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Balkan Trip

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santa klaus started this discussion 15 years 5 months ago

So we (Aboriginal and me) went to the Balkan during the last week of May.
We left on the 24th, only six hours late because on the way to Vienna, Aboriginal suddenly remembered he forgot his flyers in Budapest (the reason for the whole trip...) - so he went back home half way between Budapest and Vienna. Then, on the way to Vienna the second time, he ran out of gas, so he had to be towed to the next service station. Then, of course, as it was so late, we had to eat. So we left Vienna around midnight. Which is a pity, because the drive to Ljubljana is a pretty scenic one.

Our journey took us past the site where Jörg Haider died when he drove by way too late (like us), way too fast (like us) and had a few glasses of Schnaps (like us):

IMAGE(http://de.altermedia.info/images/haidertrauer2.jpg)

We wanted to piss out those candles, but we missed the spot, so we decided to do this on the way back.
We passed the border at Loibl pass, which looked like it must be spectacular scenery - if there is some daylight.

We arrived at Hostel Celica in Ljubljana at 5 in the morning and the merciful night receptionist told us we could check out at 11 (instead of 10). :rolleyes:

This was our cell:

IMAGE(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/2702/img2852z.jpg)

As you can see, it´s tiny. You can barely sit on the bed because it´s so close to the ceiling, so putting the bedsheets on was a major task. It also gets incredibly hot up there, and it was not even Summer.

Here are a few other cells Dunja, the manager, showed us on the next day:

IMAGE(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/9207/img2855.jpg)

It is an interesting experience to sleep in a prison cell - and they charge the according rates.

The next day, we went on to Bled, a small town in the mountains. It seems to have more hostel beds than inhabitants.

The nearby Vintgar gorge is really worth a visit though:

IMAGE(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/1858/img2871cob.jpg)

In the evening, we drove down to Split, where we arrived really early (1am), so we had time for a few drinks.
The next day, we visited two other hostels - Split Hostel, which is run by two hot Australian chicks and the Silver Central Hostel, which has a huge fridge and air condition. If I had the choice where to stay (both were full so I had no choice) it would be a tough call! Not for Aboriginal though, as he is a testosterone-laden descendant of the Huns.

In the evening, we went on to Dubrovnik. Aboriginal´s GPS is quite old, so it didn´t know anything about the highway which was built shortly after the Romans left the Dalmatian coast. That´s why we took the scenic coastal road, which would have been a nice drive if it wouldn´t have been pitch-dark.

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santa klaus

15 years

Dubrovnik´s old town (and the city walls) are really impressive, but only second to Venice in terms of tourist hordes invading the place.

Some pictures:

IMAGE(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/3294/img2901lzy.jpg)

We were looking forward to Bosnia and already in a hurry, so we went to a reataurant promisingly named "Fast Food", where we waited maybe an hour without a waiter showing up at our table to take our order.

We arrived in Mostar again after midnight, so we tried to find the hostel without calling them for help. The GPS had no street names, so we went to the center and asked a guy for directions. He looked at the address, then looked at me in disgust, said "west side" and walked away. The "west side" is where the Croats live.
Mostar saw some heavy fighting between muslims and Croats and the main boulevard, which was the front line between them, still looks like a war zone:

IMAGE(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4467/img2945x.jpg)

So, instead of asking more muslims for directions to the Croat side, we went into the next internet café and typed the address into Google Maps.

This is what we got! :D

And so we called Majda to pick us up.

Mostar is still an insider´s tip, but I´m sure it´ll be full of backpackers very soon. There are hostels opening up everywhere. One even opened on the same day we went there - they were just cleaning up the reception area to be ready for the first guests.

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santa klaus

15 years

Mostar´s setting is spectacular and it has a really pretty old town.

IMAGE(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/8925/img2936l.jpg) IMAGE(http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/1402/img2961a.jpg)

There are still a lot of ruins from the war though, also in the historic center. A hostel owner told us nobody has the money to restore them in the way you´re supposed to do that in a Unesco world heritage site. The result is that the owners leave them unrestored until they are beyond repair, so they can be replaced with concrete...

The next day, we went on to Sarajevo. The road follows the Neretva river through a narrow and steep valley. Above the road is a railway line - the trainride must offer some really breathtaking views. Since the scars of the war were still so obviously to be seen in Mostar, I was curious how Sarajevo looked like - it was under siege for over three years (the longest siege in the history of modern warfare). 10.000 inhabitants were killed, so any open space had to be turned into a graveyard like this one:

IMAGE(http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/4783/img2973zuw.jpg)

55.000 more were wounded. Virtually all buildings in the city were damaged or destroyed. Sarajevo was cut off from tap water, gas and electricity for three years. More than half of the city´s children were directly shot at by snipers or have seen someone killed.

