Hvar and the Pakleni islands with a skipper for the day
11 playbooks shared · added to 41 trips
- 7:45 am1Coffee in Groda before the town wakes upHvar
Hvar Town keeps nightclub hours, which means the one genuinely empty part of the day is before nine — St Stephen's Square, the cathedral steps and the stone lanes of Groda belong to delivery vans and nobody else. Nonica does local cakes and a decent coffee in a lane above the square. It is also the last cheap thing you will buy today.
3 min walk · 100 m - 8:30 am2Board the skippered boat on the RivaHvar
The boat is the price of the day and everything else is loose change, so get the contract right. An eight-to-ten-metre RIB with a skipper for eight hours is the sweet spot; what turns a good quote into a bad one is the three things quietly left out — fuel, mooring fees at Palmižana, and the skipper's lunch. Ask for all three in writing before you pay a deposit, because together they add a couple of hundred euros to a nine-hundred-euro day. One weather note that decides the route: the maestral gets up around one in the afternoon in July, so ask to do the exposed southern coves first and be back in the sheltered channel by lunch.
10 min by train or taxi · 6.3 km - 9:15 am3The first swim, before the taxi boatsHvar
At this hour every bay in the archipelago is yours. By eleven the taxi boats from the Riva have filled Jerolim, and Stipanska has become a beach club with a door charge and a sound system. Ask for the north-facing coves of Marinkovac instead — same water, no speakers. The islands are called Pakleni after the pine pitch once boiled here for caulking, not after hell, whatever the tour commentary says.
3 min walk · 0 m - 10:45 am4The far end of Sveti Klement, and VlakaHvar
The long island's far end is a hamlet of a few houses and one konoba with no road in, which is exactly why it is empty in the third week of July. This is the stretch where a skipper earns the fee — the south side has no shelter at all, and if he says the swell is up, believe him and take the north coast instead. Nothing here sells water; take it from Hvar.
8 min by train or taxi · 2.3 km - 12:35 pm5Long lunch at Zori in Vinogradišće bayHvar
Reserve by phone days ahead and give them the boat's name so the skipper is told where to tie up. Zori and Meneghello sit at opposite ends of the same beach inside the Meneghello family's botanical garden, planted from the 1900s — Zori is the serious fish and the tasting menu, Meneghello is the older story and the garden itself, and Laganini is the third and slightly cheaper option on the same sand. None of them is cheap and pretending otherwise is how people get a shock at the end of a boat day. Two courses and a bottle of Hvar plavac is what this budget assumes. Verified 2026-09-06: Zori runs May to October only — there is no winter version of this day — and lunch service is 12:00-15:00, dinner from 18:30. The sitting has been moved to 12:35-14:45 so the table is inside service instead of ending exactly as the kitchen closes. Reservations are taken online with instant confirmation, or by phone.
13 min by train or taxi · 7.8 km - 3:15 pm6The slow way home along Hvar's south coastHvar
Ask not to be run straight back across the channel. Coming home along the island's own south coast past Milna adds forty minutes and is the reason you kept the boat until five — the cliffs take the afternoon light and the swimming stops on this side have nobody in them. This is also the last swim, so do not leave the towels drying on the bow.
8 min by train or taxi · 3.8 km - 5:30 pm7Up to the Fortica in the empty hourHvar
Twenty minutes up through the Groda lanes on the signed footpath — not the road, which is twice as long and has cars on it. Everybody climbs at half seven for the sunset shot over the Pakleni, which means half five is the empty hour and the light on the islands is arguably better anyway. The Venetian cistern and the tiny amphora collection are included. Take water; there is a bar at the top and it charges fortress prices. Verified 2026-09-06: in the June-September high season the fortress is open from about 08:00 until 21:00 or later, so a 17:30 climb is safe on hours as well as on crowds; admission is €10-15, and the same €15 also buys the combined Hvar heritage ticket covering the Arsenal, the theatre, the loggia and the clock tower.
3 min walk · 150 m - 8 pm8Dinner up the steps at Konoba MenegoHvar
Three floors of a stone house on the stairs above St Stephen's Square, candles, no music, no fuss — Dalmatian small plates, cheese and prosciutto from the island, wine by the carafe. Book the same morning; they hold tables for walk-ins but not at eight. Gariful on the harbour costs three or four times as much and is priced for the superyachts moored in front of it, which is a service it performs honestly.