Adventures of LaurenHoya: bosnia and herzegovina

Our shuttle from Montenegro to Tirana really saved us a lot of hassle. We took off in the morning with a handful of other hostel residents and headed down the road.

Quick pit stop in Bar, Montenegro. Our driver disappeared for a bit, and we wandered around.

Back in the car, we survived a hair-raising trip. Our driver was quite aggressive, the roads are narrow, the mountains winding, and as soon as we crossed the border into Albania, there was a car accident that had just happened. Looked like everyone was okay, but a car was flipped over and it wasn't the best welcome.

Meghan and I gone back and forth on the decision to rent a car for Albania, and eventually booked one (the day before arriving!) since we wanted the flexibility, and as soon as we got into Tirana's outskirts, we were majorly second-guessing that decision. Traffic was insane. No rules. Chaos. Cars, people, tractors, animals everywhere. It was not a good feeling.

Still, we pressed on. Our driver dropped us off at a central place in Tirana, and we grabbed some money, food, and found our rental car place. 12,000 lek. Seems like a lot of money.

The people at the car rental place were beyond kind and friendly. I went outside with one of the guys to review the rental car and take photos of it before we took it. Rental cars in the US are shiny, new ones; rental cars in Albania are older, beat up ones. It's for the best. He gave me a few tips for the road, and took it as a compliment when I said Albanian drivers are a little bit crazy.... I was nervous, but we piled in and took off. The rental office in the city didn't have a GPS on hand, so we had to drive out to the airport to get one.

Finally we made it out of the city and drove a couple hours down to Vlore, where we stayed with Meghan's friend's parents. Getting into that town was a bit nuts, and we didn't exactly have an address. She was texting her friend back in the states, and he just kept saying, we don't really have addresses in Albania, just drive down the main road and look for this grocery store - my parents live above it. We did find the place and parked, and his dad came out to find us. He even ran back outside with me later to move the car to a better spot. I pulled so many illegal maneuvers to get it to a spot, but more on Albanian driving later.

We got settled into their place and our hosts don't speak English. Lots of gesturing! But they were so kind. Eventually their 17-year-old granddaughter came over, and she speaks excellent English.

We took off on a walk around the city with our new teenage friends so we could catch the Albanian soccer match that was on that night. We settled at a bar outside that had a large screen, and that was our night.

Alright, now here are my transportation recommendations for the region.

Most of my European trips involve cheap flights (EasyJet, RyanAir) or trains, but these modes of transport aren't strong suits in the Balkans and the countries are so small that they don't have interior flights (with the exception of Croatia).

Here's what I learned while researching before my trip and what I gathered while there:

Slovenia/Croatia - Great train connections to other major European cities and usually within the country. Not as much train flexibility up and down the coast of Croatia.

It's very easy to drive on highways/toll roads, and they major roads are very good. For Slovenia, you need to make sure your rental car has a pass that allows you to drive on the highways, otherwise you need to purchase one. I didn't explore bus options, but I'm thinking they're good. I saw plenty of bus tours from Croatia for short excursions into Bosnia or up to Plitvice.

Bosnia and Herzegovina - Most of the railways were damaged during the war, so it's hard to get around on rail. It's coming back up, but slowly. There are train links to Croatia and Hungary, but that's about it for the region. Bus connections are good if you want to go that route.

There are new highways under construction, but latest figures I saw report fewer than 100km of four lane roads in the whole country. Most are small 2-land roads. Also, land mines are still very prevalent, so when stopping by car, do not leave the paved area.

We needed additional permission from our rental car company to drive into Bosnia. They gave us extra paperwork with a green insurance card to show at the border. I don't think we were asked for it, but sometimes they do check. GPS coverage here is not good, so I'd almost recommend a paper map and having someone help you map your routes. We relied on a faulty GPS, Google maps (which told us to turn on a road that didn't exist) and still ended up well out of our way. Go with the flow and you'll be okay.

Montenegro - Small country, and flights that go into the capital don't have a bus service to the coast, which is where most people want to be. It's easy to get from Dubrovnik into Montenegro, however, and we took a bus. Plentiful bus service around and to other countries.

