Balkan Delight
Bosnia, Croatia (again) and Montenegro
In this blog article we enjoy
unbelievable balkan hospitality, mario karts on an old railway line, cocktails in Dubrovnik and chinese whispers bikepacker style.
Contents
- Sometimes It’s Better to Keep Your Mouth Shut
- Mario Karts in Bosnia
- Morning Glory with Beba
- Delicacies From Home
- Getting Drenched in Dubrovnik
- When Bureaucracy Ruins Your Coffee but Leads to the Best Ferry Journey of Your Life
- Wild Camping Heaven with Pancakes and Prosciutto Ham
- A Free Breakfast and Some Astonished Dutch
- Winter Ideas and Things Heard About Us on Grapevines
- Tally Sheets and the Black Mountain
Sometimes It's Better to Keep Your Mouth Shut
Our ride into Bosnia is only short and we arrive at Motel Lav in one piece, despite Jana’s food poisoning. The car park is empty and there are no lights on or signs of life in the hotel. We lean the bikes against the wall in front of reception and check our phones to see if our booking.com reservation had been confirmed. It has. Strange, why is the hotel closed?
Before we have time to discuss, a car pulls up and an older lady gets out. The lady doesn’t speak English, and we wouldn’t even know which of the three official languages (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian) in Bosnia to try, even if we could speak one of them.
She opens the large glass front door of the hotel and guides us into reception. She picks up the hotel phone and makes a call. Presumably not to a guest’s room, unless it is custom in Bosnia to be locked into the hotel! It turns out she is speaking to her son, the owner of the hotel, whose wife walks into reception moments later.
She seems to know the reservation system and explains that they are actually closed to all guests today as they are preparing for a wedding with 400 people at the hotel tomorrow. I question if I heard her right. Yes, a wedding with 400 guests. She says that she and her husband had 500 guests on their wedding day. I am shocked, but learn it’s apparently normal in this region of the Balkans to have such large wedding celebrations. I’m not sure I even know 500 people that would turn up to my wedding, even if they knew they were getting a free lunch!
As our booking has apparently gone through they make an exception for us and show us to a room on the fourth floor. There is no elevator and with Jana’s illness, I need a few minutes to shuttle all our bags up to the room. Returning to the room from run number 3, Jana is asleep on the bed. Blimey, she really is ill!
The hotel owners said that breakfast was included, so I woke up to our first full day in Bosnia quite excited. Jana less so. She still hasn’t fully recovered. Shame, I think, more for me.
The spread at breakfast, including fruit and veg from the owner’s garden, was unbelievable. The Albanian family on their way back to the UK, their home since the 90’s, who had arrived at the hotel overnight, agreed. There isn’t a better breakfast anywhere in the Balkans, apparently.
From our table on the terrace in front of the hotel we can see the owners running around inside the dining area of the hotel through the glass facade. They are preparing for the wedding party later on. Being cheeky, I ask if they need help. The owner replies to say that the wedding cake is about to arrive and they need to get the kitchen ready, so there is nothing I can do. As the cake arrives, I jokingly continue, asking if they need my help testing it. The wedding cake isn’t actually 1 giant cake for 400 people, it’s about 800 individual mini cakes. Already struggling to finish the rest of Jana’s breakfast, so as to not appear ungrateful for the spread, I am then brought a plate of wedding cakes to try. The cakes are stunning, but you should have seen my face. I never thought she would actually bring us some of the wedding cakes! Amazing, but I feel bad and wish I had kept my mouth shut. Still eating for two, I just about manage Jana’s portion of the cakes as well. Now we both feel sick.
Mario Karts in Bosnia
We are cycling the Ciro route from Capljana to Zavala. There are two options, road or gravel. We are not sadistic and so choose the road route. The way is clearly marked, a pleasant surprise after Croatia, where we followed bike routes throughout the country, but didn’t see a single bike sign.
The road is quite narrow on the first few kilometers and there are several pretty rackety old wooden railway bridges for us to cross that don’t feel 100% safe. Then it widens and we are greeted by our first incline. The climb takes us from sea level up to 500m elevation at the top.
Riding along uphill, a banana skin flies out of a side window of the first car to pass us in the opposite direction, landing at the side of the road. My first thought is of Mario Kart, a computer game I played a little as a child.
