All Roads Lead To Podgorica

Casey writes:

The pleasures of driving a hire car in Eastern Europe:

1. I've tried to get in the passenger's side door 7 times.
2. I've turned on the windscreen wipers instead of the indicators only about 54 times. 
3. I've cruised along in the left hand lane - wondering why I'm being honked - at least 10 times.
4. Doing a left-hand turn in a capital city at peak hour scares the hell out of me!

After ten days of driving our beautiful silver chevloret from Sarajevo to Split to Dubrovnik to Kotor to Budva to Pristina to Skopje to Kragujevac and back to Sarajevo, I finally feel like I'm a master of the Eastern European roads. Cars overtaking on single lane country roads, bearing down on me with metres to spare before they squeeze back into their lane, no longer faze me. Pedestrians dashing onto the road from behind parked cars without looking, are fine now. Cars pulling out in front of me from side streets with just enough space for me to slam on my brakes or end up in their back seat, are stock and standard. When we arrived at our new accommodation each night, Richard (as the navigator*) and I (the driver), were exhausted, a little stressed and incredibly relieved. We sometimes were even able to muster the energy to give each other a High 5.

But despite all of this, driving around the Balkan States has been lots of fun, and a huge adventure. The scenery is magical, and it is so much better to enjoy the beauty of the mountains, trees and lakes rushing past us from the front seat of a car, rather than be couped up in a bus.

I've realised that the civil engineers in the Balkans never learned how to design a straight road. We've spent ten days weaving around the tightest of bends, and marvelling at the stunning ocean views from cliff tops roads that rival Victoria's Great Ocean Road. The average speed on the speed signs has been 50km/h, with 30km/h on the bends. The average Balkans driver sticks to a mandatory 80-90km/h, without any variance in speed on the bends.

Upon leaving Sarajevo, our first stop was Mostar, to see the famous and World Heritage Listed Stari Most Bridge. We were so impressed by its grandeur and picturesque views. The pretty cobbled streets of the Old Town made walking difficult (and slippery), and we were amused by the daredevil young men collecting money before leaping off the 25m bridge into the shallow waters below.

Our first border crossing went smoothly, and soon we arrived in Split, Croatia. Our hostel owners were a fantastic family who simply rented out rooms in their family home to backpackers. The father's first words to us were to insist we drink a shot of grappa as a welcome gesture. The figs he encouraged us to eat after the shot did nothing to take away the horrible taste of the grappa! The mother was equally friendly and their two teenage children were incredibly polite, but our favourite members of the family were their hyperactive dog and the human-like cat that followed us hundreds of metres all the way to the main road when we went for our evening meal. The city of Split is the second largest in Croatia, behind the capital Zagreb. Its location on the sea, with an excellent mix of old town charm and beach vibe, made it a lovely place to wander around.

Dubrovnik on the other hand, unfortunately disappointed us. Again, a quaint and picturesque walled Old Town with postcard perfect views of the Adriatic Sea, but it was so overrun with tourists, had such rude workers, and its food and drink was so extortionately overpriced, that we stayed one night and left early the next morning, keen to get to somewhere more relaxed.

The border crossing into Montenegro consisted simply of a bored customs officer waving us through, with no need to even flash our passports, let alone search bags! We by-passed the five hundred signs that pointed us towards the capital city, Podgarica, and made a beeline for the famed coastal resorts in the south of the country.

Our time on the beaches of Montenegro was calm and chilled. And hot. One day in the Bay of Kotor we spent simply sitting on the beach (in front of our idyllically located hostel), reading and eating and not much else. The night before had been a huge bi-annual festival with fireworks, parades and plenty of alcohol fuelled tourists, so the beach took quite a while to liven up around us. We shared a hostel room with two other tourists - Ash, a vibrant young Sydneysider who had been teaching in London, and Padraig, an Irishman whose company we enjoyed immensely. Together, we all hiked to the top of the town wall fortress, enjoying panoramic views from the mountain. We were exhausted in the heat, but agreed that the reward at the top was well worth it. The next day we did a group tour to the north of the country, to see Durmitor National Park and Tara Canyon (the second largest in the world behind the Grand Canyon).

