Spring Break in the Balkans



As I'm leaving this intriguing peninsula with its mountainous terrain and rather obliquely developed cultures this summer, I decided to use spring break as an opportunity to try and cover as much of it in one go as I could. Hence, I rented a car and endeavored to explore seven countries in nine days. As the roads in the Balkans are notoriously hazardous - single lane alleyways of torn asphalt weaving around gaurdrailless mountaintops with rumbling semis around every bend - the trip was as harrowing as it was adventurous. But thanks to Red Bull and my Ray-Bans, I finished the loop in more or less one piece. Let me share...

The trip began in Podgorica, Montenegro where I unhappily reside. The first leg of my journey was to Belgrade, Serbia. I decided to go by train since you can just park your car on the train, sleep overnight in a sleeping car, and wake up in the morning refreshed and ready in drive - in theory at least. Though the sleeping berth was relatively painless, and the border guards awoke me at night with only a mild degree of disdain for my non-Serbianness, the car had been parked on the train backwards. Though this could easily have been due to the simple ineptness of the Montenegrin rail staff, I somehow suspected that it was a punitive act against me. There had been in Podgorica, the evening of my journey, the biggest event in recent Montenegrin history: Italy was playing soccer against Montenegro in the Podgorica stadium. The rail staff was, then, irked by me for disturbing their great cultural moment by actually making them come to the train station and do work. Heaven forbid. Yet, though backing the car out of the train was an exercise in frustration, I made it out with nary a scratch, ready to begin my voyage.

As Belgrade really is a city for the night (some of the best clubs in the Balkans are there) I didn't see much point in sticking around. Thus, as soon as I was carbound, I kept on going, northwards to the Romanian border. Once there I had a choice: the long scenic route through the mountains, or the quick flat route through the plains. Momentarily forgetting what part of the world I was in, I chose the mountain path. This was, if not really a mistake, at least a gaff on my part. Mountain routes in the Balkans translate to treacherous winding lanes where one spends the entire journey, not appreciating the pretty scenery, but clenching the steering wheel white-knuckled as one weaves around slow, lumbering trucks into the other, oncoming lane of traffic, generally avoiding countless head-on collisions by mere inches. Fortunately, I picked up hitchhikers to make the time go by. Yes, already on the first day of my trip, I was going nuts.

Fortunately, the route I chose did take me through some very nice parts of Romania. My first stop was in Sibiu, a very pleasant mountain town replete with old buildings and a grand public square. I stayed long enough to buy a fried fish burger and then hit the road again.



I drove all evening and through the night, then, until I reached Bucharest. the road took me into a really spectacular valley in the Transylvania mountains, an experience I was not able to enjoy too fully as it grew dark. I am almost inclined to return to Romania just to spend more time in these mountains - they really are breathtaking.

Finally I made it into Bucharest. Now, having lived in Moldova, I thought I knew Bucharest reasonably well. I knew which hotel I wanted to stay in and the general highlights of the city. I was not, however, prepared for what an insane place Bucharest is to drive in! Imagine a grid system, and then imagine the exact opposite, and that's Bucharest. After driving around for a couple hours I finally made it to my hotel, at 2 in the morning, and slept loglike.

the next day I was able to enjoy Bucharest more properly. I met my friend Tanya, one of my old students from Moldova, and she and her friend showed me the sights and sounds of the city. The amusement park was a delight (though not really as life-threatening as those in Moldova, sadly) and the Chinese food was, at least, not typical Balkan fare. Good times!





In the car the next morning I was torn between heading north to Moldova or south to Bulgaria. I allowed fate to make the decision for me - as I couldn't figure out the roads anyway, I just drove along one until it dumped me out of town, a direction that wound up being south. Bulgaria it was, then.

Bulgaria was really a pretty nice country, and one I am sorry to have missed for all these years in the Balkans. Not having learned my lesson well enough the first time, I again decided to take the long and mountainous route through the country. This road, happily, took me through the town of Plovdiv. With a picturesque castle set high above a valley, Plovdiv was a scenic spot to take a break.



By evening I had arrived in Sofia. Another nice city, Sofia, boasting wonderful architecture, very nice restaurants, and another insane road system. Worth a trip!



After a nice night in Sofia enjoying the local folk music at what was perhaps the strangest club I've ever been in (Rows of tables set up banquetlike with musicians on stage that occasionally came down to stand in what seemed like an empty fountain so that the waitstaff could through fistfulls of napkins on them while the crowds jiggled their hips on the tables to the music) I was all set to begin my voyage. next stop: Macedonia.

