A Bolthole with Bolto

Day 13 (Monday)

The catamaran from Bol to Jelsa on Hvar Island didn’t leave until 17:30 so we stored our luggage with reception and went to read by the sea.

As mentioned earlier the accommodation in Brac was over budget so the accommodation in Hvar will have to be under budget.  The website airbnb.com was recommended to us by Tracey’s brother.  As Craig knows a lot about the internet and even more about money saving we decided to give it a go.

Airbnb is slightly different to other booking type websites in that the apartment/room owner doesn’t have to pay to advertise, a small fee is added for the guest to pay to airbnb.  This means that more private owners are attracted to the site and the room prices are lower.

We made our booking with a chap called Neven who accepted our booking for his apartment in Stari Grad and emailed back to say that we should text his mate Bolto before we arrived so that he could show us to our apartment – what could possibly go wrong?  We texted Bolto when we left Bol and received no reply.  When we got to Jelsa on Hvar Island we got a taxi to Stari Grad and still had no reply.  On arrival at Stari Grad we phoned Bolto and discovered that he could not speak English.  By using a combination of French, German and Italian we arranged to meet at the tourist office in 5 minutes.

While waiting at the tourist office a guy smiled at me and I assumed he was Bolto so I began to follow him shouting ‘Hi Bolto’.  After a little while his smile turned to a frown and I realised my mistake.

True to his word Bolto soon arrived and we managed to converse in French as our French was better than his English (I never thought I’d say that!).  He drove us to our apartment which is just a short way from the town centre.  It’s certainly not palatial or grand but at £42 a night in August you can’t complain.

As we are in money saving mode this week we went to the supermarket and bought the ingredientsfor a pasta sauce with spaghetti and exceedingly nice it was too.  Our first impressions of Stari Grad are good and we look forward to exploring more tomorrow.

The catamaran