Apr 14-25
Chris planned an ambitious twelve-day itinerary, spending about two days in each of Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. Click here for a map. Even though it was a lot to take in, it was very interesting to compare the significant differences between all the small, adjacent countries.
The trip started with a comic hitch. We had a twelve-hour overnight bus from Istanbul, through Bulgaria, to Macedonia. At 3am, we arrived at the Bulgaria-Macedonia border. Rubbing our eyes, we produced our passports, which were checked and stamped, and then the bus proceeded to its checkpoint. It turned out that the bus didn't have its paperwork in order to cross the border, so we all had to get off, put our stuff by the side of the road, and wait an indefinite amount of time for an unknown solution. Fortunately, there was a coffee shop, and we spent from 3am to 7am there until another bus came from the Macedonia side to pick us up. The sun just risen, we continued through beautiful scenery to Skopje, the capital, to Ohrid in the southwest.
Chris planned an ambitious twelve-day itinerary, spending about two days in each of Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. Click here for a map. Even though it was a lot to take in, it was very interesting to compare the significant differences between all the small, adjacent countries.
The trip started with a comic hitch. We had a twelve-hour overnight bus from Istanbul, through Bulgaria, to Macedonia. At 3am, we arrived at the Bulgaria-Macedonia border. Rubbing our eyes, we produced our passports, which were checked and stamped, and then the bus proceeded to its checkpoint. It turned out that the bus didn't have its paperwork in order to cross the border, so we all had to get off, put our stuff by the side of the road, and wait an indefinite amount of time for an unknown solution. Fortunately, there was a coffee shop, and we spent from 3am to 7am there until another bus came from the Macedonia side to pick us up. The sun just risen, we continued through beautiful scenery to Skopje, the capital, to Ohrid in the southwest.
Macedonia is mostly Orthodox, with a quarter of the western population Albanian (and therefore Muslim). The "jewel of Macedonia", Ohrid is on Lake Ohrid, the border with Albania. The lake was a beautiful blue-green, and we had a walk all around, visiting little Byzantine churches and walking the cobbled streets. Like Cappadocia, I enjoyed being in a touristy place in the off-season, at a time when the weather was still fine. We had the place to ourselves.
Day two, we took a bus to Sveti Naum, a monastery on the south side of Lake Ohrid, very near the Albanian border. The grounds were roamed by a startling number of peacocks who would occasionally scream loudly.
We also enjoyed tea and coffee in a local tea house frequented by old white Muslim men who greeted each other with "A salam a Lakum".
Day two, we took a bus to Sveti Naum, a monastery on the south side of Lake Ohrid, very near the Albanian border. The grounds were roamed by a startling number of peacocks who would occasionally scream loudly.
As we tried to get to the border, we walked through an eerie deserted camp ground dubbed by Chris a "communist summer camp". We eventually found our way to the border, had our passports checked on exit, walked through no man's land to the Albanian check point, paid a one-euro entry fee, and had our passports stamped on entry.
We got a taxi from the border to the nearest town, and then a scenic furgon, or shared taxi, ride to Tirana, Albania's capital. Tirana was a bustling city, but obviously very much developing, with sidewalks torn up, construction all over, and smog from the huge number of Mercedes Benzes, many stolen from neighboring countries. A recent mayor of Tirana, who was also an artist, started a program of painting bright colors on the dreary communist block apartment buildings. It wasn't until our next country, Montenegro, that I really appreciated how developing Albania was.
Our usual breakfast fix was burek, readily available throughout the Balkans, consisting of baked filo-type pastry filled with meat, cheese, spinach, or potato, usually accompanied with drinking yogurt. We loyally ate burek at least once every day.
On our one morning in Tirana, we were enjoying our morning burek in a small establishment on President George W. Bush street (there was a street sign) when we noticed one of the employees dutifully wet-mopping the floor, only to have customers tread on the floor and create muddy footprints. In fact, everywhere we saw compulsive Albanian moppers. When we noticed that the other Balkan countries followed the more customary approach of dry sweeping during business hours and then mopping after closing, we decided that mopping customs were a good measure of a country's development.
