Hvar · Orte und Landschaften rund um Vrboska

Two towns within a quarter hour: one for whatever you're missing, the other for an evening in the old town.

Jelsa You go to Jelsa when something's missing — and end up staying for a coffee anyway. Eight to ten minutes by car, a small harbour, a town square, a waterfront promenade, and the shops Vrboska doesn't have: bigger supermarkets, a pharmacy, medical care. In season, the catamaran to Split departs from here. For an evening stroll, Jelsa is just big enough — and just small enough not to be crowded.

Stari Grad Ten to thirteen minutes — a few minutes further than Jelsa, and two thousand four hundred years older. Greeks founded the town in the 4th century BC, and you can still feel it in the narrow lanes behind the harbour, as well as in the Tvrdalj, the Renaissance estate of the poet Petar Hektorović. Stari Grad is in no hurry. If you find Hvar Town too loud, this is where you come back to.

Hvar Town

The main event

35 to 40 minutes by car — the only place on this page that deserves a whole day. Above the bay sits the fortress, on the main square the cathedral, and out front the Pakleni Islands. Hvar Town likes to be seen, and it knows it; it's also famous for its nights.

In high season it's correspondingly packed — and that's exactly the advantage of Vrboska: drive over, let a day carry you along, and head back to the quiet in the evening. Hvar Town isn't the place for a spontaneous dinner.

LANDSCAPE

Between the towns

The best part of the surroundings isn't in the towns — it's between them.

Between Vrboska and Stari Grad lies an old field landscape that has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site as the "Stari Grad Plain" since 2008. The ancient Greek land division survives to this day — dry-stone walls, vineyards, and olive groves in a grid over two thousand four hundred years old. The plain is flat and starts almost right behind the village.

Hvar is a wine island, and its wine is mostly Plavac Mali; wineries are scattered across the whole island. And in early summer, Hvar smells of lavender — the fields lie inland, blooming roughly between late May and July depending on the year. Up there are also the hill villages, barely visible from the coast.

Off Hvar Town lies a handful of islands, pine-covered and broken up into bays: the Pakleni Islands. In summer, taxi boats run regularly from the harbour, and that's about all the planning you need — get on, find a bay, and the town you found so crowded that morning is suddenly far away. The natural second half of a day in Hvar Town.

And then there's the neighbouring island Brač, right across the channel. From the north coast you can see it all day in clear weather; in the town of Bol lies Zlatni Rat, the Adriatic's best-known pebble beach. By boat, that's a day trip — how to plan it is on „Activities".

All times by car, from Vrboska. These are guideline driving times, not August times — everything takes a bit longer then.

It also works without a car: buses run individual routes, with current timetables from the operator Čazmatrans (as of August 2026). Outside the season it gets sparse, though — far fewer buses and boats run then.

If you ask us what we'd recommend — this. Of course, you can plan it entirely differently:

From Vrboska, half the island is a day trip — and the other half is a walk.