It’s not a secret that American travelers have been flocking to Europe every summer and, as the demand for European travel has increased, so have expectations. The reason behind it could be that the most popular destinations advertised to US travelers, through social media and mainstream pop culture, are the ones where everyone goes. The same ones that cannot stand the number of tourists visiting them anymore. And there are others, the ones that not everyone hears about, the hidden gems and new perspectives, and one place that often gets mentioned is the Island of Hvar.
Getting here is much easier than it might seem. Newark flies nonstop to both Split and Dubrovnik this summer, and from either one, you take a catamaran to Hvar. From Split, it’s about an hour on the water. From Dubrovnik, closer to three and a half, with some of the most amazing views of the Croatian coast.
What you realize first, stepping off the boat, is the pace of the city. Hvar Town moves characteristically slowly, a way of life built over centuries. A way that puts relaxed living front and center, and that, for some visitors, becomes an early highlight of their stay. It’s not unusual to see locals sit on the terraces for hours. Dinner does not start before eight. The passeggiata (evening walk) along the harbor is, by now, almost a tradition, not a tourist performance. By the end of day one, if you feel like you don’t have to hurry anymore, you can consider your day successful.
Hvar has somewhat of a party reputation, mostly earned during the 2000s when beach clubs and yacht crowds made it a popular spot on the European summer circuit. That version of the island still exists if you want it. But the old town that predates all of that by several centuries is the more interesting place, and it takes a day of unhurried walking to start understanding it.
Start at St. Stephen’s Cathedral on the main square, a three-nave basilica built between the 16th and 18th centuries and funded entirely by the citizens of Hvar themselves. Visit the nearby Arsenal that houses the oldest communal theatre in Europe, dating back to 1612. A short walk from there is the 15th-century Franciscan monastery, home to something unexpected, a unique type of art–lace. Benedictine nuns here have been weaving it from agave plant fibers since the 19th century, a technique found nowhere else in the world and recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage.
In the afternoon, head to Dubovica, a pebble cove about eight kilometers east of Hvar Town. Take the boat from the harbor or jump in a car, and a ten-minute walk down gets you to white pebbles and water that shifts from green to deep blue within meters of the shore.
A water taxi from the harbor takes under twenty minutes to the Pakleni Islands, a small archipelago of wooded coves and clear water just off Hvar’s western coast. The European Environment Agency rates 95.2 percent of Croatia’s coastal bathing sites as excellent quality, among the best in Europe, and the Pakleni Islands are where you can see why that’s true. From mid-June onward, the sea is generally warm enough for swimming, with clear conditions common throughout the summer. Pick a cove, swim, and repeat. Several of the islands have small waterfront restaurants serving fresh catch, grilled fish, and octopus salad at tables close enough to the water that you can step back in after lunch.
In the evening, climb to Fortica. It takes fifteen minutes, and the view from the top, over the harbor, the Pakleni Islands, and the open Adriatic, is usually worth every step.
The interior of Hvar is agricultural, quiet, and largely ignored by the traveler who comes for the harbor. That is their loss. The village of Velo Grablje in the hills above Hvar Town was once the center of the island’s lavender industry, and in June the fields still bloom.
Further east, the Stari Grad Plain is a working landscape of vineyards and olive groves laid out by Greek colonists in 384 BC on a grid of rectangular plots bounded by dry stone walls. Local farmers still work the same plots on the same boundaries. There is almost no signage explaining its significance. You walk through it and work it out, which turns out to be the right way to encounter something 24 centuries old.
Most visitors to Hvar never make it to Jelsa or Vrboska, two small towns on the island’s northern coast connected by a forest path that takes about forty minutes to walk. That works out well for the people who do. Lunch in Jelsa at one of the harbor konobas, fresh fish, local cheese, whatever the kitchen has that day. From there, hire a small boat out to Red Rocks, a stretch of red limestone cliffs that rise vertically out of the sea. There is a pebble beach tucked into a cave on one side, cliff rocks on the other, and water clear enough to see straight to the bottom. Not many people know about it yet. Spend the afternoon there, and you will start to understand something about Hvar that the harbor does not tell you: the island keeps some of its gems at a distance, just far enough that only the people who know about them actually find them.
This itinerary gets you far, but not all the way. Hvar has a way of doing that, showing you enough to make you realize how much you missed. From the coastline to the countryside, different parts of the island reveal themselves over time, leaving just enough for the possibility of a repeat visit.
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