Now, I had fully intended to stop in Macedonia. However, two factors prevented my doing so. One was the elderly hitchhiker whom I picked up just across the border who, it turned out, wanted a ride to the exact opposite end of the country. The other factor was the road. Though Macedonia is one of the most mountainous countries in the Balkans, this road I got on was amazing - so wide and comfortable and smooth. I just couldn't get off it, mesmerized as I was by blinding speeds upwards of 80 km/hr. I just wove along this strip of exotically unpocked asphalt, allowing my hitchhiking guest to prattle on in his language (Bulgarian, I think) like a radio without dials. eventually, I deposited him in his little village, wherein he tried to offer me an electric shaver for my troubles (I politely declined) and that was Macedonia. Next: Greece.

Northern Greece was really the main objective of this little voyage. The hundreds or thousands of kilometers before this was just prelude. So, I slowed the rate of my lightning tour and really let myself enjoy the remainder of my trek.

My first night was in Thessaloniki. This is a thoroughly modernized town that has yet managed to keep its ancient history preserved and incorporated into the terrain of its daily life. The town's most famous monument is the White Tower, but I was most impressed by a strip of ancient Greek ruins that cuts through the city's center, around which many young punks and alternakids hang out and eat crepes. Tres cool, especially for the Balkans.





After a nice time in Thessaloniki, then, I headed along the coast to Mount Olympus. Mount Olympus was something of a pilgrimage for me, mired in my classics studies as I fancy myself to be, and thus I was ready to be inspired by the sense of holy mystery that had conjured to the minds of Ancient Greeks so long ago the notions of Zeus, Hera, Athena and the like. Of course, I had learned on my last trip to Greece last summer to be circumspect of such ambitions. The era of the ancients has long been subsumed by other epochs in Greece's history. Yet, coming to Olympus, I was rewarded with such a sublime and spectacular mountainscape that I could truly understand how it had given rise to such timeless myths. The mountain is a series of jutting and falling peaks, collected about hidden chasms and ravines, the entirety of which was obscured in blanketing puffs of cloud. Olympus was a mountain that truly seemed to reach the heavens.

At Olympus' base I stopped at a singular collection of ruins at a site called Dion. Though these ruins were slighter in scale than those in Athens or Delphi, what made them really stand out was how they were incorporated together with the natural beauty of the area. Small streams trickled between the columns, and flowers bloomed at the feet of the statues there assembled. Dion was magical.


If you look closely, you can even see minnows in the pool



I then drove towards Olympus. Along the way I was struck by an amazing sight: just as I reached the mountain, fields dotted by thousands of the most colorful and exotic flowers I have ever beheld. I spent a good hour just running amongst the flowers, letting them pose for my camera.









Happily intoxicated by floral beauty as I was, I continued to roam about Olympus, enjoying the playground of the gods.




Sadly, it came time for me to leave this fantastical mount. I waved goodbye to the Olympians on their nest and drove on.

That evening I reached Meteora, and after a night's rest at a very homely hotel I was able to explore. Meteora is another incredibly scenic sight in Northern Greece. Enormous rocks serve as roosts for a number of small monasteries built upon their craggy bluffs. One can feel the appeal of climbing these boulders in order to transcend the earth and all its worries, to just hide amongst the clouds and consider God.










After scaling the heights of the monumental boulders for a morning, I was ready to continue my trip. After coursing through the mountains (some of which were high enough to be wrapped in clouds and blanketed in snow - dangerous if beautiful combo for driving) I arrived in Zagori National Park. This was a pleasant enough escape that boasts quaint little villages scattered amongst a number of pretty, if ultimately unimpressive mountains. The one natural feature of Zagori that is really exhilarating, though, is the Vikos Gorge, a frighteningly deep canyon that falls quickly away to a distant trickle of a river far below.




After driving about Zagori I then headed down from the mountains and headed for Albania. I made it through the border that night, picked up another hitchhiker (I must have accrued some seriously good karma from this trip, eh God?) and made it to Gjirokaster that night. Gjirokaster, in addition to an impossible name, also boasts a fascinating fort atop its hilly peak. In the morning I could see the misted valley stretching far and away below as I visited the fort and took in its sights, most especially an old NATO plane that had crashed there and was thought, in the heyday of Albanian panic, to be the precursor to an invasion. Ah, Albania! At least your paranoia has left us with all those cute little bunkers dotted across your hillsides.






The subsequent drive up to Tirana was one of the most beautiful I experienced on the entire journey. So beautiful in fact that I came down with a massive case of dizziness and nearly drove off a cliff. Woo-hoo!






That evening I made it to Tirana, where I got to see my good friends Travis and Amy. We wandered about the city some the next day. That weekend, Tirana was setting up for a big to-do to celebrate the fact that Albania was poised to join NATO. Quite a big leap from the days of freaking out over NATO planes with engine trouble. The banners declared that it was a "miracle of democracy." Well, that might be stretching it. Still, pretty cool.





Finally, after spending time in Tirana, I was poised for the return trip to Montenegro. Another beautiful drive through the floral-coated mountains, this time replete with all those cute little bunkers. The trip was, though exhausting, a great way to explore this corner of Eastern Europe, my accidental home - frustrating and spectacular as it has been - for the past four years.