Hvar (and Palmizana)

Hvar is not classy. It boasts about its yachts, snobs and impossibly expensive, well, everything. Honey, money don't buy class.

But we'll get to that later.

We took a catamaran from Korcula over to Hvar arriving early, early in the mid-August morning. Straight off the boat, Rosa managed to stalk a paranoid Croatian granny who happened to have space for five in her guesthouse. She asked if we were Australian, we (sort of lied) and said no. She wearily smiled and led us to her accomodation complete with air conditioning, my own single room and a balcony with views of the centre of town and the sea.

We paid for three nights and set out to wander.

Which is kind of where it all went wrong. And i'm not quite certain why, but things started to un-gel. We either felt ill, or sun weary or hungry or thirsty, and we all started to get separate ideas about what Hvar should be. This is probably how we all ended up on a taxiboat to Palmizana, a small island on the Elafiti chain just off the coast of Hvar.

We were promised sandy beaches, quietude and ample lounging space.
We got baking hot rocks, condoms in the water and a menacing colour changing octopus occupying the cratered shallows. Oh, and one Italian playboy bunny-type bathing in her g string with her nips out flipping her coarse hair extensions emphatically at her rather 'enthusiastic' moustached manfriend . I realise that I sound rather old lady here, but i promise you, it was not something you'd want to witness within close range.

The mood was bad.

We headed back to Hvar three hours later to find it filled with i'm-too-good-for-you, collar popping, yacht owning, i smell like i bathed in cologne instead of spritzing it a-holes. And Italians. Drunk ones. We persisted and had dinner at the lovely, lovely Dalmatina, where our waiter, Denis charmed the money right out of us. (a beautiful concoction of courgette, parmesan and pine nuts bathed in an oiled heaven)

Then we went to rub elbows with the richy rich wannabees and their silicone breasted companions. No alcohol is enough to improve this situation. I went home, blearly eyed, a couple of hours later, leaving the partying to Rosa, Matt and Natasha.

And that's day one in Hvar.