From Kotor we drove briefly along the coast to another 'tourist trap' called Budva. Again, the thousands of tourists spent their time eating ice cream, drinking coffee, swimming and sun baking. We embraced this attitude completely, immersing ourselves in a day of water sports. Firstly we did a tour on a semi-submarine (or more simply, a glass-bottomed boat with a submerged viewing area), although apart from hundreds of tiny fish, we didn't see a great deal. The highlight of our day however, was going parasailing. The adrenalin rush as we were pulled into the air was awesome, and the views of the sea, the mountains, the town of Budva and Sveti Stefan (a luxurious resort island where Novak Djokovic recently booked the entire island to get married) were amazing. 

No sooner had we said farewell to Montenegro, that we arrived at the mountain top border with Kosovo. We drove on to the city of Pec, to see the Patriarchate of Pec, a beautiful old World Heritage Listed monastery (four churches in one, each with its own unique and vivid frescoes). We spent the night in the capital city, Pristina. Now, Kosovo is still developing as a country (it's the second youngest in the world behind South Sudan), following the 1999 crisis and it's people are by no means wealthy. Many cannot afford to eat in the many restaurants along the pedestrianised city centre, so instead, they dress up in their best clothes, and simply walk up and down the strip, hoping to be noticed. In fairness, Richard and I were trying to save cash too, so we avoided the fancy restaurants and joined the throng of walkers in the balmy night air.

Our brief stint in Kosovo was very pleasant, and as we crossed the border into Macedonia, we were excited to visit yet another virtually unknown capital city - Skopje. Its surrounding mountains boast the largest cross in the world - the Millennium Cross - which sits perched on the mountain edge, overlooking the city. Skopje's other claim to fame is as the birthplace of Mother Theresa. Suffice to say, her head pops up everywhere you look and every corner you turn. Unfortunately it was a public holiday, so we couldn't visit any museums, but we did find our way to a semi-underground church (Sveti Spas) with a ten metre wide intricately designed wooden iconostasis, depicted many scenes and identities from the Bible. The reason for this historic church being underground is that the Turks banned any church being taller than a mosque, therefore from the outside it looks like a normal house, but inside opens up into a grand chamber.  

The speed limit signs (or lack of) have been a constant source of frustration and amusement for us. So when we entered a motorway upon leaving Skopje bound for Kragujevac, we did a double take when a speed sign said 130km/h. After days of winding roads, we were ecstatic, but it took me quite a while to accept that travelling at 130km/h was safe and legal. I shouldn't have worried, because once I was doing the speed limit, cars and trucks were whizzing past me, doing speeds of goodness knows what. Given that we were heading towards the Serbian border, we thought we were very smart in changing all of our Macedonian cash into Serbian dinaras the previous night. We didn't count on two tollways, virtually at the border, the first demanding one euro in fees, and the second expecting one euro and fifty cents. We were out of cash and threw every last coin we had at the officer, who must have felt some sympathy for us and just rolled his eyes and let us through.

After a full day of driving, including a quick stop at Studenica Monastery, we arrived in Kragujevac for the night. Here was another low key town with a nice atmosphere, and we rose early the next morning to set off for Sarajevo.

Another full day of driving with a stop to see the World Heritage Listed Visegrad Stari Most bridge, we arrived in Sarajevo in time to return the car.

After ten days of driving the Balkans, we've had a brilliant experience of hospitality, friendliness and stunning sites, and we now look forward to the challenge of organising transport to Tirana, Albania, which is apparently easier said than done... but we will see!

* Upon reading this blog, Richard's only feedback was that I didn't make enough of a fuss of his perceived excellent navigational skills whilst we were on the road. He asked me to add more adjectives to describe his role as chief Balkans navigator. Fine. My driving was impeccable. His navigational skills were adequate. So there are two adjectives for you Rich... But, in seriousness, without his efforts, we would have ended up down dead end streets and wrong turns hundreds of times (instead of the only twenty times he caused us), and his constant scrutiny of our maps (both on paper and his ipad) plus his exceptional navigation, made our crazy driving experience work out perfectly in the end.