Train links are few, with most service to Belgrade only.

There are no major highways in the country, and while our rental car company would let us drive here with extra clearance (like Bosnia), we weren't able to drop off our car here at the end.

Albania - This article was really helpful as I got ready for my trip. Albania has been very cut off from the rest of the world, so there are no train links to other countries. I don't think the train station in the capital of Tirana is even functioning anymore. A few trains operate within the country, but they are very slow and very old.

We were looking at bus options to get from Montenegro to Tirana, and it was going to involve multiple transfers, since there are not direct bus links into Tirana. There is a bus from Ulcinj in Montenegro into Shkoder in Albania, and apparently a mini bus, if you can find the driver in a cafe.

Within Albania, most people take minibuses (furgons) to get around, though they don't really have a set schedule, and I get the feeling that you need to be a bit of a local to know how to find one, how to figure out where it's going, and how to tell the driver where you want to go. We saw many people standing on the sides of highways catching these buses. Also, jumping over guardrails into other traffic to get to a bus. Not my idea of fun.

We went with the car rental option, but we had to pick one up separately within Albania. I couldn't find any rental companies that would let us drive a car into Albania. When we got our car, they asked us which regions we'd be visiting, as some roads are very poor and require a four-wheel drive. Thankfully we didn't need that.

Car Rental - Based on all the information above (few flights, slow/old or no trains, flexibility factor) we went with the car rental, and it was definitely a great call.

I had to search a bit for a car rental company that would let us drive the car into multiple countries and let us do a one-way rental. We used Sixt for the first part of our journey, and it was an easy experience. They had everything ready for us, including additional insurance information since we'd be going into Bosnia. Very nice car, we had an Opel Astra. More premium cars can't be driven into certain countries.

For the Albanian portion, we decided on a car last minute, and we used AutoEurope. You book a car and they send you a voucher, which you redeem at a local car rental office. Ours happened to be at Enterprise. We had an older Skoda, which was small and few amenities and quite a few dents and dings, (our cigarette lighter didn't work, which rendered the GPS charge useless), but it's better to not be driving a shiny, new car in Albania. Driving there is a mix of courage, fear, and faith that other people will move out of the way. I ended up parking on sidewalks, dodging livestock, and doing a a few illegal moves, one in front of a police officer. You do what you gotta do, and so does everyone else.

We rented a GPS for our trip, which served us well, mostly. Not great coverage in Bosnia, so be prepared, but everywhere else worked well. We had our Google maps location dot visible on our phones, so we could tell where we were, we just didn't want to use our roaming network to actually map things out (nor was that reliable all the time).

Overall - I'd definitely recommend a road trip here!

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Sarajevo! And Getting Lost on the Side of a Mountain....

I have more photos of Sarajevo than any other place on this trip. It is a beautiful and complicated place, and I only scratched the surface of understanding in my few days there. Bosnia and Herzegovina has stuck with me as I've been home.

I was young when the war started, and while I remember bits and pieces, I couldn't quite understand who was who and why people were fighting each other. Now that I've been there, things click in my head a bit more. I've heard a couple sides of the story, and it doesn't all make sense, but I'm so curious how the oppressors managed to carry out such destruction of Sarajevo and the rest of the country. Until I can return, my Netflix queue and library stack are full of books about this region.

We had a couple hours drive from Mostar, and we were aiming to arrive in time for a tour that we'd booked at 11am. I'd been in touch with our Airbnb host, Samir, and had good directions to his place. Unfortunately as we got onto the street, the police had blocked off the area where we need to go, and made us turn off. I was trying to explain and show my phone to the guys, but they weren't having it. Miraculously, right then, Samir and his friend drove up and talked to them, and we were able to go down the street and get into the apartment building. I'm so grateful!

We parked behind the building, Samir and his friends showed us the place, gave us the keys, and then we sprinted down the way to catch our tour.

