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Sviračina Bay

Above the town of Hvar, at a location ideal for an observation post, lies the village of Brusje. Throughout the centuries, the village was famous for the cultivation of lavender and rosemary, and for the production of essential oils made of those plants. The residents of this picturesque and fragrant village located on a hill were owners of the area that stretched from their village and the village of Velo Grablje on the south to the bays located on the northern edge of the island.

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These are the names of the bays, the so-called Bruške vale: Jagodna, Stiniva, Sviračina, Lozna, Fra Petra bok. One of them, located on the northern brim of the island of Hvar, is the Sviračina bay.

In order to get a good impression of what will be presented to you further in the text, we suggest you try to visualize the bay because you might start thinking that our description of it is untrue, i.e. that we made it up. That is not the case.

Therefore, you take the old (our favorite) road leading from the town of Stari Grad to the town of Hvar. Drive carefully because there are many hairpin turns, and in certain places the road gets very narrow. After you pass the village of Brusje, a few hundred meters later, you will notice the directional signs for certain bays. Yours is the one that, inter alia, says Sviračina. You turn right and drive down a sharp and old half-macadam road. You will then have to take the first turn on the left, along with the second turn on the left.

You are driving down the green jungle of Hvar… the car is shaking at times. I suggest you embark on your trip with an SUV, but a colleague of mine, Dalibor, says that a regular car will do. The road you are taking is wrapped in pine trees and low Mediterranean plants.

After an exciting drive (because Sviračina is not for everyone), you will reach what you have been looking for. No, your prize is not in heaven, it is here, on Earth.

A small, hidden, and well-protected bay appears before you. You reach a beach of pebbles, the only white band that separates the green color of the land from all the shades of blue that drown in the sea or fly across the sky.

The sea here has more shades of blue than there are in the Pantone color catalogue: it begins with a crystal, nearly transparent turquoise, as if it were illustrating a new, fluttery love affair between the sea and the sky, only for that sparkling blue-green to transform at the horizon into such a dark and deep shade of blue that it seems as if it were illustrating an unusually passionate love story in which the sea and the sky cannot stop kissing.

Since the bay has only two houses, and you booked one of them (the bigger one), you have an exclusive access to the beach. However, by no means does that mean that you can do whatever you please to do, because even though the beach is isolated, it is not a private beach. One of the great advantages of this bay, and all the other bays belonging to the village of Brusje, is that even in the heart of the tourist season, there are not many people at the beach. You must be wondering how that is possible if the bay is so wonderful and the sea is so beautiful and clean. Well, there is no exact answer to this question. We think that people are generally not that interested in investing their time and effort in a better alternative – regardless of what we are talking about. Due to that, people end up going swimming to beaches that are easily accessible and where they do not have to invest much of their time or effort.

An interesting fact is that most of the residents of the island are not acquainted with the bays. Maybe it has to do with the villagers of Brusje; they have settled their village on a sort of a pedestal of the island; maybe they wanted to have these bays only for themselves so that they could hide from the eyes of the entire world to which they were constantly exposed because of their location up on the hill. Perhaps they could at times hide in their bays in order to relax for at least a bit and simply enjoy life.

As time goes by, there are less and less people living in Brusje, but more and more tourists are visiting the village. Perhaps the remaining residents were overcome with the desire of preserving their island oases (where their history and the history of their families played out, and where they made their memories) from a large number of people who would desecrate those quiet and holy places. If you decide to visit Sviračina, we kindly ask you to be considerate.

As mentioned earlier, the nearest larger locality is the town of Hvar, where you can find all the benefits of civilization. Hvar is only six kilometers away from the Sviračina bay, and you can relatively easily reach the bay by car. I still suggest you take an SUV, but my colleague Dalibor still claims that even the simple Renault Clio will do. In any case, a car is of the essence when you are in Sviračina. If you have decided to leave your car at home, consider the problem solved because you can choose a convenient one in our agency. We wish a safe trip and a majestic vacation with a difference to all of you who have chosen to spend their vacation in Sviračina.