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The island is
characterised by gentle winters, warm summers and many hours of
sunshine, Gentle and moist winters (January Hvar has an average
temperature of 8.4° C) have many advantages, long other things enabling
winter tourism in Hvar. Maximum temperatures are never too high to
render agriculture impossible (the highest recorded temperature of 37°C
was reached in 1935).
The average annual air
temperature is around 16.5° C, while autumns are warmer than springs,
which prolongs the growing period.
Hvar has an annual
average of 7.7 hours sunshine per day and 3.8 hours of cloud. (By
comparison Dubrovnik has 7.0 hours of sun shine and 4.4 hours of cloud;
Nice /South of France/ 7.2 and 4.2 respectively). A general belief in
the health-giving effects of sunny regions led to the discovery of this
"Adriatic Madeira" as early as the 19th century. It has the most hours
of sunshine on the Adriatic coast, with as much as 2715 per year, and
only small variations in temperature.
"The Hygienic Society"
was founded in 1868, and the first health hotel was opened in 1889,
while The Centre for Allergies of the Croatian Academy of Arts and
Sciences was founded in 1965. Due to its climate, Hvar has a long
tradition iin health tourism and tourism in general.
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Geology and
fauna of the Island |
Hvar (68 km long), after
Cres the longest Adriatic island, is also the fourth largest in area
(300 sq. m). The longitudinal road which links the town of Hvar with
Sućurje at the eastern end of the island is 84 km long. The high plateau
between St. Nicholas hill (626 m) and Hum (603 m) which extends from Sv.
Nedjelja to Jelsa and is partly under pine woods and partly under arable
land is marked by distinctive beauty and a fresh climate. The flat part
of the island between Stari Grad, Vrboska and Jelsa is under vineyards
which produce up to 50,000 hectoliters of wine per year.
The mountain chain
running along the middle of the island divides it into north and south,
with outstanding peaks such as: Cernica, Hum, Gvozd and Sveti Nikola
(626m). The Samotorac valley around the spring of the Pitavski potok (a
stream) and the Vratnik canyon are interesting beauty spots which have
become accessible by the cutting of a tunnel near Zavala. The flooded
valley of the Bay of Stan Grad and Ravnice extends from the ridge
peninsula on the northern side of the western part (Kabal, 125m) and the
main mountain-range. The layers of sand and loess are now under the sea.
The outer shapes of Hvar
are formed by its geological structure: the island is an anticline bent
towards the south, composed of Mesozoic limestone and dolomite, and it
is discontinuous in its relief towards Pakleni otoci and Šćedro.
Geological reconstruction shows that the sea level during the last
glacial period (Wurm) was 96.4 m lower than it is nowadays, which means
that Hvar was originally a mountain on the mainland (722m). Storms and
dry, cold winds blew loess from what today is Hvar Channel unto Stan
Grad Plain, which is today undergoing a swift process of erosion. On the
edge of this plain, are the three main island bays and villages. This is
the most fertile of all Adriatic plains.
Hvar is less well known
for its stone than the neighbouring is lands of Brač and Korčula, or
Trogir on the mainland. However, the so-called "Greek Cave" near
Mikićevica where one can see traces of an ancient quarry, some
well-known stone artefacts, the writings of travel writers who saw Hvar
as "a town of marble", and a series of well-known names of stonemasons
(not to mention some of the best Croatian modern sculptors) -all point
to an almost forgotten tradition of the production of stone. There are
records indicating that white limestone was exported to Berlin for the
parliament building, government buildings and the palaces of the federal
council.
The island is covered by
Holm oak {Orno-Quercetum ilicis), Aleppo pines (Pinus halapensis Mill.)
and black pines (Pinus nigra dalmatica). The islet of Šćedro is
especially rich in various Mediterranean trees and plants. The deciduous
oriental hornbeam (Carpinetum orientalis croaticum) appears on higher
hills (around 400m). The island was practically bare for centuries due
to the use of pine for torches while fishing. (4 cubic metres of pine
tree per one light were used in every fishing expedition).
Wine, lavender and honey
have long been the main peasants' produce in Hvar. Wine from Hvar and
other Dalmatian areas were successfully exported to France and then
Hungary from 1870 until 1894, when phylloxera devastated the majority of
Dalmatian vine yards. Then, in the first decades of the 20th century
large numbers of islanders emigrated to North and South America. People
from Hvar became the pioneers of wine growing in California and still
participate a great deal in the production of wine there.
In the 1880s the total
production of rosemary oil on the island amounted to 20,000 kg. At the
beginning of the 20th century, it was exported to Trieste and then
bought by perfume factories in England, France, and Germany. The
rosemary is gathered on sunny days, usually from June to the middle of
August, or sometimes even the end of September. It is gathered from each
area on a three-year rotational basis. Only the dry leaf is distilled,
not the whole plant as in Spain.
| History of
the island Hvar |
The name of the island is
without doubt Greek in origin, from Pharos (lighthouse). From it the
Romans derived the name Pharia. The Dalmatian Romans then derived from
this Fara, and the newly settled Croats in the early Middle Ages changed
this to Hvar, as the old Slavonic consonant f was subsumed by the
consonant group hv. The Dalmatian Romans, under the influence of
Croatian pronunciation in the medieval documents spelt the name as Quara
or Quarra.
At the end of the 11th
century the Italians called it Lesina, or in Venetian dialect Liesena or
Liesna. This was derived from an old Croatian adjective meaning
"forest", which actually corresponded to the appearance of the island at
the time of the Neretljani. The eastern part of the island, Plame, has
the shape of a cutting edge which gets narrower towards "the top of Hvar"
and corresponds well to the medieval Venetian name Liesna which means
"awl". This is what it looked like to the Venetian seamen who sailed
past the island on their way to the Neretva Channel, near the massif of
Krajina where threatening pirates were waiting in their lairs.
A number of other island
place-names describe its original wooded appearance. For example, Veil
and Mali Garibaldi are derived from the word "grab" (hornbeam); Gin (a
name identical to that of the Polish port of Gymea) also indicates a
wooded place; Vrbanja and Vrboska are derived from "vrba" (willow), and
Vrisnik from "vrijes" (heather). In the 3rd century BC the Hellenistic
poet Apollonius of Rhodes introduced the name "Piteyeia", which is
probably de rived from "pitys" Greek for spruce, or even from an old
Illyrian name for the village of Pitve.
The inscription recording the victory of the inhabitants of Pharos over
the Jadasini and their allies, one of the oldest known inscriptions in
Croatia, 4th C BC.
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