Hvar
Drive Along The Coast
Tour of Hvar

The tour continued as we said goodbye to Dubrovnik and boarded our deluxe Croatian bus for the tour north along the coast.  
The scenery was outstanding. 

The mountains became very rugged and very high.

We arrived in Split for lunch and to get the ferry to Hvar. 
This is the promenade in Split just outside Diocletian's Palace. 
The ferry to Hvar. 
Hvar is an amazingly beautiful place on the Island of Hvar in the Adriatic Sea. 

This is the main square, looking across the harbor to our hotel, the Adriana.  It was a nice hotel but I didn't care for the modern design in an otherwise historic district, plus the rooms were small.  On the other hand the location was great.

A view of the Hvar harbor from our room in at the Adriana.  Location, location, location.
The main square in Hvar with St. Stephen's Cathedral at the upper end.

One the of seeming endless quaint European side streets. 
  The 15th-century Franciscan monastery and museum. The bell tower was built in the 16th century.

The Renaissance cloister leads to a refectory containing lace, coins, nautical charts and valuable documents, such as an edition of Ptolemy's Atlas, printed in 1524. 
The Last Supper, attributed by some to the Venetian Matteo Ingoli dating from the end of the 16th century is the main feature of the monestery.
  The chapel at the monastery 
A view from the monastery garden. 
We boarded a bus for a driving tour of the highlands and the other side of the island.

We passed some picturesque but isolated mountain villages.   
The mountain soil is very rocky so for centuries farmers have been picking rocks out of there fields and piling them up, not so much to form walls as to get them out of the way.

It really was amazing to see miles of these stone walls and rock piles. 
 
  A closer view of the rock walls.

You can see from the look of the fields that after 10,000 years the people still have not managed to pick up all the rocks.   
Unfortunately we had to give up our deluxe Croatian bus when we boarded the ferry so we had to travel in this clunker.  
The town of Stari Grad on the Island of Hvar. 
The harbor at Stari Grad.

 
Back in Hvar, Maryann and I hiked to the French Fort at the top of the hill. Several other member of the group were already on their way down.

Fort Napoleon was constructed during the Napoleonic wars during the French occupation of the area.
From the fort you get a good view of Hvar and the surrounding countryside.   

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