Split to Hvar town is 50 minutes to just over an hour by passenger catamaran — TP Line, Krilo and, in summer, Jadrolinija — for €10–25 one way in summer 2026. The Jadrolinija car ferry goes to Stari Grad instead, in two hours. Hvar is the best-known island in Dalmatia: a Venetian harbour town, a fortress and the Pakleni islands offshore. Doable in a day, better in two.
By Marin Perić
08:30 catamaran from Split, arriving Hvar town at about 09:30.
Walk up to the Fortica fortress before it gets hot — thirty minutes up, and the view over the Pakleni islands is the picture you came for.
Back down for the square, the cathedral and the arsenal. The arsenal is the one with a theatre upstairs and a cafe in the vaults; the cathedral is worth ten minutes, not more.
Lunch, then a taxi boat to Palmižana on the Pakleni islands for an afternoon swim. The taxi boats leave from the harbour and cost €10–15 return.
Last catamaran back, usually around 18:00–20:00 in summer. Check the time before you get on the taxi boat — the boat back does not wait if you are late.
Hvar town in August is expensive and busy, and the nightlife reputation is real. Cocktails are €15–20, a sunbed at a beach club is €40+, and the harbour bars are loud until two. If you want quiet, go to Stari Grad or Jelsa instead — same island, a third of the people, and the Stari Grad Plain is a UNESCO site that most day trippers never see.
Do. The day-trip version gives you the fortress and a swim and you leave. Staying lets you eat at a konoba that does not face the square, walk out to the Jerolim islet in the morning when it is still empty, and take a speedboat through the Pakleni channel at sunset. Two nights is the right number; one is a tease, three is enough Hvar for most people.
Do not eat on the square. The restaurants on the square are for people who do not know there are restaurants behind the square, and the prices match. Walk one street back — into the lanes behind the cathedral — and look for the konobas with a blackboard and no photographs. The fish is the same fish, the wine is the same wine, and the bill is half. Eat lunch at a konoba that faces the harbour, not the square, because the harbour is where the boats come in and the fish comes off them.
Skip the beach clubs on the Pakleni islands in the afternoon, because that is when the day-trip boats arrive and the beaches fill. Go to Palmižana before ten or after four, and in the middle of the day walk the island paths — the pine forest behind the beach has a botanical garden that almost no one visits. The Jerolim islet, a five-minute taxi boat from the harbour, has a naturist beach on one side and an empty rocky shore on the other, and it is the quietest swim within reach of Hvar town.
If you want to see Hvar without the crowd, go to Stari Grad or Jelsa instead. Same island, a third of the people, and the Stari Grad Plain is a UNESCO Greek agricultural landscape that most day trippers never see. The catamaran from Split goes to Stari Grad as well as Hvar town — take that one, rent a bike, and ride the plain. You will be the only person on it.
Catamarans to Hvar town (as of October 2026): TP Line, about 55–60 minutes, €10 in season (29 May–27 September 2026) and €6.40 otherwise; Krilo, about 50 minutes, from €8.50; Jadrolinija, 1 hour 5 minutes, €25, summer only (its 2026 season ended on 11 October). Book ahead in July and August, as they sell out. The Jadrolinija car ferry goes to Stari Grad instead, twenty minutes' drive from Hvar town, and takes two hours — €8.40 for a foot passenger in summer, €5.90 out of season.
Right now · Autumn
September is the month to do this: same sea, far fewer people, and the catamaran timetable still at full frequency. From November the sailings drop sharply.
Get out there
Guided trips that include this stop, with live availability.
Boat trips
A full day on a fast twelve-seat boat: the Blue Cave on Biševo, the Monk Seal cave, Stiniva's famous cove, lunch on Vis and a swim off Budikovac's turquoise lagoon, finishing with a stop at Hvar town. Ten and a half hours, small group, no coach transfer.
History
Ninety minutes through the palace with a guide who lives inside it: the Golden Gate, the cellars, the Peristyle, the cathedral and the streets in between. Small group, no flag, and a proper explanation of why a Roman emperor retired to a cabbage patch in Dalmatia.
Boat trips
Five hours to Šolta and back on a ten-person boat: three swim stops in coves you cannot reach by road, an hour in Maslinica for dinner or a drink, and the run home across the channel as the sun goes down behind the island.