My second thought, once I had seen exactly where the banana skin had landed, is of the amount of general rubbish lining the side of the road. Every square meter has at least one bottle, can or wrapper in it. As I look down into the picturesque valley, it seems like such a shame to see so much rubbish at the roadside.
I begin to wonder why?! Yes, some of the other countries till now had a bit of a waste issue, but on first impression, Bosnia is a lot worse. Is it because they have no bottle deposit system (like Pfand in Germany or Povratna Naknada in Croatia)?!
Passing all of the empty bottles and cans I realise that I have probably drank at least one of all of them: Ozuljesko, Kovalacko, Heineken, Tuborg, Löwenbrau, Coca Cola, Pepsi, the various vitamin waters. Yes I think I have tried all of them, except one. “Hell” energy drink. Considering its name, I’m not sure I would want to try it either. What fun their marketing department must have. Pretty sure it’s either the easiest or most difficult job in the world selling that brand name.
Morning Glory with Beba
We continue along the Ciro route, which swaps and changes from single, narrow roads to sometimes having two lanes. We are heading towards Ravno where we have booked an AirBnB apartment for 3 nights from a lady called Beba. The apartment is amazing and the views from the terrace are stunning.
We have deliberately not planned too much for our stay here and wanted somewhere remote so that we can relax as well as research the next part of our route. Beba lives next door and speaks as much English as we do Croatian, so google translate is virtually in constant use when we spend time together.
It’s great to sit down with her and learn about the recent history of the area and her life. She and her husband left Ravno, along with everyone else from the village during the war, returning a decade later to start rebuilding their decimated homes and restoring the community to its former glory.
One lunch, Beba treats us to some home-cooked local cuisine; grilled fish and chicken, fried potatoes and a side of morning glory from her garden. After lunch she then gives us fresh tomatoes, cucumber and blackberries from the vegetable patch to have over the next few days.
Safe to say, we are enjoying a fair bit of R&R at Beba’s place. Jana basically sat in an egg shaped hanging chair on the terrace in the sun for 3 days, while I wrote my blog article on Germany. It is awesome to have a complete flat again, with so much space and a proper kitchen!
We leave Beba, back on the Ciro Route towards Dubrovnik. Yes, back to Croatia again. The route is great. It’s mostly flat and takes us through the heart of the Bosnian countryside on single lane roads passing loads of small villages. Strangely, but understandably a lot of the villages are abandoned. The impact of war is much more visible here than in other parts of the balkans.
Beba did tell us that a lot of people just didn’t return after the war. There are so many dilapidated buildings, including several old train stations, which apparently were on important routes back in the 1960’s and 1970’s. There are photos of what the buildings and the tracks looked like back then. It’s almost unimaginable to believe that these half fallen down, shells of buildings in the middle of nowhere were bustling with people and goods half a century ago.
The last few kilometers out of Bosnia are uphill. Of course they are. I feel like all I ever write about is inclines and mountains. I thought I was good at geography at school, but I only remember learning about the Alps in Europe, I didn’t realise that 35% of Europe is mountainous! It wasn’t just the mountains that caught our attention, the colour of the vegetation was interesting. It hasn’t rained properly for 3 months so it’s obviously rather brown, but there is some green and even some dark red, which almost makes for an autumn vibe, despite it being peak summer.
Delicacies from Home
The Ivanica border back to Croatia lies at the top of the hill. The ride back down to sea level is magnificent. We are treated to panoramic views of Dubrovnik and the Adriatic sea. Just over the border and on the ride down we notice a trusty blue, yellow and red sign, LIDL! We must be very German. We travel all this way and are then so excited to see a German supermarket and have our favourite German products.
We will spend 2 nights at Campsite Kate, south of Dubrovnik, and use the spare day to go into the city. (In case you were wondering, we never met Kate, but the campsite and her workers were nice).
In Camping Kate, we make a coffee, have breakfast and set off for the city later than all other campers. This is a regular occurrence. Either we love our sleep, are tired from biking or are just lazy, but everyone else always seems to be up and out before us. Not that we are bothered.
