Red and I just returned from two weeks in the Balkans with Red's parents. First off, in case you're like me, and aren't sure where or what exactly the Balkans are: the Balkans are a peninsula in southeast Europe that have a mountain range called the Balkans running through it. (Practically, it means Greece, the six countries in former Yugoslavia, and a few other countries.)
We had a fantastic time exploring and it was quite the interesting trip. Usually we travel with almost all of the details planned out, but this time we did exactly the opposite and planned as we went. We all had plane tickets landing in Belgrade, Serbia and departing from Ljubljana, Slovenia but the rest was decided as we went with the help of travel books and tripadvisor. (*Quick note - I would only suggest this approach if traveling in off season. I'm not sure it would work well during the busy summer months.)
Fortunately, we discovered that the four of us traveled really well together and reaching consensus on where we would go and what we would do was remarkably smooth. In two weeks, we hit cities in Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, (drove through Bosnia, but didn't stop), and Slovenia. Rain or shine, we covered a lot of ground thanks to Doug's awesome driving. Here's a look at our itinerary and some of our best pictures...
4/26 Travel, travel, travel: From Houston, Astana and Yuzhno to Belgrade, Serbia.
4/27 Belgrade, Serbia.
We woke up in Belgrade and met Natalie and Doug at breakfast. :) It was so great to see both of them again and to know that we were all going on an adventure together. We took a cab and went to explore the Fortress. Then, we headed to the airport where we flew to Tivat, Montenegro.
We drove to Prcanj, where we stayed at our friend Slavko's house on the Bay of Kotor. We were so thankful for Slavko's hospitality. We ended up quoting him a lot on the trip. He said, "If the police come, do not pay them, Call me!"...remember that, it will be important later! We were hungry, so we decided to grab dinner at a little restaurant in old town Kotor.
Something learned from our first day: everything's bigger in Montenegro (I know, this sounds like blasphemy to Texans). The people are HUGE. Seriously, they are incredibly TALL...
4/28 It was raining in the morning, so we hopped in the car and went to Dubrovnik, Croatia. We took a walking tour of the city walls with Dubrovnik Walks and it ended up being just the four of us, so we got a private tour for 2.5 hours for about $10/p. We learned a lot about Croatia and Yugoslavia and the wars that occurred in the early - mid '90s.
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| View from our friend's house in Montenegro |
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| First looks at Dubrovnik |
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| Heading down into the city |
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| Charming |
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| While this fortress was also part of Dubrovnik, they had a huge cannon pointed towards it at all times in case of siege. |
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| Watch out Dubrovnik, here comes Red! |
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| Dubrovnik from a window in the walls |
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| The city was built right on the cliffs over the sea. |
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| First day of Touring |
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| Natalie and Doug :) |
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| Blue skies and Red Clay Roofs |
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| The McGehee Men |
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| Sunset over southern Croatia |
4/29 Again, it was cloudy and rainy on the bay, so we drove thru and around Lovcen National Park and to restaurant Stari Most, with a view down from the top of Skadar National Park and lake. The roads were narrow and windy with switchback after switchback and beautiful misty views. Lunch was fresh fried carp and salads...yummy! Then we drove to Budva and walked around boardwalk and beach. On the way home, we drove thru the tunnel - not as scenic, but so much faster!
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| Misty mountains |
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| The Bay of Kotor from the road to Lovcen National Park |
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| The road...just for emphasis, there is a cliff on the other side of this barrier. |
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| The Old Bridge - Stari Most |
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| Red fishing from the bridge...That boy will fish whenever he gets the chance :) |
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| View of a river running into Skadar Lake |
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| The road back to the house... |
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| Budva |
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| Red's castle! |
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| Walking around the boardwalk |
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| Happy to be together and in Montenegro with us! |
4/30 We had a quiet day around the house in Prcanj and did some planning. We went to the fish restaurant a quick walk down the hill and had a good lunch and made some good progress assimilating everyone's expectations and ideas for the trip.
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| Our view of Kotor Bay |
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| Briefly BLUE skies...I guess we will just have to go back during summer someday :) |
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| The guys chilling on the balcony |
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| Quiet and peaceful |
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| Olive groves behind the house |
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| Unique flowers |
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| View from just above the house |
Lesson from today: not just the people in Montenegro are big, the sandwiches in Montenegro are HUGE...a half loaf of delicious fresh baked bread for each person!! (You'll see a pic in the next section.)
5/1 We drove northwest to Durmitor National Park and hiked in the pouring rain. The timing was just right for us to meet Slavko amd his brother for a drink after our hike. Right after we left having drinks with Slavko, his brother and his nephew, we forgot to turn on our lights and got pulled over by the cops. The whole trip we had been joking, "Just call Slavko!" The police wanted Dad to pay them a bribe and Dad was taken into the back of a cop car, so...what did we do? We called Slavko. Within a couple minutes, the policeman said, "Mr Tossich is my colleague - no ticket. Be careful." Slavko to the rescue - seriously! After that, we were extra vigilant about making sure our lights were on. We stayed at Polar Star hotel and ate in town at Hotel Javor. Yummy!
