Greater Grablj”). This village started in the 1400s most likely as a sherpards village and once was the center of lavender production for all of Dalmatia. In today’s time, the village is almost as deserted as its lower counterpart, with just a handful of full time residents. In an effort to keep the town alive, a few of the locals got together ten years ago to start the Lavender Festival. This festival takes place one weekend every June and is immensely popular. Em and I were in search of the lavender fields (not having realized that they’d all been harvested for the years months back), but a kindly older gentleman laughingly told “All gone” and showed us the display bush he had in his front garden. 

After thanking the local, we continued up the mountain to the main road and wandered back down the other side to arrive at the city of Stari Grad (“Old Town”). Stari Grad occupies what used to be the Greek city of Pharos, which was established in 384 BC, making it one of Europe’s oldest cities. The city is rich in archaeological sites, churches, and surrounding rich agricultural fields.

We entertained a local shop keeper when asking where to park the ATV without having to pay or get a ticket and then being told to just drive the vehicle onto the sidewalk and leave it there. So we did. Then we went in search of lunch.

While digging into so decent chicken risotto, we heard our names being called and looked up to see Ann and Mary. Apparently, they’d arrived in Hvar Town that morning and taken the local bus to Stari Grad. Seems that faith wanted us to all meet up again since we’d all arrived in town at the relative same time.

After sharing lunch together, Em and I said goodbye to Ann and Mary for the time being and continued on our way. Our next stop was Tito’s Tunnels (AKA Kabal Bunker). To get to the tunnels (which Em had read about but thought were caves) we wandered down a small local road (after doing a few U-turns cause we weren’t sure it was a legit road) until it ended and became an seemingly endless unpaved path. About 10 miles of bumping along, up and down hills and praying the ATV wouldn’t die on us and leave us stranded away from civilization, we reached the end of the road. The only thing to tell us we’d arrived at our destination was a spray painted “Tunel” and green arrow. We dismounted and followed the green arrows for a quarter mile or so and reached the entrance.

I honestly don’t know much about the bunker except that it was used to either stock pile weapons in case of potential attack or as a place that could be activated if there was conflict. I think it might have been a satellite site related to the huge secret military complex on the nearby island of Vis. 

What I do know is that there is a long concrete tunnel that eventually become just a tunnel without the protective concrete barrier. Off the main tunnel are various rooms (presumably or storage of weapons or personnel) and some bats. There was a stair well to somewhere, but when we shown our flashlight on it, bats swooped down and freaked Em out so we didn’t venture up. We wandered around in the dark for a bit and then returned to the light and a long bumpy ride back to Hvar Town.

Our last tourist site of the day was Hvar’s fort Fortica, called Španjola by the locals. This is a smaller, Venetian inspired fort that was originally constructed in the 13th century, but renovated over time until it achieved its current form in 1579. In the later half of the 16th century when the Turks tried to take over the city, all the inhabitants were able to hide out in the fort, thus it saved their lives. Nature a few years later decided to send a lightening bolt that hit a gun powder room and the resulting explosion and fire, heavily damaged the fort. 

The fort affords some beautiful views of Hvar Town below it and host an impressive collection of amphora and other gems that were located in ships that had sunk around the area.

The next morning we had a few hours to wander Hvar Town before catching a ferry to Split. We met up with Ann and Mary at Kava 37 (because the coffee was that good and we wanted to share the goodness with others).

Ann had read about a monastery that was known for its lace work, so we ventured up the cobbled streets of Old Town to locate the Benedictine Covent. The closed order covent has been in operating since 1664, when the nuns first arrived on the island. The nuns most important contribution to the city was in the form of education; they ran the first school, which operated from 1826 to 1866. Nowadays, the nuns are most well known for their intricate lace work that is made from agave leaves. At the Covent there is a small museum that displays some of this intricate work and for the price of a small car (slight exaggeration), you can take home one of these masterpieces.

Our morning wanderings also took us to the edge of town where we got a nice view of the city and the bay. There we used Mary’s selfie stick to get someone else to take a picture of the four of us. It was funny cause as Ann pointed out, “Isn’t the point of a selfie stick to be self autonomous when taking a photo?”

Em and I said our temporary goodbyes and headed out on the afternoon ferry to Split.