Zadar

I am now two weeks into my ‘Croatian’ holiday. Yet as I type this I am in bed in a hostel in Belgrade in Serbia, having just done a 7 hour drive from Sarajevo in Bosnia. The original intention of the holiday was to live in Zagreb, do loads of game and see how well we could do in three weeks – and take a weekend trip to Sarajevo.

Our plans changed very quickly into the holiday, I’ll explain in due course, but the story began two weeks ago in:

Town: Zadar, Croatia

Type: Beach Town/Old Town with University

Inhabitants: 73,000

The early signs were promising, a small University town with a beach. We had some friends locally – I have a model chick who has always raved about how I should visit her town and Krauser had lined up a few dates on a dating site – the main intention on those fronts being just getting some locals to take us places and create a ready-made social circle.

I actually kick the holiday off with the first open. In hindsight, I think she may well have been a solid 8. She was definitely above average and if I knew then what I know now, I would have taken the set more seriously. The set was just some easy conversation, a few DHVs and light sexualisation. Bingo, my first number. We agree to go for milkshakes. Bad luck struck later though – I got my phone unlocked to take a Croat SIM. My address book got wiped in the process, including the number.

The rest of the time in Zadar was a bit slow. The quality average was OK but it’s not somewhere I would advise. I could only find about 3 or 4 more sets worth doing. Night game was stone dead. We took the two girls off the dating site out, more to pass the time than anything else.

It’s just too small a town. We found out later that within two days of doing a few, not even that many, street opens, people were talking about us. We had a reputation. So after two days we decided to nip it on the bud and go to Zagreb rather than waste any more time.

Conclusions:

Target Rate (how many 8s or above are you likely to see in a 10 minute period during peak hours): 2 during peak hours of 13-14 and 18-19.

Cost: Hostel £15 per night in the centre and £15 a day to live easy.

Reaction to game: Day game was very friendly. Almost every open is received warmly and politely. It was dead at night so didn’t really do any night game.

Conclusion: Too small, no quality. Then the main thing Zadar has got going for you, is that it’s a cheap location to fly to in order to get to Zagreb.

Zadar Lessons Learnt: Come at the weekend when there’s apparently more night game. Utilise peak hours for street/day game. Don’t expect to hunt for the top quality – there’s some around, sure, but there’s much, much better places for it.