Getting Drenched in Dubrovnik
A bus takes us into the city center. Not the old town, but the new one. A slight error on our part. I am hungry again, so insist that we go to a bakery to get something to eat before walking back to the old town. Yes, as we all know, “second breakfast” is the most important meal of the day.
Entering the walled old town of Dubrovnik, it is easy to see why it is the top tourist attraction in Croatia. The cobbled streets and stone buildings with terracotta roofs leading down to the adriatic are truly a sight to see. We spend the morning and early afternoon meandering through the narrow streets and alleyways following a self-guided walking tour that Jana found online. A perfect day off the bikes and exactly how we imagined Dubrovnik.
The old town is quite small, and crowded, so by mid-afternoon we feel like we have seen most of it and want a sit down. As we have our phones out looking at our options the heavens open. Not just a bit. I am talking full on thunderstorm. It is bucketing it down. And that out of nowhere.
Being the good Germans that we are, and therefore always dressing “practically”, we have our raincoats with us. We often have fun observing people around us and in a touristy place the game is normally to guess what nationality people are. Well, this downpour and the frenzy that ensues, makes the game easy. The Germans put their coats on, the Americans and Japanese run to buy overpriced ponchos from tourist information and the Brits bundle into the Irish pubs.
Maybe our raincoats have had too much sun. As we scamper out of the walled town and back towards the bus stop, we notice that our raincoats don’t really seem that waterproof anymore. I feel the dampness of my shoulders and the rain trickling down my back. Our legs, socks and shoes are drenched and our upper bodies aren’t much better. Time for a change of plan. The English in me proposes a drink, so we head to a craft cocktail bar around the corner from the bus stop in the new town. Genius.
We dry ourselves in the toilets of the bar using paper towels then proceed to scour the cocktail menu. Only one each, Jana says. Two amazing cocktails and a beer each later, we leave the bar giggling. The rain has stopped but it’s getting late and we’re hungry.
We try to stick to a budget while we are traveling, so as to ensure we can definitely do all of the things we want to do when the time comes. Today wasn’t a day for budgets, so we pick up a burger and chips to go from a place the barman recommended and head back to the tent on the bus. As we munch our burgers in the tent, the rain starts again.
It continues all night and when we wake in the morning, it has rained so much that even the inside of the tent is wet. No time to dwell on it, we want to make it to Montenegro by tonight!
When Bureaucracy Ruins Your Coffee but Leads to the Best Ferry Journey of Your LIfe
We cross the border to Montenegro at Karasovići and start the descent down to the bay of Kotor. During one of our frequent stops we spot another bike packer heading in the same direction as us. Thomas, from Austria, on his way to Greece. After some small talk we decide to get a beer at a cafe in Baosici before continuing our ride together down towards the bay. Thomas is a teacher on his summer holiday. A true bikepacker and great fun. We have already decided to spend the night in Bijela, only a few kilometers away, but Thomas wants to get a lot further, so rides off into the distance.
We had intended to wild camp tonight somewhere near the water, but the border patrol informed us we need to stay somewhere official, where our stay (residence) gets registered with the police within 24 hours. It appears to be some sort of digitalised system so as to half track tourists movements within the country. No biggie, just some Montenegrin bureaucracy.
As it turns out Camping Zlokovic is brilliant. We are greeted by a very friendly young lady and shown to a good sized pitch not far from the sea. The camp was long and narrow with paved paths and a single road leading down to the beach, with a jetty at the end. Idyllic. We sleep well and wake the next morning ready for a ride into Kotor and prepared for the mountain climb that awaits us afterwards.
We get the stools out and sit in front of the tent making coffee, our standard morning routine. What we didn’t realise with our pitch is that we are actually situated right next to the waste water drain for campervans. Unfortunately while we take the first sips of coffee, a camper pulls up and the warden at the site kindly opens the hatch on the drain for them to empty. I must have mistimed my sip. As I take a slurp on my lovely nescafe coffee I am greeted with the smell of rotten eggs from the waste water of the camper. Tasty. Thank you Montenegrin bureaucracy, you ruined my coffee, we could have been staying wild, with no campervans in sight.