It´s hard to imagine how a city can switch back to normal everyday life after this sort of experience, but that´s what seems to have happened. There were (almost) no damaged buildings to be seen, only the graveyard next to the hostel was the only obvious sign of what happened there. I will certainly go there again this year - it´s a very beautiful and very interesting place to see.

That´s the view from Haris Youth Hostel´s terrace:

IMAGE(http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/8735/img2970t.jpg)

And here are two pictures from Sarajevo´s Turkish old town:

IMAGE(http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/6813/img2980r.jpg)

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Josh Hostels

15 years

Looks like great places to visit...

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santa klaus

15 years

Absolutely, and the time is right to go NOW - you have all the infrastructure you need for backpacking (hostels, public transport, cheap food) but the hordes haven´t discovered it yet. It totally reminded me of travelling in South America 15 years ago.

We met a Swiss guy who went to the Gipsy music festival in Serbia (there´s a video about it in another thread here) and he told us it´s a really unique experience. Just don´t buy their firewater - they will let you taste the good stuff, but sell you the bottom shelf liquor! :D

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Josh Hostels

15 years

I'm flying to Athens in August. Maybe I'll be able to work it into the trip somewhere...

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Scotch Argus

15 years

Thanks for the story and pictures - sounds like an excellent road trip. Must be a really interesting part of the world.

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gordo

15 years

possibly my favourite part of the world the balkans. i would elaborate but im quite sure i broke my thumb last night and typing this is proving somewhat painful. so, another time!

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Stefan

15 years

We wanted to piss out those candles, but we missed the spot, so we decided to do this on the way back.

hehe, hope you did....

thats a brillant summary of your trip, makes me wanna go there right now. last time i was in this area was when it was called yugoslavia.

So, instead of asking more muslims for directions to the Croat side, we went into the next internet café and typed the address into Google Maps.This is what we got!

nice :-)

nice pictures as well. thank you for that.

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santa klaus

15 years

hehe, hope you did....

We took a different route on the way back - we were in a hurry because I had to be in Munich on June 1st - that´s when we (i.e. ME) put the Oktoberfest beds online. We were almost booked up in 7 minutes this time - the first booking arrived after 38 seconds. :)

BTW, the house on the picture is owned by a loyal party member and Haider worshipper. That´s why it´s painted orange. Their god died on their front lawn! :D

thats a brillant summary of your trip, makes me wanna go there right now.

Do it. It IS worth it. The hostels are so different from Germany´s as well. None with more than a few rooms, a lot of enthusiasm and improvisation, and they´re filled with people who have better stories to tell than "London is so expensive, I was so stoned in Amderdam and so pissed in Munich".

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aboriginalhostel

15 years

So there we go, two fellas to the Balkans. As Klaus have told most of the story and even if it's fair to show both sides of the coins, I wouldn't bother you with details you already know.

When I left Sunday afternoon intended to show up in Vienna by 6ish, I didn't even dream that I'll arrive there by midnight. I got out of the city quite easily and I was laughing at those drivers who tried to get into the city because of the huge traffic jam they had. I've seen nothing else but cars on those lanes and meanwhile mine was deserted. As soon as I left the city I started thinking about the usual things when I travel: Do I have all the documents? Check. Money? Check. Backpack? Check. Flyers? Check. Flyers I supposed to pick up from my friend's hostel? F*ck. Then I joined the miserable crowd soon after.

As soon as I could get out of town again, I tried to reduce the wasted time on the highway. It wasn't too hard due the lack of traffic and those who know me knows that my right foot is much heavier than the left one, anyway. I knew I had to fill up at a petrol station especially because of the extra mile, so I roughly estimated how much petrol I have left and searched for the last petrol station within that distance on the GPS. I was only 12kms away from it when the engine started coughing. Luckily I managed to drive into a resting area (just to let you know, the average survival time on the emergency lane is about 20 minutes regarding Hungarian statistics ;) ) then I started asking people if they could tow me to that 12kms. Among the drivers I asked there was only one Hungarian (highway maintenance, they are restricted to tow and are deadly scared of highway cameras), so I had to use my pigeon German, pigeon Italian, pigeon Romanian along with gesture in order to get me understood as none of them spoke English. This I found weird as I thought English is an international language. Finally I found an Austrian family who rather hesitated than denied and after several attempts and when they saw that no one else wanted to help me, they agreed to tow the car to the petrol station. The moral of this story is even when you know how much fuel your car drinks, don't forget that it could be that slightly more if you speed and use the AC and don't believe the display when it says you have 60 liters when it's actually 55. If I'd only had 1 more liter petrol I could easily make it there...

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