Stari Grad Hvar

Stari Grad, on the north coast of the island of Hvar, is one of the oldest towns in Europe, founded as Pharos by Greek colonists from Paros in 384 BC, and the plain behind it, the Stari Grad Plain, is still farmed on the same Greek land-division system laid out 2,400 years ago. The plain is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for precisely that reason, an intact ancient cadastral plan still in use.

The town itself is a quiet stone settlement of narrow streets, a long waterfront and a handful of historic buildings, among them the Tvrdalj of the 16th-century poet Petar Hektorović, a walled Renaissance house with a fishpond and inscriptions carved into the stone. Unlike Hvar Town on the south coast, Stari Grad is old, calm and unhurried, and it is the quieter base on the island.

The Stari Grad Plain, the Greek chora, stretches inland from the town, a plain of vineyards and olive groves divided by dry-stone walls into the same long strips the Greeks surveyed. Walking or cycling out into the plain from the town is the way to see it.

For photographers, the Tvrdalj and the dry-stone walls of the plain are the shots. Reach Stari Grad by the ferry from Split, which lands close to the town, and use it as the calmer alternative to Hvar Town.

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