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| View of Durmitor National Park from our Hotel |
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| Everything's bigger in Montenegro - including sandwiches! |
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| Hiking in Durmitor National Park |
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| Spring is coming... |
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Hiking...It wasn't too long after this that it started pouring.
We decided to take the "Norway" attitude..."there's not bad weather, only bad clothes". |
5/2 We drove to Pljevlja to and met Slavko and brother. They took us to an old mosque and 12th century monastery. Then we had lunch at his sister's restaurant: National restaurant "hearth". It was delicious. Heaping plates just kept coming and coming. We were the first Americans to eat there :). Then drove to Tara Canyon bridge and then down the canyon on very narrow road to biogradska national park. Slavko said, "The roads (through Tara canyon) are very windy, many rocks, and thousand foot cliffs, but it will be fun!" We hiked around the lakes and through virgin forest. We drove thru Pordgorica the capital, but didn't stop except to get medicine at pharmacy for red. We stayed another night at Slavko's house. Did I mention that Slavko and his family are awesome?! And their country is stunningly gorgeous!
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| View from Tara Canyon Bridge |
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| Such a beautiful place |
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| Check out the water color in the sunlight - turquoise :) |
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| Montenegro is awesome! |
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| Wow! |
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| Inside the monastery's chapel |
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| Natural springs on the monastery grounds |
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| The BEST restaurant in Montenegro!! |
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| Countryside |
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| Roadside scenery |
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| This was one of the wider roads we took in Montenegro |
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| Biogradska National Park, Montenegro |
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| Green is coming, but if you look down, it looks like fall... |
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| Driving, driving, driving - Doug was a champ! |
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| We drove all through the canyons along the river for hours. |
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| Finally we reached the coast and knew we were close to home. |
5/3 Stayed at home for the morning because Red needed rest and we all wanted him to be up for the rest of vacation. We had wanted to stay on Mljet and hike the next day but it was windy and rainy so we had to skip it, and decided in route to continue to Split. We had a lovely dinner at Bajamonti. Stayed at Vestibul Palace annex Villa Dobric. It was great that everyone was so flexible because we all ended up really liking Split!
5/4 We took a "Penny" walking tour of Split around Diocletian's Palace, built in 305AD. Or to add emphasis like our tour guide did: Dii-ooo-cleee-tiiiaan...305AD :). Doug worked on his paper while we went into the Cathedral of St Dominus (formerly Diocletian's mausoleum) and the Baptistry (formerly the temple of Jupiter) and crypt. We spent the evening at a wine tasting bar Paradox and then to Zinfandel. We again stayed in Vestibul Palace hotel, just different rooms - highly recommend.
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On the Roman road called Decumanus. The original Roman road...still there...
There was one in every Roman city running east to west.
It gets its name because it was large enough for ten men to walk shoulder to shoulder down it. |
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| A cool little garden of antiquities. If you buy property inside the old city, you can incorporate one of these pieces into your home as decoration. |
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| The Roman aqueduct and sewer system still work and are used today. |
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| Diocletian's palace is in total ruins. We have some idea of the layout of the palace because the underground support systems have survived. |
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| The Bell Tower |
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| The other main street in Roman cities was/is the Cardo and it runs north south. There is a bank built on part of the road and you can see, that they have not been allowed to lay modern flooring over it. |
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| The cardo |
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| Original 3rd century Roman capitals and frieze |
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| Guarding the bell tower |
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| Interesting carvings everywhere |
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| View of split from a hill nearby |
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| At the winebar |
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| Wine and cheese and tampanades - yum! |
5/5 We woke up early to take the car ferry to the island Hvar (two hours). We hiked to Cveti Nikola, the highest point on the island. The mountain top vineyards and views were amazing. Then we drove to Hvar town and checked out the views from the fortress. We took the ferry back and stayed again with Vestibul Palace but in rooms around the corner at Toni Palace. We split up for a date night: Red and Carrie had pizza and gelato in and Natalie and Doug had gelato out.
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| We made it onto the ferry leaving Split! (Barely, but we made it!) |
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| Redman |
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| Hiking |
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| Closer to the top, Hvar is covered in vineyards with stone walls. |
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| Beautiful! |
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| View from the top |
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| View from the top |
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| Taking it all in... |
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| The waters of the Adriatic sparkling in the sunlight |
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| We loved Croatia! |
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| A little vine |
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| The road back down the mountain |
5/6 We left Split and drove to Plitvice Lakes National Park. The waterfalls were unlike any we had ever seen before and the boardwalks to get around we're enchanting. We then had a long drive to Porec and stayed in the Valamar Riviera on the harbor ready to catch a Venezia lines ferry to Venice the next day.