On our one morning in Tirana, we were enjoying our morning burek in a small establishment on President George W. Bush street (there was a street sign) when we noticed one of the employees dutifully wet-mopping the floor, only to have customers tread on the floor and create muddy footprints. In fact, everywhere we saw compulsive Albanian moppers. When we noticed that the other Balkan countries followed the more customary approach of dry sweeping during business hours and then mopping after closing, we decided that mopping customs were a good measure of a country's development.
We had a fun, scenic ride on a fairly decrepit train from Tirana to Shkodra, near the Montanegran border. The train took three and a half hours and cost $2! Along the way, we noticed hundreds of igloo-shaped concrete bunkers dotting the countryside. During his heavy-handed communist rule from 1946 to 1992, Enver Hoxha had 700,000 of these bunkers installed throughout Albania as part of a paranoid self-reliance defense strategy in the late 1960s. They are incredibly durable, and most of them remain today. We also noticed a lot of rubbish in the cities and country, which I read is likely a reaction to harsh communist-era policies on littering. Albania has a Muslim majority, but most people don't practice any religion due to the severe 1967 Chinese-style Cultural Revolution when religion, among other things, was banned. Administrative workers were suddenly transferred to remote areas, younger cadres were placed in leading positions, churches and mosques were sacked and destroyed, and the collectivisation of agriculture was completed.
From the Shkodra train station into town, we caught a furgon that needed a push-start to get going. The city was gloomy and depressing, so we made a quick decision to catch another furgon to nearby Ulcinj, Montenegro. A friendly fellow passenger from Ulcinj helped us find good accommodation and after checking in, we walked downhill for our first view of the Adriatic Sea and back on the quaint town. Montenegro was a big contrast to Albania, with none of the litter, mountains instead of the northern Albanian flatlands, and much more developed and better off. Montenegro gained independence from Serbia two years ago, and I think is now the second youngest country in the world, after neighboring Kosovo. The population is mostly Orthodox.
In Ulcinj, we had our first of many encounters with the delicious grilled meatball sausage, served with bread, yogurt, and onions, and made of one or a mixture of pork, beef, and lamb. Another food we had a few times was the "fast food" sandwich containing yogurt, shaved meat, tomato, french fies, and smothered in ketchup and mustard. In Bosnia and Herzagovena, we had some yummy sausages with something like sauerkraut and thick mustard, showing the German / Austrian influence on the country. Usually a vegetarian, I admit to having some damn good meat in the Balkans.
In Ulcinj, we had our first of many encounters with the delicious grilled meatball sausage, served with bread, yogurt, and onions, and made of one or a mixture of pork, beef, and lamb. Another food we had a few times was the "fast food" sandwich containing yogurt, shaved meat, tomato, french fies, and smothered in ketchup and mustard. In Bosnia and Herzagovena, we had some yummy sausages with something like sauerkraut and thick mustard, showing the German / Austrian influence on the country. Usually a vegetarian, I admit to having some damn good meat in the Balkans.
We also enjoyed tea and coffee in a local tea house frequented by old white Muslim men who greeted each other with "A salam a Lakum".
There wasn't much to see in Ulcinj, so we pushed on the next day to Kotor, a beautiful little town with marble cobbled streets, narrow lanes, and cats everywhere. We used a travel agency to find a woman who rents a room in her house in the old town. When we arrived, she served us tea and coffee followed by the Montenegran specialty of cured, salty ham on seedy bread. She showed us the pig leg which was as big as hers. Renting private rooms in houses is a very common and inexpensive form of accommodation in the Balkans, and I'm sure you could get to know the family in the house if you weren't moving as quickly as we were.
The old city had a castle on the hill overlooking it, with city walls that we walked up for views of the city and ocean below.
Next stop was Dubrovnik, Croatia, the most picturesque city I've ever seen, showing little sign of being heavily bombed by the Yugoslav army in 1991. Since then, the local builders have done an amazing job restoring the city. Our day spent walking along the old city walls and then hiking past fourteen stages of the cross to a viewpoint was my favorite of the trip. This was our only day without some rain, and the best one for it. The photos tell the story.
From the city walls:
From our hike up the nearby hill:
Even though they are all adjacent to each other, Croatia is Catholic and "Western", compared to "Eastern" Bosnian and Serbian culture in their foods, music, customs, and religion. The country seemed more developed and wealthy, and was certainly more expensive.
