From the Eos/N95/Eee of Simon: Tuesday 7th July

Woke this morning to the sound of loutish youngsters returning home to
our place of accommodation, obviously still enjoying their night very
much so. Fell back to sleep, then woke again shortly after to the sound
of a car driving past. Woke again approximately an hour later to the
sound of a scooter at full pelt. You get the idea.

My final awakening was to the sound of the garbage truck coming past
doing his job. How do we manage to stay here for 2 nights, and make one
of them garbage night??? Anyway the generally sleepless night was due to
us leaving the window open, which was due to us not having any A/C at
the place at which we are currently staying. We got up around 8am, and
it hadn't heated up TOO much by this point. By the time we had walked to
the supermarket for some breakfast, and subsequently walked home, the
day had made its intentions, weather-wise, very clear. Yet another
scorcher was in store for us.

We started the day off with a hike to the top of the hill overlooking
Hvar town, where the old fortress, Fortress Spanjola, is situated. This
place is fantastic, they have one of those water cooler things so you
can get cold water. I poured a generous amount down my gullet, then all
over my hat. Great fun.

We had a wander around the old fortress, including the former prison
cells, which were actually offering quite a relief on a day like today,
dark and cool, with a bit of a breeze coming through the "window".

The fortress currently has an exhibition concentrating on amphoras, or
more correctly, amphorae. I said it that way so people would know that I
mean the plural of amphora. So what is an amphora? Readers of the
adventures of Asterix & Obelix would probably be familiar with these
vase-looking vessels, usually used to transport liquids. The word
amphora, I was reliably informed by a piece of paper stuck to the wall
in this exhibition, is derived from two Greek words, which currently
elude me, but the meaning of which are basically "to carry with both
hands", hence the naming of an amphora, as it has two handles, one on
either side.

We finished up our amphoral lesson, and proceeded back down the hill.
Our plan at this point was to continue the walk west along the south
coast of the island, a walk we had commenced the night before but had
not completed. We had much more success today, reaching the point of no
continuing, at which point we proceeded back towards town to discuss the
subject of lunch.

Lunch was of little note, so I will continue. We now headed east around
the southern coast of the island, in search of another beach recommended
to us, however we did not end up finding it. We did find a boat
refuelling station, complete with temporary citizens refilling their
boats whilst enjoying a cigarette. Then saw the same thing happening at
a car petrol station. These people are unbelievable. I'm not sure
whether they are tourists or locals, but I'm sure Darwin has his eye on
them.

We headed back to our accommodation briefly at this point to catch up
emails etc. and make sure things are generally in order, as we have not
had much time to do this. I have not uploaded a blog page in over a week
and it is not looking good for that rate to improve unfortunately. C-,
must try harder.

We headed back into town to just generally have a wander, and at my
extreme insistence, Celina relented to getting an ice-cream with me. I
think I have mentioned before how cheap they are here, 7kn will get you
a fairly sizeable ice-cream, this equates to about AUD$1.75. Hvar is the
most expensive for these though, they are 6kn in Split, and 5 in Bol!!!
This is like a buck 25, can't go wrong.

One more quick excursion back to home base to confirm arrangements for
checking out tomorrow, then it's back into town to organise dinner. I
strike out again, by picking "fried hake", thinking it will be like a
fried bit of fish. I do not realise that hake are quite small fish, and
they basically just roll the whole fish in batter and then fry those.
This then requires a bit of DIY on the part of the diner, to remove
skeletons etc., something in which I am not well versed. Luckily Celina
comes to my aid yet again.

We have brought the tripod with us this time out, and we proceed west
again to set up for the sunset. It is looking quite nice until the sun
buggers off behind some cloud just before hitting the horizon, but we
get some decent shots anyway. We round out the night by taking several
night shots around the town of Hvar, and ogling the "Lady Joy",the super
motor cruiser yacht behemoth thing that has docked here during the day
so that the owner can feel good about people gawking at his tremendous
wealth. At least I assume that's what he's here for. Jealous, moi? Never!

6129 - Promenade along which rich people park their boats and watch the
people drool