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| One of the first falls we saw :) |
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| These two are up for anything! |
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The water was crystal clear and Red and Doug could hardly stand
seeing all the fish and not being allowed to catch them. |
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| More falls...God is a magnificent creative Creator. |
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| SO much water, so many waterfalls |
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| A fun place to play with shutter speed and aperture...we could have played there forever I think. |
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| See what I mean... |
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| Always a goofy face! |
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| That's my man! |
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| New growth...I'd never seen this before... |
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| From the boat trip across one of the larger lakes |
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Walking along the road instead of waiting for the bus. Good call!
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| (Especially when Red provides entertainment by acting like an airplane!) |
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| Cascade after cascade, and we only saw about 1/2 the park because of paths being flooded. |
5/7 We woke up early and Red went to buy tickets only to find that due to technical difficulties no ferries were running :(. So we rethought plans. We walked in to Porec to see the Euphrasian Basilica from the 6th century, renowned for its preserved mosaics. Then we headed to the Roxanich winery where we had a private tasting of about 15 wines and learned more about Croation varieties. After Roxanich winery we headed to La Perenzana in Volpia for lunch - it was delightful, we had pasta with truffles and wonderful service. Then we went to the Kozlovic winery close to Momjan and enjoyed tastings from the 110 year old vineyard. We stayed at San Rocco in Brtonigla near Buje.(recommend)
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The current church was built on top of older churches
and they have excavated the mosaic floors beneath the active church. |
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| Preserved 6th century mosaics - a fine example of Byzantine art. |
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| The first winery we visited, pronounced: Rozhanich. |
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| I think we tried every kind of wine they make! |
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| Time for lunch at La Parenzana - complete with the Istrian specialty...truffles! |
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| Homemade ice cream and cream cake, don't mind if we do! |
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| Kozlovic vineyard in Istria |
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| Their logo was made from an old photograph of some of the original owners of the vineyard. |
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Leaving the vineyard, the guys spotted a small stream and
within five minutes fly rods were out and they were fishing! |
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| Another little guy! |
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| Our room at San Rocco |
5/8 Slept in and sat outside in the Sun by the pool. Then we headed to Slovenia and we went to Skocjan Caves where the Reka River runs underground through a massive karst canyon in what feels like a setting for a Tolkien novel. We had never seen anything like it. Highly recommend. Then, we bypassed Ljubljana to head to Bled and the Garni Hotel Berc. We biked the 5km around the lake and ate dinner at a little place on the corner, my gnocchi was delicious. We found the best little wine bar, Zdrvljica, in Bled and enjoyed some Slovenian wine every day we were here. Teran (Red) and Malvazija (white).
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The guys outside the cave after the tour with the Reka River in the background.
You should google images of Skocjan, it was awesome! |
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| Biking around |
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| Love this man! |
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| Dinner down the street from our hotel |
5/9 The guys headed out to fish this morning while the girls relaxed and made this itinerary. :) We checked out the castle overlooking Lake Bled and then met the guys for lunch in a nearby village. It was a long road getting there...the road turned out not to be great for biking and we arrived about a half hour late to the village hot and sweaty after pushing our bikes up a mountain. We had some hearty portions of German food to refuel. Red and Dad caught around 40 fish. One Red even caught on a back cast...it was a little guy, but it counted. 40€ per person per day for the non trophy side of the bridge (80 for trophy side) and the Rangers are serious...we saw three of them in one day. So if you're going fishing in Slovenia - get your license.
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| Natalie and I climbed up to the castle overlooking the lake - what a view! |
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| Slovenia |
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| Look at those casting skills! |
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| Cowbells |
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| Pretty |
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| Red and Doug fishing...happy guys :) |
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| Natalie walking to find Doug |
5/10 Happy Birthday Ally!
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| Lake Bled, Bled, Slovenia |
Our last day in Bled, we woke up slowly, enjoyed breakfast, got packed up and checked out and enjoyed a leisurely stroll around lake Bled. It was so nice to have blue skies and sunshine with some clouds and a breeze as we walked. Occasionally we would take a seat on one of the benches and just cuddle and talk. So peaceful. We both are thankful for this slow paced last day together on vacation. We stopped by the wine bar, the headed for gelato, a second lap around in the opposite direction and finally a meal before heading to the airport. (From Bled to Ljubljana airport is 30 minutes and a small 5 gate airport, so it was super fast check in and easy to do from Bled.)
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| Looks like we are in a fairy tale...life with this guy is always an adventure! |
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Fun fact: There are 99 steps up to the church on the island
and it's traditional for grooms to show that they are "fit for marriage"
by carrying their bride up all 99 steps! |
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I really like gelato!!
(And yes, both of them are mine! Red got his two scoops in a bowl...boring!) |
5/11 Travel, travel, travel...Happy Mother's Day and Happy Birthday Grandmoma!
We had such a blast on this trip and Red and I definitely see ourselves returning to the Balkans in the future. Thanks for reading about it!
