Hvar Fortress (Fortica Hvar)

In my post yesterday,  I said that even though I arrived in the dark, I detected at least hints of beauty in Hvar. I also promised to assess that further today. I can now confirm that it is an exceptionally picturesque seaside town. I’ll probably say more on that later in this post and again in my afternoon post, but after breakfast, rather than wandering around town, I climbed up to Hvar Fortress.

Do you see the fortress perched on a hill in the distance above the background palm tree in the accompanying picture? Yeah, that fortress.

But before getting into that, a brief note. Hvar is the name of an island and its largest town, which hosts the island’s port/marina. I booked two nights here. But because I arrived yesterday evening and leave tomorrow morning, I have only one day in Hvar and won’t have time to explore much beyond the town.

That might have been a mistake. I probably should have booked at least one additional night to allow me to explore and relax further. But I didn’t know exactly what to expect when I booked it. 

The Climb

The climb to Hvar Fortress does not require any mountaineering skills. Reasonably wide, well constructed and maintained stairs and then switchback paths lead all the way up.

It’s just that it requires ascending considerable heights. I imagine young whippersnappers think nothing of it and might even object to the “considerable” I attached to “heights” in the preceding sentence. But I’m not a young whippersnapper. I’m an old curmudgeon. That grants me licence.

The views on the way up are spectacular. I paused often to take photographs. For each picture, I spent considerable time framing the photo just so.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Although, if you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll admit to only you that I used those pauses primarily as an excuse to stop, catch my breath, and rest my legs.

My Fitbit told me that by the time I reached the base of the fortress, before even going inside and climbing its internal stairs, I had already climbed the equivalent of 25 floors this morning.

(Fitbit counts all uphill steps, on stairs or not, and then translates that into floor equivalents. It doesn’t include any downhill steps in that measure.)

Why did fort builders back then have to build their forts atop high hills? Yeah, yeah. I know. Hold the high ground as a key military position and all that. Sure. But did they give as much as one single solitary thought for the tourists in the centuries to come who would have to make that climb to take in the sight? No. I dare say they did not.

Oh. About that “have to make the climb” thing. It turns out that, in addition to the stairs followed by the switchback path walking route, a road runs up to the fortress. I didn’t learn that until I got to the top and saw a few cars parked there. And as I left, a couple of tour buses pulled up and began to disgorge their passengers. That was one of my rare instances of serendipitous good timing, I’d say.

Hvar Fortress

According to the information sheet handed out when I bought my ticket, only one, single-column panel of which is in English, the foundations of the current fort lie atop the foundations of a fortification built in the first half of the first millennium BCE. Okay. Maybe I’m not that old after all.

Construction of the current fortress began in 1292. Additions and renovations continued for some time, with the fortress reaching its current form in the 16th century.

Although, they had to make extensive repairs to it after October 2, 1597, when lightning struck the fort’s gunpowder store. The resulting explosion considerably damaged the fort and even parts of the town below.

I don’t know if they were religious in these parts at the time. But I know that if I were religious and the sky threw down a lightning bolt that struck, of all things, the gunpowder store, I would find it difficult to believe that my god was a loving, merciful, protective god.

Today, the fortress is beautiful in a formidable sort of way. But its best features are the magnificent views it offers. Vistas include the sea and town down below, some of the smaller islands out in the sea, and other hills and mountains on Hvar island behind the fortress.

Signage inside the fortress is almost nonexistent. So I can’t tell you much beyond what was in that single information panel. But there are many areas to clamber up, down, and around.

One set of stairs leads down to the fortress’s prison. (A sign, one of the rare ones, said simply “prison.”) Climbing down them requires passing through a stone doorway with a top low enough that even I, who never achieved the full human quota of height, had to duck.

This is not the first old prison I’ve visited in my travels that had a low-clearance stone doorway. Was that the plan? Did the builders hope prisoners would knock themselves dead on the way in so the jailers wouldn’t have to pay to feed and guard the inmates?

There is a small café in the fortress. It serves croissants, coffees, juices, and lots and lots of different types of alcoholic beverages. I had breakfast already, but it was not yet lunchtime, and it was too early for me to drink anything alcoholic. (I do have standards, you know.) But I sat and enjoyed a fresh-squeezed orange juice.

I spent a very pleasant morning at the fortress, as well as walking up to and down from it, before returning to town for lunch.

Lunch

I had lunch at a marina-side restaurant, listening to the gentle waves lap up against the promenade that runs along the three sides of the inlet that contains the marina and against the boats bobbing placidly in the marina.

I started with a small mixed salad. A “Mediterranean pasta” with a variety of seafood followed that. I sipped on a glass of wine throughout and ended with an espresso.

Lunch was wonderful.

When I checked the weather forecast before heading out this morning it predicted a 40 percent chance of light rain each hour from noon to 3:00. As I write these words at my lunch table, it is after 1:30. So far, not only has no rain fallen, but there’s been at most a few small, wispy clouds in the sky so far today.

This is a travel journal, not a statics lesson. And I don’t want to get all mathematical on you. Nevertheless, while I know that a 40 percent chance is a lower probability than 50-50, I still consider myself lucky in that regard.

I truly don’t deserve this life. No doubt, anyone who knows me will confirm that if you ask them outside of my earshot. Maybe also within my earshot. But they’re polite people and will pretend they’re joking.

I’ll publish another post later covering my après déjeuner activities (a French foursome occupied the table beside me at lunch). Please come back to read that. You won’t want to miss it. Or maybe you will want to miss it. I don’t know. I wrote these words while still at my lunch table. And I don’t intend to amend them before I hit the publish button on this post when I get to my computer at my hotel before dinner. So, we’ll see how it goes.