Stari Grad

Stari Grad sits at the head of a seven-kilometre inlet on the north coast of Hvar, and that inlet is the reason the town exists at all. Greek settlers from the island of Paros founded it in 384 BC as Pharos, choosing a site with deep, protected water at one end and good farmland at the other.

Pharos, and What the Greeks Left

The modern name simply means 'the old town' in Croatian. Stari Grad is one of the oldest towns in Europe still continuously inhabited, and the Greek layer of it has not been buried the way it has elsewhere.

The clearest survival is not in the town but behind it. The Stari Grad Plain, the agricultural land the settlers divided into rectangular parcels with dry-stone walls in the 4th century BC, is still farmed on those same lines today. UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage site in 2008 as one of the best-preserved examples of ancient Greek land division anywhere in the Mediterranean.

In the town itself, the Dominican monastery of St Peter the Martyr, founded in 1482, holds the oldest Greek inscriptions found at Pharos along with a Tintoretto painting. A short walk away is Tvrdalj, the fortified 16th-century house the poet Petar Hektorovic built for himself, complete with a saltwater fish pool at its centre. The town museum covers the rest, including finds from the sea floor of the bay.

The Bay and Its Coves

Stari Grad Bay runs roughly east to west, sheltered to the north by the hills of the Kabal peninsula and to the south by the mountain ridge that forms the spine of Hvar. Along the way it branches into smaller coves. Maslinica, closest to the town, has clear water and is easy to reach on foot. Oslic and Brizenica, on the northern shore of the main bay, are backed by rock and pine and are quieter, mostly because they are simpler to reach by boat than by road.

Pine forest surrounds the town and runs down to the shoreline in most of the coves, which is what gives the whole bay its resin smell in the heat of the afternoon. Inland the walking is easy, over the plain and along the old field walls.

Anchoring and Berthing

The long, narrow shape of the inlet makes this one of the best natural harbours on the Adriatic. It holds its shelter from every significant wind direction, including the bura out of the northeast and the jugo from the south, so the water inside stays flat when the open coast is uncomfortable. That is one reason Stari Grad is a popular stop for gulet charter guests exploring Croatia, particularly for crews who want a night away from the noise of Hvar Town.

There are around 75 berths for visitors, split between the south town quay and a line of mooring buoys off the shallower north quay, with water and electricity along the quay. Depths at the entrance run to about 13 metres, dropping to four or five alongside the town quay. Anchoring depths in the bay are generally between four and ten metres over mud and sand, which holds well. Watch the shallows close to the beaches and near the head of the bay, where there is less water than the chart impression suggests.

Diving and Swimming

Visibility in the bay is good and the water is warm and shallow near the shore, which suits families and first-time snorkellers. Expect Adriatic marine life rather than tropical reef: seagrass meadows, wrasse and bream, sponges and gorgonians on the deeper rock faces, and the occasional amphora fragment on a guided dive. Mornings are calmest, before the afternoon breeze fills in.

When to Go

May, June and September are the best months for a boat holiday here. Days are long, the sea is warm enough to swim, and the town is not overrun. Average daytime highs climb from around 18 degrees Celsius in April to the mid-twenties by June, and July and August are hotter and considerably busier. Even in high season the afternoons can turn choppy in the parts of the bay that are less protected, so it is worth being settled on a berth or at anchor before the wind builds.