Day 1 - I've been here before.

15:40
‘Here’ is Gatwick North. But ‘here’ is not the lounge we usually use at Gatwick North. We pitch up just past 15:00, and there’s a monstrous looking queue to get in there. A quick check, and it transpires our Priority Pass/Dragon Pass cards will get us in upstairs at a lounge we’ve not tried before. Never let it be said that the Irvines are not adventurous.

We’re off to Tisno, in northern Croatia - somewhere I’ve visited once before, and Vicki many more times than that. From late June to late August, Tisno hosts weekly music festivals, located a kilometre-ish outside of the town centre. On my first visit, I was initially suspicious that the townsfolk would resent the music revellers that litter (but not litter) their town for two months of the year. I couldn’t have been more wrong. They’re incredibly warm and welcoming, I suspect helped by these two months providing a big chunk of the tourism industry’s annual revenues. I think it also helps that the festival goers tend to be a respectful bunch, and that the music doesn’t massively travel away from the site.

The events hosted in Tisno are massively multicultural. We’re aware of party goers traveling from 6 continents to be there this week, and for all we know there might be a rando coming from Antarctica as well. The average age is ‘middle’ - we certainly won’t feel old compared to a good proportion of the crowd.

I’m super excited because the music policy for the weekend is RIGHT up my street. I listen to and DJ a style of house music called ‘progressive house.’ You couldn’t move for progressive nights in London around the turn of the century, but they’re a much rarer occurrence these days. This festival, called ‘Balance’ is a who’s who of great progressive house DJs. Many of them I’ve been to see in clubs in the UK since the late 90s. Many of them I’ve heard their work, and love it - and can’t wait to see them DJ live. Many of them, I’ve never heard of, but I suspect will still be awesome fun. 3 days of wall to wall raving in a beautiful setting with awesome people - it’s just possible it could finish me off…

We’re meeting some friends out in Tisno - Emma and Howard, & Matty and Lou. Collectively, I think we’ve known them 60 years or thereabouts. We’re all into the same kinda music, and hanging out in the same kinda way. Our week will be a very easy going one. We’re staying in different apartments around Tisno, but I’m sure we’ll meet for beers/dinners, and will deffo go to see many of the same DJs on the festival site.

Our 18:00 flight means a fairly late arrival into Split, and subsequently into Tisno tonight. Keep reminding myself not to go *too* hard on the vino…

23:00
Welcome to Croatia! Our flight was frustratingly delayed. The lateness I can live with - but it’s becoming increasingly common to board passengers even when there’s a known delay, and just leave the plane on the tarmac. The airline wins, because they can say they left on time. The airport wins, because it frees up a stand for another flight to use. The loser is the customer. We’re stuck on rapidly warming plane for around 50 minutes before we can start queueing for our takeoff slot. The pilot claims weather over Germany, and some air traffic control congestion. I doubt the former, but can believe the latter.

The flight itself is a cakewalk. There are plenty of passengers on our flight that I suspect are going to the same festival as us. There are some folks who perhaps had a bit too much Prosecco in the terminal’s Wetherspoons. There are, I regret to report dear reader, some people who start applauding when we land. We suspect not ironically. Transiting Split airport is fairly straightforward. There’s a tiny hiccup when the border control agent tells me that my EES record is suggesting that I’m still in Italy from my visit in March. I have a sneaking suspish that there are some gremlins in the EES system. Which is reassuring…

We find our taxi driver quickly enough, but not until after we’ve seen another taxi holding a sign for Rebecca, a friend of ours that we knew was heading to Tisno for this weekend, but who we hadn’t realised was on the same flight as us. We’ll catch up with her soon…

Onwards, to Tisno!Read more