montenegro

Podgorica

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After an minimal breakfast and some thinking if I should jump into the ocean once more before we leave we left Albania and headed for Podgorica in Montenegro. All talk about bad roads and crazy traffic is just nonsense. The road were in perfect condition, so good that sometimes we drove three or four cars beside each other on the one file road or used the pavement or the ditch to overcome that slow car in front of you. It took some time to get used to it but as long as you keep en eye open whats happening around the car and clearly show your next move its not that hard to drive here, just drive it like you stole it! I am though a bit disappointed  that I didn’t see that many bunkers from the Hoxha era but well, I got some pictures and hopefully I they got good!

On our way to Podgorica we stopped at a bird sanctuary, our hope was to catch some pelicans or if we were really lucky a black stork but for being a bird sanctuary where 50% of europes birds has been seen we found zero and nothing except a bird watching tower and a couple of signs was to be seen.

We gave up and continued to Podgorica instead and I confess, I had no real expectations on this city. I kind a didn’t know anything about the city but once we arrived we was greeted by a kind a small, very green cozy city with parks, some rivers through the town and the sun was shining so everything looked really nice. After an interview with an editor of the local news station we ended up at the orthodox church’s restaurant, Ive eaten better food but at least the money we paid went for something good. Besides, even if Montenegro aint a member of EU they use Euro as their currency and speak really good english, pretty darn awesome!

Towards Sarajevo

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With sorrow in my heart we left Podgorica after enjoying an awesome breakfast, on the terrace, in the sun, listening to the sound from the river. I’ll guess sometimes its totally worth to stay at nice hotels and this hotel, it was one of the nicer. After an short interview with PR-manager or something like that from Montenegro’s football association and even if I wasn’t interested at all I could ask a question or give a statement or two we hit the road towards the border to Bosnia and Sarajevo.

According to the maps its only 23 miles from Podgorica to Sarajevo and while we drove through Montenegro we were stunned how beautiful it was up in the mountains but once we crossed the border to Bosnia the road changed drastic. It was still very beautiful but they were narrow, winding, high edges on the tarmac and on the sides, it was far far down to the bottom and of course no crash barriers at all. We even saw a couple of places where the tarmac had been washed off by all the rain. Kind a spooky and those 23 miles took way much longer than we thought it would and “finally” we found those bad roads everybody has been talking about.

In Sarajevo the next shock came, we got stuck in rush hour and it took like one hour to get from the outer suburbs to city center, then our GPS told us to turn right but to the right there was no street..well there was but it was so tiny that it must be for pedestrians and bicycle only. We drive around and search but find nothing so after a while we were once again back at the intersection where the GPS told us to turn right. Scratching our heads and not understanding anything I jump out of the car to see what kind of street it is and guess what, it is an street for cars and the GPS showed us the correct way all the time, bummer! However I’m happy that we drove a tiny Citroën because it was tight, very tight. I doubt that if we had a normal Volvo or BMW we could have used those streets in the old city of Sarajevo. Today however its not any nice hotel, instead its more of a hostel with 2 rooms, and the owner live upstairs so in other words are we living just like the balkan is, sometimes luxury and fine, sometimes a little bit more simple.

Summery of the Balkan express

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So this express trip is over and I will try to do an summery of it, country by country. Of course since I spent a couple of days per country I don’t really know what I’m talking about but its an first impression after visited and talked to people. I´ll start with the overall impression and then continue to the country listed by the order we visited them.

In common for all countries I never felt unsafe anywhere or anytime. We tried everything from some tiny gravel roads to wide highway and overall they were really good, the worst roads we actually found in Austria and Germany which was kind a odd. English works overall without any problem even if you of course will find exceptions with the older population (works better in Slovenia/Croatia than in Serbia) and the euro works everywhere, even if the country has its own currency but keep in my that you probably get a better exchange course if you pay in the local currency.

