The main square of Hvar Town — formally Trg Sv. Stjepana (St. Stephen's Square), known locally as Pjaca — is the social centre of the island in summer. Surrounded by 15th and 16th-century Venetian Gothic palaces, the Arsenal at the western end, the Cathedral at the eastern, and the harbour beyond, it is the kind of space that makes you understand why Venice built so prolifically on the Adriatic coast.
The cafes and restaurants around the Pjaca are expensive by Croatian standards but undeniably positioned: a glass of local Zlatan Plavac wine at a table here, with the cathedral and the fortress above and the boats on the water beyond, is worth the markup. The square fills nightly in summer with the passeggiata — the evening walk that is the real entertainment in every Dalmatian town. The cathedral bell tower, modelled on the campanile in Trogir, is worth climbing for the view across the square to the islands below.