Classy Clifftop Cloggers Croatian Carousel

Disheartened and disheveled, Hanna and I seated ourselves in the closest cafe to where we had just spent the last hour, playing and singing to a lazy street of disinterested tourists. The waitress seemed a bit less than eager to welcome these a bit less than posh costumers, one with a dress of patches, the other with a dripping scarf round her head (it was incredibly hot, conspicuous means for self cooling were not shunned by us). But entitled as we were to slip in to sit and sip, we did so and with dignified pomp  ordered ourselves two espresso (the cheapest thing on the menu), and thus commenced the discussion as to what to do with ourselves outside the Schengen Zone, as my visa was soon to expire, and up stepped the balkans, each as proud suitors for our attention. Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania all made their alluring offers, but one victor arose over them all, offering his mountains, his coast, his cafes and restaurants full of tourists eager to give us lots of money- Croatia. But if we were to be a folk duo then we would need a name! And it was as we counted out the cost of our coffee in coins with a lesser value than pennies, and filled our water bottles in the bathroom sink, and applied more binding to my now more tape than cloth banjo bag- that the name Classy Clifftop Cloggers was born, but it needed to be tested on the street. With the name we both stepped into a new persona, that had confidence, had legitimacy, we had a name, and in the exact same conditions- same day, same spot, maybe 40 minutes later, we made at least 3 times as much more money and attracted huge crowds of people- the name was a keeper and we made ready for Croatia. 

With a tune and a thumb, the mountains- winding and climbing with villages and farms for knees, goats charitably pooping beneath peach trees, trucks amiably tooting as curves tightly tease, sun beaming benign at the wind, birds and bees- finally parted to reveal a most glorious sight, scintillating with azure delight, embracing her island children who rise up like little cows, an undulating pasture of colossal green beasts, who, wooden-headed allow well dressed ants to clamber all around their beautiful haunches, building resorts, banks and malls. But before reaching the mesmerizing mediterranean, an ancient city swells up, with roofs of red and roads of white, roots dating back to the 6th century BC when it was the Greek colony Aspalathos, but the architecture dating back to 305AD, the palace of Roman Emperor Diocletion, who abandoned his political post for this seaside utopia- Split, Croatia. 

The city built inside his palace is a labyrinth of milky stone, and if you find the right entrance, you could get stuck in this maze of narrow pathways where you have no choices of direction, no intersection, a claustrophobic winding between these tall, antediluvian walls, until you are finally released into a courtyard draped in lavish vines, laden with nearly glowing purple flowers.

Between these noble walls, a curious sound joined the operatic fowls and elegant chimes of wine glasses, it ricocheted conspicuously jolly, with all the exuberance of a shaggy, muddy dog playing tag atop an invaluable persian rug- the sawing of a fiddle laughing with the twang of a banjo, "We're the Classy Clifftop Cloggers and we're here to play you some old time tunes!" Beguiled by the crowds we gathered, restaurants, cafes, even lounges invited us to come and play for their 'clients', only to realize too late that what they heard was what they would get. For their subdued terrace full of ritzy tourists on their romantic dalmatian getaway we stomped, and the croatian couples attempting to whisper sweet nothings in each other's ears were thwarted by these two hillbilly girls singing boisterously about chicken! 

But the revelry had to come to an end when my accomplice had to fly back to real life in Sweden, and left me and my thumb to get back to Budapest, Rocinante, and fairy Solitaria.