I always get in trouble when I write anything slightly negative about Hvar. When the Englishman is writing happy stories, promoting the island and gaining a large international readership for his unpaid efforts, all is well on the island.
But when he starts to criticise…
It is a hard thing to write negative things about an adopted home one has come to love, especially when that home is a Paradise like Hvar. An island which has it all, and more, or in the words of a friend of mine – Too beautiful to fuck it up.
Or so you would think…
I got a LOT of criticism when I wrote about the return of The Yacht Week last year. What was I doing, telling foreigners about problems in Hvar? It was ok to discuss these things in cafes in Croatian, they argued, and we will sort this out internally, but why tell tourists about these things. I argued that nothing gets achieved in a Croatian cafe except lots of heated conversation going nowhere, and perhaps a little international exposure might focus the debate into some kind of action. And if it didn’t, I argued, there would not be a quality destination to leave to one’s children for those who make their living from tourism rentals (not me, unfortunately). And I was ostracisted.
With plenty of other things to write about, I have not mentioned party tourism and the drunken youths who are now becoming the face of Hvar Town tourism, and I will not now, except to leave you with some pictures from the Facebook page of Zveljarin, and a link to a news report today of two drunk Australians who were arrested for causing damage and public order disturbance on the roof of Hvar’s historic cathedral.
Last year, I (unpopularly) asked the question: Is Hvar killing the goose which lays the golden eggs?
Hvar is Croatia’s premier island, the sunniest in Europe, the only island with 4 UNESCO heritages (which do not include the oldest public theatre in Europe, which you can see behind the bedroom in the picture above, a bedroom incidentally which is the biggest square in Dalmatia), a celebrity hangout for the likes of Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Prince Harry, Bill Gates and Beyonce. Its wine tradition dates back 2,400 years and they can be found as far away as California and China, its beaches regularly named in the world’s top 10. It is officially the birthplace of organised tourism in Europe.