After we had our fill of Dubrovnik, we moved on to Mostar in Bosnia and Herzagovena, where we had a rare opportunity to climb the minaret of a mosque, providing for great views of the Old Bridge and the rest of town. B+H was less developed and expensive than Croatia, and clearly had a more troubled recent history. As a result of Bosnian Croats and Muslims declaring independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, Serb forces started attacking many cities, including Mostar and Sarajevo, the two we visited. In Mostar, after the Serbs attacked, internal conflict began between the religious groups, the town became segregated on either side of the river, and the famous 427-year-old bridge was destroyed to seal the separation. Today, fifteen years later, the Old Bridge has been authentically rebuilt and the old city repaired, but there were shocking remnants of the conflict in the form of many bombed out buildings and walls covered in pockmark divots from bomb shrapnel.
After we had our fill of Dubrovnik, we moved on to Mostar in Bosnia and Herzagovena, where we had a rare opportunity to climb the minaret of a mosque, providing for great views of the Old Bridge and the rest of town. B+H was less developed and expensive than Croatia, and clearly had a more troubled recent history. As a result of Bosnian Croats and Muslims declaring independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, Serb forces started attacking many cities, including Mostar and Sarajevo, the two we visited. In Mostar, after the Serbs attacked, internal conflict began between the religious groups, the town became segregated on either side of the river, and the famous 427-year-old bridge was destroyed to seal the separation. Today, fifteen years later, the Old Bridge has been authentically rebuilt and the old city repaired, but there were shocking remnants of the conflict in the form of many bombed out buildings and walls covered in pockmark divots from bomb shrapnel.
Bosnia and Herzagovena was the divide in the Roman Empire between control by Rome (Catholic) and Constantinople (Orthodox), and continues to have varied religious representation with 40% Muslim, 31% Orthodox, and 15% Roman Catholic.
We had a picturesque train ride from Mostar to Sarajevo, a city that has been important over the centuries to the Austrio-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, and now is the capital of the country. Like Istanbul and Mostar, it was dotted with mosques, churches (Orthodox and Catholic), and temples, but it also had beautiful architecture and a very European feel in some parts, juxtaposed to other forms of architecture. Even though it was severely damaged in the 90s like Mostar, most of the city was already rebuilt and there were few remnants. One exception was the National Library which had been burned, and still stood boarded up, though with a glass and steel dome that Austria has since built to begin the building's reconstruction.
We had a picturesque train ride from Mostar to Sarajevo, a city that has been important over the centuries to the Austrio-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, and now is the capital of the country. Like Istanbul and Mostar, it was dotted with mosques, churches (Orthodox and Catholic), and temples, but it also had beautiful architecture and a very European feel in some parts, juxtaposed to other forms of architecture. Even though it was severely damaged in the 90s like Mostar, most of the city was already rebuilt and there were few remnants. One exception was the National Library which had been burned, and still stood boarded up, though with a glass and steel dome that Austria has since built to begin the building's reconstruction.
Our second day in Sarajevo, we explored by foot and walked up a hill to a serene Muslim graveyard overlooking the city. We also had a disappointing visit to the Sarajevo Brewery (no tours and the beer was nothing special), a stop at the Latin Bridge where Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand to set off World War I, and other wandering around.
At the Serbia border, the guard looked at every page of our passports and radioed our names in to someone to check if we were on a list. Probably, they were looking into whether we were Americans who had been in Kosavo providing support for its independence from Serbia. In Belgrade, we saw a tram that was covered in "Kosavo is Serbia" written in many different languages. Apparently, one reason Serbia cares so much about Kosavo is that there are a number of important Serbian Orthodox religious sites there, even though the current population is mostly Albanian Muslims.
Belgrade was a large, developed city with quite a European feel. It supposedly has great night life, which we observed from walking along wide streets with cafes and bars spilled out onto them, and a chic bar serving dozens of varieties of rakia, the local liquor (which is very similar in name and taste to the "local liquor" available from France to Nepal). We wandered around a park surrounding the city's old fortress, proudly displaying tanks and guns used to massacre the previous cities we had visited in neighboring countries, and checked out what will be the largest Orthodox church in the world if they ever finish constructing it (they've been working at it since before WWII). We were disappointed that the Nikola Tesla museum was closed due to holiday; the pride of Serbia, he seems like a really interesting and influential scientist that I'd like to learn more about.
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