Slovenia:
Slovenia is the country which remind me the most of western europe. The infrastructure are in good condition, the houses are in good condition, maybe since they left Yugoslavia with only 10-das or war. They had the best possibilities to to setup a good society but still they fail. According to Robin who we couchsurfed at in Ljubljana we learned that the suicide rate in Slovenia is skyrocketing and the alcoholism is a huge problem which you may see if you visit any gas station or other shop who sells alcohol during the evening/night. The problem might be that they are not western Europe, however they are not really “balkans” either and they doesn’t share the same culture or history like the rest of the Yugoslavian republics which gives them an identity crises and may explain their problems. Their mountains are thought really nice and i would recommend that you go here instead of the alps for your next ski/bike trip, I think it will be awesome!

Serbia:
Serbia is very, russian. Everything from the society, culture to how people behave. Serbia has a collective feeling that western world did them wrong during the war and like someone said, “Serbia never forgets, never forgives” and I think there is really something in this. Serbia hasn’t really forgiven the western world and while the rest of the republics has been closing in to EU Serbia has been running their own race which made them kind a isolated. It has started to change but its a big difference from the other countries. Belgrade is the biggest city in former Yugoslavia and a big city is always a big city, you can always find something for you here and I will return at some day.

Kosovo:
Kosovo is the smallest country and not even a country to some (Serbia) which may be a problem if you don’t plan your trip. Its not a problem to go from Serbia to Kosovo however if you try to enter Serbia coming from Kosovo you might end up in problem. Serbia claims that Kosovo still belongs to them they may accuse you form illegal entering the country even if you just been to Kosovo. In this country however the country with the biggest optimism and they are building everywhere without any regulations. Well, the former mayor tried to restrict some but he got shot on the open street. I would say that Kosovo is the closest to the gold rush in the wild west you can come.

Macedonia:
Macedonia didn’t showed us its best sides when we were there. Rain, gray weather and the hotel we booked had faked their address on booking.com so it looked like it closer to the city center than what it really was. Not an good start and after that Macedonia had to work in a uphill. That the city was gray and that they places statues all over the city doesn’t help much.  But there is a couple of low cost flight flying to Skopje so at least its easy to get here and you are welcome to prove me wrong.

Albania:
Albania was probably the country I had the most prejudices about and not a single one was fulfilled during my trip. It may been because of the pope was visiting Tirana but the city was really clean and nice. English worked really good and I was expecting to see old Mercedes cars but I guess it was just my mind playing tricks on me. The road were really good, people were friendly and even if the corruption is supposed to be extreme I never saw anything. My guess is that in a couple of years Albania will be new the nr 1 charter resort, the beaches and sea are beautiful and once the standards gets just a little bit better, in the same class as Greece or Turkey.

Montenegro:
In Montenegro we had the opposite experience than Macedonia. The weather couldn’t be better and the hotel was even better than we thought. Podgorica may not be the best or funniest city in the world but who cares then you can sit  on a outdoor seating and drink a cold beer and enjoy life. The country itself reminds pretty much of Serbia with the major difference that they do anything they can to get closer to EU. A big difference and it makes it way much easier to be a tourist here. If you like nature you big mountains and deep valleys you will love Montenegro!

Bosnia Herzegovina:
Bosnia as a country is a dead according to me, it has been forced to one nation and the country is suffering from it. What many people doesn’t know is that Bosnia Herzegovina is an federation, just like Yugoslavia was (and that worked out so well). It contains three large groups of people (Croatians, Bosniaks and Serbs) . The only thing that consistent is that you never, ever see the Bosnian flag, instead its the flag for Republik Srpska or the Croatian flag and its here you really realize that the wounds from the war i still wide open and infected. Each group has its own president and for any decisions all three must agree and how often does that happen do you think? Amira who we met in Sarajevo described it as “we are sitting on a ticking bomb”.

Croatia:
Croatia has two faces, we have the rich part along the coast which every year get plenty of tourism and gets even wealthier from that and we the poor inland where you still find traces from the war. The coastline is pretty much like any other area in western europe around the Mediterranean and you can find everything you want. If you travel inland it gets poorer and poorer and and you will find abandoned villages and other traces from the war. If you go to Croatia I really recommend that you spend a day or two traveling inland, the nature is beautiful and you should have seen both sides before you can say that you been to Croatia.