Today’s hike is on the Island of Brac and we are all looking forward to a great day. We leave earlier today at 8:20am and walk to the port to get on our chartered boat ‘The Marin’, named for the owners son.
Shortly after leaving port, Marin came around with a ‘pick me up’ of schnapps or Slivovica (plum brandy) and figs. A little potent for first thing in the morning, but a nice touch.
It is a gloriously beautiful morning and before we know it we are in Sumartin on the island of Brac. The plan is to relax, have a coffee and start the walks around 10:15am. Sylvia is having issues with her knee, so her & I are having an exploration day. Martin has kindly arranged taxi transportation to get us over to where the hike ends on the other side of the island.
The walkers head off, and Sylvia & I relax a wee bit before meeting up with ‘Harry’ our taxi driver (for the life of me, I couldn’t remember his Croatian name so Sylvia named him Harry!). Around 11:00am, we wandered over to Harry’s taxi and decided we wanted to also go to Bol. Harry was more than happy to extend the day, we jumped in the van and were off on our adventure.
The drive was very scenic and Harry was so kind to explain as much as he good about interesting aspects of the island – he isn’t normally a tour guide, but a taxi driver. Although his English was fairly good, some things were challenging to explain so there was a lot of sign language and guessing, which made it even more interesting!
Arriving in Bol we were told this is a wine growing region and his sister had won gold in a local competition for her ‘black’ (red) wine. The type of soil, lack of rain, and plenty of sunshine make for a heavy wine which is actually very tasty. Franca, his sister, makes wine with no added sugar or anything else, just the grapes.
Bol has won tourist destination of Croatia for the last 12 years and Harry was very proud of this. One of the billboards reads ‘SymBOL of Adriatic’. The beach area was beautiful and the water was a beautiful teal green/blue and crystal clear. We were dropped off to spend an hour on the beach, and within minutes Sylvia was in the ocean for a swim.
We then zipped off to the town centre and had lunch at a nice little restaurant. Time was getting on, it was 2:30pm and we wanted to be in Povjle by 3:00pm to meet the group. The drive was about 40 minutes so we needed to get a move on. Well Harry was in no hurry to get us there as he knew the boat wasn’t leaving until 4:00pm. We weren’t able to leave until we stopped at his sister’s and each bought a litre of her gold winning wine. We left there and I thought ‘oh good, we will be there soon’. Oh not so, we went through Selca to see the church, slowed down to have a look at the rock quarry, and meanwhile the group had texted me that they were all back and having refreshments in Povlje. I was getting anxious to get back and finally I said we need to get going, which I had done several times, and Harry kept showing us sights. Finally Sylvia says, Harry we need to zoom, zoom. This he understood and picked up speed. At that moment we came to a sharp curve and Sylvia pipes up, not that zoom zoom Harry. This brought laughter from him and within a few minutes we arrived at the pier with our peeps.
We had a few moments to relax with the group before Josko and Marin were ready to take us back to Baska Voda. The ride was fantastic and as soon as we left port, here comes Marin again with a snack of open faced ham & cheese sandwiches and red wine. Now that is classy!
By 5:00pm or so we were back at the hotel and into a routine of relaxing, enjoying a wonderful dinner and great company. A great day!