We found the meetup place easily and got in a van with a few other people on the tour. Our driver and guide was Nermin, who was a veteran of the of the war from 1992-1995. I so appreciate getting to hear his first-hand experience. He said that it's still difficult to talk about, though he does it for a living now. Corruption and a poor economy have led him to doing tours.

Our first stop, we drove up a hill on the east side to the White Fortress and the lookout point. I'll mention here that I never felt unsafe anywhere on this trip, but our guide did tell us not to leave anything in the van as we walked a few yards down the way to the viewpoint. He said we'd lose our bag and he'd have a broken window. Something to look out for when you're in these parts.

From the fortress, looking east. The Bosnian Serb army came through this area and the siege lines were all around the city on these hills. From there, they bombed and used snipers to take down Sarajevo.

From here was headed down the hill towards a cemetery view, then over to the Olympic sites. The 1984 Winter Games were the pride of Sarajevo. All the white areas below are graves.

The Olympic Torch.

From here we drove west of the city, towards the airport and the Tunnel of Hope.

The city was surround by the Serb army, except for the area around the airport and just to the west. The airport was under UN control.

In 1993, the Bosnian army figured out a way to build a tunnel to get food, aid, and war supplies into the city, since it was completely surrounded. The western entrance in the free Bosnian territory started under this house. Even though you can see that it was damaged with artillery, the Serbs didn't know the tunnel started here. Millions of people passed through here during the war.

In front you'll see a Sarajevo Rose - where a bomb fell and killed people. The scatter of the bomb looks a bit like a rose, and they were later filled in with red resin. You can find them all over Sarajevo.

Here's a map of how the city was surrounded, and the tunnel went through that tiny little white part.

The height of the tunnel varied, and people had to carry very heavy packs of supplies through the tunnel. Poor air and high waters were a problem. This is a must-see if you come to Sarajevo. The site also has a couple videos that we watched.

We drove back into the city for a bit more of a tour through Sniper Alley.

You can easily see all the damage that's still on these buildings, mostly from snipers in the surrounding hills.

I didn't get a photo of the Holiday Inn, but it was built for the Olympics and was the site for journalists during the war. I think it was the only hotel that managed to function. Though it was near the front line and was hit, it was mostly spared during the siege.

Our three hour tour had turned into about four and a half, and I wasn't complaining. But it was time to eat! We found a strip of outdoor cafes and grabbed some Bosnian sandwiches. I think mine had a smoked meat of some sort. Poor economy means everyone my age hangs out in cafes and watches sports, as we saw around us.

We took the time to relax and chill for a bit. We'd just heard a lot of stuff. I was taking notes while Nermin shared stories with us. The quick version of his story and what has happened:

Bosnia and Herzegovina has been occupied over the years by the Ottomans and the Austro-Hungarians and has a mix of peoples and religious backgrounds. As the country of Yugoslavia was formed and ruled under Tito (the Tito, as Nermin said), things were good. They had the 4th largest army in Europe and people were united, including in mixed marriages, and it wasn't a big deal.

The Tito died and there was no Plan B. He had kept things together. Milosevic in Serbia wanted to keep the head government in Belgrade, but Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia didn't get on board with that. Slovenia broke off first, Croatia next. There was a referendum in March 1992 to see if Bosnia could be independent. The Muslims and Catholics voted yes. There was propaganda from Belgrade to get the Orthodox Bosnians to say no and remain under Milosevic/Serbia.

The day after the referendum, the Bosnians Serbs (Orthodox) put up barricades and stopped normal life.

At some point the leader of Croatia and Serba met and made a deal to split Bosnia and Herzegovina. The GNA (Yugoslav People's Army - mostly Orthodox) arrested the leader of Bosnia. As Nermin said, the Catholics could always go to Croatia, the Orthodox to Serbia. The Muslims of Bosnia had nowhere to go. He just wanted to stay alive and defend his family.

The siege of Sarajevo is the longest siege of a capital city. An average of 300 bombs fell per day. The worst day had 3700 bombs.

Even today political parties are aligned with religion, and it causes problems. BiH has 3 presidents, and they rotate turns every 8 months. How do they get anything done? The peace treaty (Dayton Agreement) stopped the fighting but isn't a way to live. You must be connected to the government to have any way of middle class life. This last election had 100 political parties and 3700 candidates.

