Day 11-13: Albania

When people heard we were going to Albania they were telling us that we were going to get mugged, that our car was going to get stolen or at least broken by someone/something (i.e. potholes) and that we should be extra careful about everything.

Seriously, they made us really terrified, but in the end everything turned out ok. The people were nice (we got a coffee invitation from a car in the middle of the motorway), the roads a bit less, therefore we decided to spare our Ferdo a couple more kilometres on the Albanian roads and we didn't visit Korçe, but drove straight to Greece from Gjirokastra, which we visited after Vlore, Apollonia and Tirane.

Tirane

A little tortoise at the Apollonia ruins

Apollonia

Berat

Gjirokaster

Around Vlore

Day 6-11: Montenegro

We spent about a week chilling out in Ulcinj attempting to learn how to kitesurf and adapting to Balkan lifestyle, which is SLOOOW! On one of the non-windy days we visited Durmitor National Park and did a little walk around the Black Lake. We were planning on staying in Ulcinj just for a couple of days, but kept extending our stay, just because we enjoyed the atmosphere there so much:)

In Ulcinj, the guys found a little puppy, a proper chilled out Montenegrin, that they called Boshko, who is now looking for a new home.

Hard life in Ulcinj:)

Day 3 & 4 & 5: Sarajevo, Mostar and Dubrovnik

We spent the morning of our 3rd day strolling around old historical town Jajce. In the campsite where we were staying there were maybe 10 cars and half of them had Slovenian plates. Even in the town centre we kept meeting each other and we ended up doing a tour around the town together with a Slovenian couple.

Around midday we headed towards Sarajevo and the clutch was doing fine despite my little accident the day before. It was 45°C in the city centre when we arrived so we decided to chillax for a bit in a park nearby before we went out to explore Sarajevo nightlife along Baščaršija, the main street with our new Bosnian friends, where we bumped into our couch surfing friends from Madrid. You never know who you're gonna meet in Sarajevo!

We left for Mostar Saturday midday, but only managed to get there late afternoon, because of a traffic accident and a much needed stopover to cool down in Neretva river. We finished the day cooking dinner at Kravica waterfalls, where the nice owners of a cafe offered us to stay on their property free of charge.

On Sunday we headed towards Monetnegro via the touristy town of Dubrovnik and reached Ulcinj in Mne at night, where we spent the next few days kitesurfing.

Jajce

No kissing allowed in a restaurant in Sarajevo

Tunnel used during the Bosnian war, Sarajevo

Mostar

The old bridge in Mostar

Kravice Waterfalls


Teaching the local dogs some discipline

Day 1& 2: Plitvice Lakes and Bosnia

The time of our departure was set for Wed 2pm. At 6 pm we were still in LJ. We just kept forgetting things. When we finally left, we had a first stopover in Dajla (Istria), to pick up Sabrina's forgotten camera and phone charger, before driving to Plitvice Lakes.

We visited Plitvice Lakes National Park the morning, but it was already boiling hot. Afterwards we drove to some remote villages in Bosnia to see a historical church, for which we found out no longer exists. I had a bit of a misunderstanding with the clutch on one of the hills, when a cloud of black smoke came out of the engine, there were immediately four Bosnian guys around us helping us out. Sabrina’s reaction when she saw them in an old Mercedes was: Did that come from your car or ours?

We’re in the small pretty old town of Jajce atm and we are heading towards Sarajevo tomorrow.
*US*

Starting on Galjevica, third year in a row

Plitvice National Park

Gomionica Monastery

Road Trip 2011: The Balkans

The year has flown by and we're off to our road trip again. Last year we headed north, but this year we decided to get some tan and we will be heading south to the only city in the world that is split between two continents- to Istanbul.

There are some changes to our team this year. Unfortunately, this time Petra is staying at home. Her passport has expired and although she has blond hair and blue eyes we figured that because of the global recession we wouldn't be able to sell her in exchange for enough camels at the Turkish border to last us for the trip. Elza is staying safely parked in her garage in Ljubljana, her role will be taken by Senior S. and little miss Lu will be chilling somewhere in the shade on the Slovenian coast rather than suffering from heat in the Balkans. Everything else is staying the same. There is still us, Sabrina "wannabe rally driver" Savnik and Urša " reverse into everything" Krenk and of course the priceless Grozilda "street=water" GPS, who will be trying to survive yet another road trip around Europe.

So sometime next week, we shall head off (depends on when Sabrina manages to get her drivers license renewed), with the car full off food, clothes, scuba diving and kite-surfing stuff and if lucky, also with all the necessary documents we need. The plan is to drive down along the coast of Istria, visit Bosnia, spend some time kite surfing in Montenegro, explore the countryside in Albania, cycle around Ohrid lake in Macedonia, enter Greece in a desperate attempt to pump some money into their economy, do some hiking in Pindus mountains, educate ourselves about ancient history on Peloponnese, try not to get stuck in the middle of a protest in Athens, worship Gods bellow Mt. Olympus and finally stuff ourselves with baklavas in Istanbul and have a short trip to Asia before driving back home across Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia. The whole trip should take us about a month.

We will try to update this blog regularly, depending on the Internet access and our mood of course:)

The pleasure of doing nothing in Istria, where we were trying to get some tan before we head off even further south