Summer Travel, Part Six

The next day found us anchoring just outside Hvar, Croatia, a lovely view to behold. Royal Clipper, for the most part, would anchor outside the harbors of these little ports, and would provide tender service to take us ashore. The tenders usually ran every half hour.

Hvar was a small place, but very pretty. Some folks from the ship took excursions that involved kayaking or bicycling. We chose to explore on our own.  The "downtown" area was small and -- for once -- the church wasn't at the top of a hill!

Looking toward the church from the square. We went over to visit and were astonished to find there was an entrance fee! We weren't about to pay, so we contented ourselves by admiring its beautiful doors.

Most of the ports we visited featured a downtown square and not a lot of trees. As mentioned earlier, the sun was powerful. For the first half of the day, the cafes on the shady side of the square would be open and then midway through the day, as the sun moved, they would close and the ones on the opposite side would open. It was a fine system. Of course there were umbrellas and awnings and tent-like canopies. Some cafes had misting fans that were just delightful and at least one place had the misters built into the umbrella spokes.

Downtown Hvar.

So pretty.

We found this Red Submarine amusing. It is a glass-bottom boat -- passengers go down inside to view what is going on in the sea. We had seen it first in Rovinj and when we got to Hvar, one of our friends exclaimed, "Oh, look! It's following us!" I thought it would be fun to take a ride, but didn't get the opportunity.

Goodbye, Hvar!