Foodies Arrive at Stari Grad on Hvar Island

Foodies Arrive at Stari Grad on Hvar Island

We check into Apolon Hotel, which is an old priest’s house that has only 7 rooms and is decorated in a mix of traditional and modern styles. We sleep in the priest's room so expect to receive some
spiritual input.

Our room 

The hotel is situated on the pier which has huge and expensive sailing boats have docked here for several nights. 

We saunter around this charming and peaceful small town and eat dinner on the balcony overlooking the harbor. 

We determine this is the best meal we have had yet ~ starting with shrimp macaroni hors d’oevres followed by John having a half kilo of fish served in a huge frying pan, Seth having lamb (to die for lamb), and Laura and I having shrimp risotto.  We clearly have once again ordered too much food and sadly no room for desert.

Lamb

1/2 kelo fish

The next morning we meet our tour guide who drives us around the hills and villages (e.g., Jelsa) of Hvar Island. We learn about grape harvesting, olive growing and lavender farming. The winemaking industry on this island was nearly devastated in 1910, when a phylloxera infestation decimated their grape plants.  Now the focus is on quality of wine rather than quantity as many of the wine makers fled to other countries. 

Also the business of making oil has suffered because our guide tells us that the heavy rains the year before reduced them to 10% of their usual production of olive oil.

Verboska

We arrive in Verboska a small, quaint village and walk around learning more from our guide about local history. 

John joins the men's group

Boys learn early to relax 

Are they mindful?

Originally this was the Island of Lavender. Everywhere we stop for amazing views and notice that the hillsides are striped with outlines of rock terraces which traditionally were used to separate out people’s land being used for growing grapes or lavender. 

Rock terraces separate lavender and grape growing plots

This lavender was mostly exported for industrial use in Germany and the UK and dramatically improved the quality of life in Hvar for awhile. However, periodic forest fires over the past 3 decades have burned up much of their lavender crop. Moreover the hard manual work of hand picking and harvesting both olives and lavender has been become replaced with the less physically difficult tourism work that is more lucrative. Nowadays lavender is produced for the sake of tradition. Laura and I try to convince John and Seth of the medicinal value of lavender for relaxation, mindfulness and treating muscle aches but I don’t think they are convinced. They want the data! I wish I had planted more lavender in my Vashon garden earlier this spring and plan to add some when I return.  

Hvar Town

We stop in Hvar town and our guide shows us where his family home is and where he and his brother ran a wine bar until there was too much sibling rivalry and discontent. They now live together with their families but have rented out this space to another wine bar merchant.  Laura and I wish we had more time here to poke about in stores, explore small side streets, see the Franciscan Monastery and have a painless smile makeover.  However, our guide says we are late for lunch and must head up the mountain hillside.  

After a winding road and walk up a trail we are greeted with a 

lovely small family restaurant in a private olive grove with an amazing background of Adriatic Sea and Stari Grad city where we have a private lunch. 

We watch the cook as he fries peppers and fills them with home made cheese. After this he barbecues chicken and veal on his large and hot stove. 

Of course there is no air conditioning in this basic shelter and the temperature is in the 80’s or 90’s outside but with the hot stove on top of that I don’t know how he cooks in this temperature.  We are the only guests here except for his wife who greets us holding her 5-month-old baby.

View from family restaurant 

Back at the hotel by 3 pm Seth and Laura go swimming and we walk about this quaint and sleepy village. John moves the time later for our next meal so we can be hungry enough to enjoy it. I think about how much weight I am gaining. Funny how on holidays one thinks about and enjoys meals so much more. We stop in the village for drinks and Laura and I buy lavender from some girls selling on the town square.

Girls sell us lavender 

Going out for Dinner on a Vespa

 At 8 pm the hotel manager takes me via Vespa while the others go in a car to another amazing traditional family home restaurant in the country called Konoba Kokot. This restaurant almost equals our oyster island restaurant for heavenliness, peacefulness and isolation.  It is set in the family’s back yard under an ancient almond tree with a view of lavender and the owner’s garden. 

View from our dinner table

The cook’s three children and his wife are also having dinner at a table nearby. We start with a rakica drink and figs.  The drink is like grappa but with a sharper taste and quite delicious when paired with figs. We are also served several types of homemade goat cheeses along with crepes filled with melted cheese and asparagus. This is followed with peka… the local Croatian dish that is baked for hours on a large furnace heated with wood. 

Preparing Peka

Peka ~ local Croatian Dish

It is moist and delicious and while you think you can’t eat any more it is seems necessary to do so. Of course, there is ever flowing homemade red wine.  I wonder how I can possibly stay seated on the Vespa to get safely home ~ luckily the manager arrives to pick us up in a car that fits all of us.