Hvar

What an attractive place Hvar is, with it's castle overlooking the town and it's many narrow, winding little streets.

We wandered along the waterfront on our way to the museum

where we saw these beautiful amphora, the photos displayed on the wall behind showing where they had been found on the sea bed.

What a lovely patina of sea-life left on the pottery surface!

Himself was delighted to find the work of one of his favourite artists on display.

Then he was horrified to discover that it was full of woodworm, with wood dust on the floor demonstrating that the beetles were still busy eating! You can see the line of light-coloured holes all down the centre of the carving. He went to the ticket office to inform them and to suggest immediate treatment. Oh, they knew all about it, they would get round to it in the winter when the tourists had gone. What! It would take only a few minutes to take the carving from the wall and inject it with fluid. It's such a beautiful object, I hope they get their act together soon.

Otherwise!

The museum garden was a tranquil place to be, shaded by trees and with a good view out to sea.

The old stone table is inscribed with board games which must have entertained generations of local people.

Other stone fragments are on display in the courtyard

and ancient tombstones in the cloisters.

Around the town, as on the other islands, the Venetian lion is much in evidence

and the main square in town is very Venetian in style,

a good place to see and be seen!

In the evening we climbed up to the castle. It was steep. By the time we got to the top there wasn't much of a view. Our boat's down there somewhere!

We left Hvar in the morning after breakfast, first having to wait for those boats tied up alongside us to stow their ropes and leave.

Each night in harbour we were stacked like a multi-decked sandwich, with long ropes looped through each boat tying us all together. 

If you are late into harbour you have to jump from boat to boat to get ashore. If you are first in then all the other holidaymakers trail through your boat. Not exactly ideal! On other holidays the boats were moored end-on (not a nautical term!) to the harbour side so that you could just hop ashore, and you were also assured of a far greater degree of privacy on board.

Once we were at sea the door of our cabin could be left open for a bit of fresh air.

Then it's just a question of sitting back and enjoying the passing landscape 

as we travel towards Korcula.

(Did I mention that the shops were rather nice in Hvar? What do tourists do? This one bought a t-shirt from the Blue Gallery.) 

What does it say?

It's from Modesty Blaise - my era!

"I have something for you, 

something that will fix your mood

....Indigo."

At least, that's what the shop girl told me.