Hvar, Croatia

It was 4th of July in Hvar yesterday and the Americans came out in full force to celebrate their country’s independence and freedom. Hvar town is a great place to celebrate freedom because pretty much anything goes here, and when people want to celebrate anything in Hvar, it means rocking parties and uninhibited fun for everyone who wants it. The place is littered with beach clubs that blast electronic music into the bay all afternoon and into the late hours of the morning. Inside these places you find people dancing on the tables, jumping into the sea, wearing watermelon helmets, or wearing pretty much nothing at all. Boats are anchored anywhere and everywhere around the shore and dinghys and water taxis criss-cross the bay constantly. It is full of youth and life, and the situation is somewhere between amazing and an unmitigated disaster depending on your perspective (and perhaps your age).

There is no comparison to this in the US because almost everything that happens in Hvar would violate some law or ordinance in the states. There would be no loud music in public, no beach bars, no anchoring near the shore, no drinking on the beach or public boardwalks, no “indecent” exposure of flesh, no swimming pools where people have been drinking, and certainly no noise making after 2 in the morning (the more popular places in Hvar haven’t even opened by then). But as the DJ blasted Bruce Springsteen music towards a sea of soaking wet flag wearing half-naked American partiers, not a single one was thinking about the irony, and that was a good thing.

Hvar definitely isn’t a place for everyone or for all occasions, but it was perfect for us on our 4th of July. Today we head up the Croatian coast towards the bigger city of Split where we’ll take care of some chores and do some boat maintenance. We’ve heard mixed reviews of Split so we’re not quite sure what we’ll find when we get there.