Island Hopping Croatia: Brač

Some of the inter island ferry services have been scaled back due to an expected drop in visitor numbers during COVID, so to hop from Šolta to Brač we have to go back to Split and on again from there. So it’s an early alarm, the 7:20 bus from Maslinica and the 8am ferry, breakfast in Split harbour and then a second ferry over to Supetar on the island of Brač.

Brač a much bigger and more mountainous island than Šolta, in fact the third largest Adriatic island; our next billet means travelling some distance to the south of the island, and we’ve been recommended that the best option for this is a “shared taxi”. We have a bit of fun haggling over the fee for this and play a bit of brinkmanship as most of the minibuses disappear, but in the end we get our lift for 200 instead of the 500 kuna he first asks for. Our destination is Bol, on the south side of Brač, set wonderfully between the mountains and the sea. We meet our new host family (our apartment is the upper floor of their house), and quickly learn that they have a small vineyard, and make their own wine, right here on the premises. Promising.

Well, we wanted variety, and we’ve got it. Bol is very different from Maslinica, make no mistake. We are in holiday resort territory now, a beautiful seaside town which has long since embraced tourism, but it’s done it with good taste, cool design and maybe just a hint of class. Prices have ramped right up (seafront beer in Maslinica 20, in Bol anywhere from 30 to 33), and the trappings of the tourist dollar is evident, but it isn’t possible to destroy natural beauty, and Bol has natural beauty by the bucket load.

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The town climbs steeply from the sea, the rather lovely lungomare-style seafront is tastefully lined with cool bars and quality restaurants, leading westwards along a tree lined walkway to the renowned beach of Zlatni Rat. There are numerous other beaches here as well as this one, but Zlatni Rat is an unusual triangular spit reaching out into the sea, sumptuous clear water on both flanks. Understandably popular, the beach gets heavily busy under the afternoon sun, but is well worth a visit nonetheless.

Bol is a resort, it’s a tourist trap, but it is never in your face, it is never off putting. On the contrary, the cool, laid back, semi-hedonistic atmosphere just says, “come on, you’re here now, just sit back and enjoy”. So, of course, we do. Fresh grilled fish and a carafe of island red, anyone?

Whether you sit on a beach, on a boat, or in a restaurant, you are looking out across the impossibly deep blue Adriatic to the next island, squinting into the sun, or looking upwards at the imposing mountains towering over this rather lovely corner of the world. At the end of the day, the most popular places become popular for a reason, don’t they, and Bol is both popular and stunning.

Looming over the town is Vidova Gora, the highest mountain in the Adriatic at 778 metres – and of course, given that fact, we have to take it on. So it’s an early start to beat the heat and we’re climbing the lower slopes before even the cicada chorus has started, though they’re not far behind us. Nor is the heat, and the climb – bear in mind the start is at sea level so the 778m is climbed in full – is exciting and exhausting in equal measure. We are rewarded with wonderful views over Bol, Zlatni Rat and neighbouring islands, and have that wonderful “on top of the world” feeling, but it’s hot by the time we make it, even though it’s still not yet 9am.

The track over Vidova Gora was originally laid during Napoleon’s time here, and was at that stage the only route across the island from the north coast to the south.

We bought sensible energy snacks for the climb, and took plenty of water. Dried fruit is good for this, so the bag of raisins is obviously a good purchase: until, that is, we open it, and it’s not raisins, we’ve mistakenly bought a bag of prunes. Tasty as prunes are, there’s a number of reasons why they’re not the ideal snack for a mountain trek…

Indigenous wine and olive oil feature on every Dalmatian island, but every now and again there’s an extra; Šolta was honey, Brač is a pure white stone, not only used in jewellery but also in construction, for centuries. The palace in Split, the Reichstag in Berlin, the White House, and Liverpool cathedral, are just a few of the places built with this revered stone.

Our host family here is Dominika and her parents, Mirei and D (we can’t catch his name!). Unwinding on our balcony watching the sun go down, Mirei looks up and asks if we’d like a bottle of their home made red. As we savour this deep silky wine, Mirei cooks fresh fish over coals in a brick oven in the garden below us and the smell is fabulous. Dominika now looks up. “We have too many fish, would you like some?”. 

So here we sit, gazing out at the sunset over the beautiful Adriatic, lights visible on our next destination island, eating fresh fish and drinking home made wine, all courtesy of our hosts’ generosity, listening to gentle music. Not sure how life can get much better than this.