Nermin talked about how most people used to be able to take their families to the beach in the summer, over to Croatia or Montenegro. But now the middle class is disappearing. He lost his job as a policeman, but had the opportunity to work at a post office. However, first he'd have to pay 10,000 euros as a bribe, with no guarantee of a job after the next election. He is now leading these tours instead.

Okay...that's some heavy stuff.

After lunch we walked back over to the tourist agency to catch the free walking tour of the city. It was destroyed during the siege and rebuilt, opening in 2014. Also, Franz Ferdinand was at a reception here, and when he left, that's when he was shot, triggering WWI.

Next we walked through the old city of Sarajevo, with markets and mosques.

I meant to ask someone about this, but these obituaries were posted in many places around Bosnia.

During the war, heavy sheets of plastic were used in place of windows. You still see a lot of it around.

Then we toured the major churches of Sarajevo - here's the Catholic one.

And the Orthodox one.

These guys are always out. It's a game of many against many.

The Eternal Flame - a memorial to WWII soldiers.

AMEX logo on the window. Cool.

The official walking tour wrapped up, but Meghan and I went to explore a few places we'd passed earlier while driving through the city.

The Academy of Fine Arts

This was just a normal house with cool art.

Here is one of the Olympic sites. There are some shops around, and I think they still hold some events here.

Still can't escape selfie sticks.

Memorial to the children who died in the war, made of glass.

We were walking back to our apartment and I saw this sign. Couldn't read it, but I knew that's where my church was. It was on the same street as our apartment, and I sure wish we'd be there on a Sunday.

Here's the place where we stayed. Great location.

Another Sarajevo Rose near our place.

Meghan manged to figure out the washing machine and do some laundry.

We ventured towards the old city for dinner.

Time for burek! You order by the kilo. I watched the woman through the window, cutting and weighing so well for the time I sat there.

Stuffed with burek, we strolled home.

The next morning we had a long drive ahead to Dubrovnik. Gina the GPS wasn't being the best, so we followed some signs and had a Google maps route saved on our phone, so we thought we were set.

Google told us we needed to turn off on another road, but that road didn't exist anywhere. We drove through a little village looking for a place to turn, and there wasn't one. We kinda guessed from there, and followed our location dot on Google down a road, but soon it turned into this.

And then we realized we were on a side of a mountain, on a narrow dirt road, in the rain. Um. No. Not happening. We were on R433 heading towards Ulog and we backed up. A truck pulled up behind us, and they stopped to see if they could help. It was a couple and their teenage son, with no English between them, but we showed them our phone and told them Dubrovnik, and they said Foca! So we figured that out on the map, and turned a long way back around to get to Foca.

We had to turn our rental car in by 2pm and there was no way we were gonna make it, but at least we were safe.

We hit some heavy rains and a couple places where it looked like the road was washed out or maybe just covered in dirt, but our little Opel handled it. I had to pull over a bit to let the rains pass, but thankfully we were safe on these curvy mountain roads.

I thought it was funny when you left a town, they'd cross out the name. Just so you'd know. We mostly drove through Republika Srpska, so you'll see Serbian Cyrillic on the signs.

Don't take this way.

Long day of driving and it didn't help when we pulled into the hotel in Dubrovnik to turn in our rental car. We hadn't found a place to get gas before returning it, but the guy was nice enough to tell us a place to go. We drove over, got lost, finally found the gas station, and it was closed. I'd heard that sometimes they close on weekends, so fill up before. Too bad for us. We got charged to refill the whole tank in Euros, and it was not pretty. Ugh.

Bye, Bosnia, I love you! More Croatia, Montenegro, and Albania coming up!

Adventures of LaurenHoya

Monday, December 07, 2015

The Great Balkan Road Trip Index

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Intro to Albania, Plus a Transportation Overview

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Sarajevo! And Getting Lost on the Side of a Mountain....

2023 Recap

StatCounter

Stat

LinkWithin