Just under two weeks now until we return to real life and we had planned to go out with a bang. We have been wanting to do an Adriatic cruise off the coast of Croatia for a few years now but with covid and other commitments it was not able to be done until now.
Our itinerary is as below with us leaving Split at lunch time today and returning to Split in one week.
Once we had booked out of our hotel we dragged the bag down to the harbour to board our little boat which really is not so little.
Basically it is a cruiser that would make even an oligarch reasonably happy. It takes 36 people but lucky for us it is only half full. The make up of the guests are mostly English with a two couples of Americans and another Kiwi/Ozzie couple.
Boarding was effortless and none of these wrist bands that the big boys like making you wear.
There are 18 cabins altogether with most of the people on the floor above us and we have one end of the boat all to ourselves. We opted for the cheaper cabin as you don’t spend much time in it plus they are bigger.
View from one of our port holes.
Very surprised just to see how big the actual cabin was. You can swing two cats around in it.
We were not the only mega boat in port and in fact this one behind us had a hot tub and a small swimming pool. We are wanting to experience swimming in the Adriatic rather than a pool as the water is crystal clear and very salty so we should have lots of buoyancy.
We have 200 kilometers to Dubrovnik so that makes our round trip 400k in seven days.
We pulled up anchor at 1.00pm and had a four-hour cruise to the island of Hvar. The actual coastline that we will be following is called the Dalmatian Coast. The island of Hvar has a population of about 13,000 people and has been inhabited since prehistoric times.
We had a couple of hours to wander around before we all met up to be taken to a local restaurant. Even here there is no litter around which makes for a very pleasant change.
We are visiting two different ports on the island of Hvar and this one is called Stari Grad.
The time at Stari Grad was spent just wandering all the back alleys and admiring the bougainvillea. Many people hire luxury yachts which they man themselves around the islands but after being three months on the narrowboat we just wanted time out from having to do all the organising and planning.
No way are we going to be in a hurry to offer any of our boating skills and anyway, as everything is on a much grander scale.
The evening meal was interesting – nice way of saying, not the most appetising. It was very fatty lamb like stew. We returned back to the boat late but a few of the guests including us managed a brief night cap before heading back to our cabins. The boat does not move at night and is usually moored up in a port.
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