At check out the warden asks where we are going and which route we want to take to Kotor. Apparently our plan of going clockwise around the bay on the coastal road is OK, but quite busy and not that glamorous. We decide to take his advice and go on a short 5 minute ferry across the neck of the bay and then ride anti-clockwise into Kotor. Great decision. The ferry ride, possibly the best ever, provides panoramic views of the bay with the backdrop of the mountains. The ride then around into Kotor is magnificent.
There are two reasons why Jana gets the proper camera out. Either we haven’t taken a “professional” photo for a few days and she feels we should be using the camera more, or, as was the case here, the views are simply breathtaking. Jana stops to take the 5th photo. The spot looks a lot to me like the view we had from the 4th location just a few minutes ago.
Apparently the angle is different though. I complain, of course, but not too much as when Jana stops to take photos it gives me time to eat snacks. So yes, with all the pictures on our website or social media, if I am not in the photo, then I am probably standing about 2 meters behind the lens eating a muesli bar, slyly mentioning the number of kilometers we still have to ride that day.
Wild Camping Heaven with Pancakes and Prosciutto Ham
The sun is out, as it has been for as long as I remember, and it is baking hot. Kotor is lovely but we have a mountain to climb. According to our navigation app, our route will take us from sea level to 900 m above. The ride up starts with an almost impossible climb on the outskirts of Kotor. One part was something ridiculous like a 20% incline. Safe to say we pushed up that bit. As soon as we leave the last buildings behind us the ride is actually just a gentle slope of around 5% all the way to the top. We stop regularly of course, partly because our legs are burning, but also to admire the views back down onto the bay. Stunning.
After about 4 hours of cycling constantly uphill and at what appears to be the top, we spot a bar, “Horizont Bar”, so decide to grab a beer. We don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight so while ordering two Nikšićko (local beer), I ask the barman if he would mind us pitching our tent on their terrace after closing time. He consults the manager, sitting in the corner of the bar doing paperwork, who kindly accepts. We can’t believe our luck, the views from this bar are unreal. We think we may have hit the jackpot.
As we go out onto the terrace another man approaches us and speaking good English suggests we may be better off sleeping on his land just 2 km away. He states that the terrace here at the bar gets very windy at night as there is no shelter.
We are open to anything, as long as we have a safe place to stay and at little cost. Nikola describes where his land is and how he has several terraces on which we could pitch our tent. I can’t think of how to describe Nikola, other than to say he is a bit of a character. He spoke well, and spoke a lot, suggesting we could have dinner together and even some wine. As mentioned, we are happy with a spot to pitch the tent. We leave the conversation there and go forward to a table to drink our beers.
Horizont bar is busy. It’s funny actually as although the views are amazing, it’s actually more interesting to watch the people in the bar. It appears to be known on Instagram as the place to be, and is full of people taking their new profile pictures with the backdrop of Kotor bay below. So we drink our beers to the amusement of watching people act and make strange poses for photos.
When we have finished we go back inside, and weirdly, to us at least, Nikola has left. We take a chance and just start riding to where he said he had his terraces of land. Low and behold, exactly as described we find the spot. He wasn’t lying, it is literally a wild camper’s dream. We have shelter from the wind and the same view as the bar.
After pitching the tent we relax in the hammocks and in the chairs he has set up. We don’t want to start cooking as we aren’t sure whether to cook for him or not, and what he may have planned. An hour or so later, at sunset, Nikola arrives, gets out of his car and hands us two pancakes. He can’t make dinner as he has some “business” to attend to, but he will return later on his way home.
After dinner, as promised, Nikola’s car pulls up again. He comes over to us with a pack of prosciutto ham, a local speciality. “For breakfast” he says. Nikola stays with us for a while and tells us of his plans for the terraces; he has apparently built them all himself. He wants to make a glamping experience there and build a small shop selling local products to the tourists who flock to the mountain route in summer to enjoy the views. Good luck to him.
What we weren’t expecting is how cold it got at night. It was over 30’ in Kotor at sea level during the day, and during the night it must have dropped to about 10’. It might have been cold, but I am not sure I will get out of the tent in the morning to see many better views.
