Hey everybody – since the last time I wrote a post, I have done the trek from Zadar to Makarska, with stops in Sibenek and Split.

Driving from Zadar to Sibenek and Split on Monday and Tuesday was very nice, although it didn’t compare with what I was going to see south of Split today..

Some pictures of the Zadar – Split Adriatic Highway:

I spent Monday night in Sibenek at an Airbnb that was a little bit of a dump, and just took it easy and finished the documentary about Yugoslavia. I took the night off from music and just went downtown for some dinner and to have a look around. There were some tourists there, but Sibenek had a bit of an industrial feel compared to some of the other cities I have visited here in Croatia. Interestingly though, it is the oldest city on the Adriatic coast that was actually founded by Croats, rather than Greeks or Romans, etc.

On Tuesday, I slept in a bit and then headed down the coast to Split and where I had 2 nights booked in a hostel. After finding the hostel, I got settled in and took a walk to check out the beach and the old town, and to scout for a place to busk on Wednesday. Split is Croatia’s second biggest city and is incredibly full of tourists (bad for the touring, good for the busking). I was really impressed with all the ornate stonework in the old part of the city. I enjoyed checking out as much as I could get to, and I also found a great place to play music where the main north/south street met the promenade by the waterfront (called the Riva) for the next day.

When I returned to the hostel the super nice girl working there, Maggie, told me about a guy she knows who has a pub nearby and who often will book traveling music acts. She gave me the info and I went up to the bar to investigate. They agreed to have me the next night and pay me 300 Kuna (about $50) and give me free drinks. I was pretty excited to get my first paying bar gig of the trip!

On Tuesday night, I also met a few members of the 16-person Dutch Korfball team that was staying at the hostel. They were really nice guys and they had a lot of fun trying to explain to me just what the hell Korfball is. We traded some stories and they impressed me with their love of the game of Korfball! We had a nice time and they told me they would be out in force the next night for my show! In case you are wondering what Korfball is, it’s a little like a mix of Basketball and Ultimate Frisbee:

The next day, I headed back down to the Riva to do some busking before my gig. I had been playing for about 45 minutes and was doing really good when two guys walked up to me and told me to quit playing mid-song. They then told me that they were plainclothes Split Police and that I was in a public place and needed a permit to play music. They then said they wouldn’t even bother to ask if I had a permit.😂 Before I could even feign ignorance of the permit requirement, one of them just told me to pack it up and have a nice rest of my visit.

While I was a little bummed about having to stop playing when I was getting a lot of tips, I was glad that the cops didn’t want to make a big deal about me playing without a permit. My thought is that the police have better things to do than paperwork about a guy playing some music in the street. I’m willing to bet on that everytime, so I’m just going to keep on keeping on with busking. Just never again in Split.

After the police incident, I headed back to the hostel to rest up for my gig. When I got to the bar, we had trouble getting their sound system to work with my equipment. After trying in vein for about a half hour with their system, we decided to use my portable speaker. Minus some feeding back, it did a pretty good job of getting the sound out inside the bar. It has been having some issues lately, however, where it will cut out completely for 1-2 seconds while I’m playing and then come back on. That’s pretty annoying, so I’m probably going to need to take it to a shop and see if it has a loose connection pretty soon. But it’s doing the job well enough for now.

The show went really well. I played my standards for about 3 hours and the locals seemed to enjoy it, but not quite as much as my Dutch friends and my new Swedish pals. The Swedes showed up randomly thinking there would be karaoke there and were all 3 feeling no pain upon arrival. They kept yelling for me to play “Country Roads” over and over again. I wound up playing it 3 times that night, and they stayed for the whole show. Gotta make the audience happy I guess!

This morning, I headed out of Split to Makarska where I’m situated at a hostel tonight. The drive on this stretch of the Adriatic Highway was by far the best I’ve seen yet:

Makarska is a nice mid sized town and it’s known for its long horseshoe-shaped beach. After I got to the hostel today, I strolled around town and went to the beach with my roommate and then set up on the waterfront to do some more playing. Today wound up being my most lucrative day of busking so far – I got 39 euro worth of Kuna in just under 2 hours. I was very pleased with that!

That’s about all I have for today. In the morning, I’ll be getting the ferry to the island of Hvar. I will be there for Friday and Saturday night. Hvar is known as a party island, so I’m ready to see how they do things out there!

Talk to you guys again soon!