A Free Breakfast and Some Astonished Dutch
We decide to skip breakfast and get off. The mountains continue behind the initial face where we had stayed the night. The inclines were sometimes a bit steeper but weren’t quite as long. Somehow everything seems greener en-route to Cetinje through the Lovcen National Park as well. We arrive at around 11am and find a lovely little modern bakery, 357 Bakery. We order two cappuccinos and are given a donut and cheese pastry on the house. I would skip breakfast everyday if I knew I would get that at 11am. It turns out that 357 has just opened and is in its first month. The place is busy, but maybe not surprising if they give everyone free food.
There are several other bikepackers in the cafe as well. It must be a hotspot. The two groups are Dutch and are apparently both following a guided bikepacking tour from the same book of a Dutch author. We have never heard about it, but they seem to be quite astonished at the idea that they would all be doing the tour at the same time. They go off and have a chat about their books, so we drink our cappuccinos in peace.
Winter Ideas and Things Heard About Us on Grapevines
We don’t intend on biking much for the next few days, as we want to enjoy Lake Skadar National Park. We stay a couple of nights at Sunny Hills Campsite. A nice place, but it feels like mini Germany with lots of German speaking tourists around so we move on and spent 3 nights in a log cabin, which we have all to ourselves in the town of Vrpizar.
An odd town, with the main source of income appearing to come from local people offering boat rides along the river. So basically every time we went into town to do the shopping or carry out any errands, we would be harassed by people shoving leaflets about river cruises in our faces. We have no time for boat rides, we have to work out what we are going to do in winter.
Having made no decisions whatsoever and being no closer to knowing what to do in the colder months ahead, our first day back on the bikes after our 3 day break starts with 500m elevation inside the first 6km. Due to the storm yesterday it is unbelievably humid. Well that’s what we are using as our explanation for being drenched in sweat and knackered after the first 15 minutes. Jana moans that 3 days off the bike has meant that she has lost all of her muscle.
Still going up and having not got very far in distance terms, we are overtaken by two young German bikepackers heading the same way. We stop and chat for a couple of minutes, exchanging the normal travellers small talk. They then ride off into the distance.
As we stop for lunch, a similar scenario. This time a young lady on her own, with surprisingly little baggage. In a similar fashion to the boys earlier in the day, we exchange pleasantries and she rides off ahead of us.
It is now about an hour after lunch and we are progressing nicely towards our goal for the day, when two more (also German) bikepackers head towards us, this time coming from the opposite direction. “Oh hey, we have heard so much about you!” says German bikepacker boy 1. Me, “Oh really, cool”. German bikepacker boy 2, “Yes the others told us all about your story and said we would see you later in the day”. This must be the bikepacking equivalent of chinese whispers or hearing things on the grapevine. The conversation continues and goes back to the normal small talk between travellers; where are you from? Where are you going? How long have you been travelling for? Etc.
We were warned back in Croatia by Bartul that it may get a bit repetitive. He apparently even considered recording his response to the standard questions so that he could just play it to new people he met, saving him the time and energy of answering. Rude maybe, but efficient. A bit like a German.
Tally Sheets and the Black Mountain
The panoramic road alongside Lake Skadar is magnificent. We are able to follow this single road the length of the lake, up and down mountain passes, all the way to the border with Albania. The Montenegrin border patrol just waves us through and the Albanian Police seem more interested in completing their tick sheets with numbers and types of people crossing than actual details of who we are and what we want in Albania.
A quick summary of Montenegro. Everybody we met that had been to Montenegro had loved it and recommended us to go. We now know why. It is stunning and the people and culture are great. Nobody mentioned the mountains though and thought about what it would be like for us on bikes. We were also not clever enough to think about this in advance: Monte Negro…Black Mountain…it has it in the name!
It doesn’t just take a lot of time and energy to write a blog article, but also a stable internet connection. That is why our posts are usually delayed by a few weeks. Check out this map to see where we are right now or follow us on Instagram for daily updates!
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Hi Joel and Jana,
My year 6 class are learning about blogs and we had a look at yours as an example – all the features I needed to show them! Great work!
I am sure they will now ask me how you are getting on with your travels.
From Mrs Foster (Joanna!) and Year 6
Wow Mrs. Foster (Joanna) and Year 6, that is amazing! We are very honoured to be used as a (hopefully positive!!) example! Thanks to you we will be famous now haha!