Zagreb, Plitvice Lakes & Makarska (Croatia), Mostar (Bosnia & Herzegovina), Kotor (Montenegro) & Sarande/Gjirokaster (Albania) - Protein overload and fabulous beer, anyone?
We catch the 8.30 train and 2 hours later we arrive in Zagreb, Croatia. After a 1k walk, we check in at the Orbis apartment, 35 euros, very nice, comfortable and well located, recommended. We go out for a couple of beers and a mixed grill at the Vagabond Restaurant, walk around the lovely old town and go back to the apartment for a bit of R& R. We’ve been to Croatia a few times before, to Dubrovnik, Split and Hvar, so now it’s time to see the capital and the Lakes. We get up and do the Free Walking Tour,, it takes 2 hours but it’s worth it as it is very informative and we got to see things we wouldn’t find, otherwise. After the tour we walk some more and go for a set lunch menu and it was OK. We then go for a bit of sightseeing, now knowing what we are looking at, thanks to the Tour. We also meet up with an old friend from Perth who has family here and her brother and a friend for a nice beer and a bit of catching up. We have an extra day and we go back for lunch at the cafe our friends took us, for a pizza, cheap and not too bad! Having had no expectations of Zagreb, we really enjoyed it. Has enough tourists to be lively but not too much to annoy you. The old town has enough to see but it doesn’t feel too touristy. It’s cool and cosmopolitan, safe and very nice to walk around or just to sit down and have a beer or a coffee and work on your people watching skills.
After 3 days, we leave Zagreb, take a 2 hour bus and get to Plitvice Lakes. Tickets are around 25 euros for the lakes and it can be done in many ways. You can stay around the lakes and explore it in more than one day, do a day trip from Zagreb, a day trip from other places in Croatia, or like we did it as a stopover on the way south to Split. You can store your bags at the reception (it’s free) and then keep moving on to your next destination. I would recommend between 4 to 8 hours, depending on how fast you walk. As you probably already know, the Lakes are incredibly beautiful, seriously, check out the photos if you don’t believe me. It could do fewer tourists but the infrastructure is really great and there are buses and boats if you are not a big walker. We are big walkers, so we say no to the boats and the buses and go for a hike around the lakes, it’s incredible. There’s only us and two French women. There is a place where it gets really hard and you have to balance as you walk along a log over a lake of mud. As I am preparing to brave the adventure, one of the French women falls flat on her arse in the mud, that has a huge impact on my courage, but nonetheless, I edge along sideways like a nervous crab and end up on the other side, making my Papa very proud of his brave Mama. We do the whole of the walk and head back to entrance 1, get our backpacks and wait for our bus to Makarska. We arrive in Makarska at 9pm, go for the best beer and pizza in town and then, deliriously tired, find our apartment. The apartment is overpriced, 50 euros and it’s OK and we sleep well after this insanely long day. The next morning we go for a wander around Makarska beach front, and it is really lovely and much more chilled than many of the famous places in Croatia. We meet up again with our friend from Perth for a coffee and catch the (over 1 hour late) bus to Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina.
After a 3 hour bus ride we arrive in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzergovina. We stay at the Happy Guest House, 21 euros, great value. The hotel is simple but very comfortable, if a bit hard to find, OK, really hard to find. Time for a funny story, while we are looking for our guest house, we kind of get lost and ask many people for directions. We eventually ask a man working at a small kiosk and he speaks very little English but he’s very helpful. He tries to to give us the directions but can’t remember the word “mosque”, the he breaks into to a pantomime performance, raising his hands next to his ears in to a prayer position and saying very loudly “Allah, Allah, Allah, Allahhhhhhhh” and pointin g to the minaret of a nearby mosque. It’s hilarious, we try hard not to laugh and say, mosque?, majid? He says, YES! We finally find the place which is located on the same street as one of the many gorgeous mosques in Mostar. We go for a wander around and fall instantly in love with Mostar. It’s a mix of Syria, Kotor and Capadoccia in Turkey and at the same time has its own charm and mystery. If you are planning to come here, I suggest you wear proper walking shoes as the streets in the old city and especially the famous bridge are cobbled with ultra slippery worn marble which is treacherous at best. The Old City of Mostar is incredibly beautiful, with endless lanes to get lost in, unique architecture, imposing mosques and minarets, the gorgeous, famous bridge (which has been destroyed during the war and then rebuilt) and plenty of shops, cafes and restaurants. We walk around taking pictures and pause for a cold beer and some cevapci (local skinless sausages) with pitta bread and dips, lovely! Next morning we wake up early to beat the hordes of day trippers, totally worth it, the Bridge and the Old Town are ours! We walk around all morning enjoying this lovely, enchanting and quiet place. We also see some signs of the bombing from the war in the early 90’s against Serbia, some places are still being rebuilt and others not even that . We have lunch at the Tima Irma restaurant, an amazing, massive mixed grill served with salads and dips, and of course, flat bread. We also are served very warm beer, the food was so good, we forgive them. After we pay the bill, the lady gives us a bottle of very cold beer as a thank you, parting gift, go figure…
Ok, back to Mostar, everybody speaks English and the town is really well prepared for tourism. All the prices are in Bosnian Marks and Euros, there are lots of supermarkets and the people are helpful and friendly, what’s not to love? Anyway, we absolutely love our time in Mostar, now it’s time to organize our transfer to Kotor, Montenegro, for tomorrow.
The next morning, we get packed and go for a last wander in this lovely place. Paul found a place that does a transfer from Mostar to Kotor by car or van, depending of how many people. As the bus was 26 euros each and the transfer is 25 euros (organized by the Montenegro Hostel), for a minimum of 4 people, we decide to go for it but it turns out its just the 2 of us, so we decide to pay the 100 euros and travel privately in style. A great experience, lovely car, the driver is a very nice guy, who gives us a lot of information in perfect English, totally worth the price. We leave at 1pm and at 5pm we arrive in beautiful Kotor, Montenegro, an old favourite of ours. The lovely driver even stops off on the way for us to buy 2 kg of fresh mussles for 4 euros which we cook the next day, score!!! We meet our old friend Lidija, from who we rented an apartment for a month here 5 years ago and she takes us to our great apartment for the next 2 weeks. The apartment is really nice, freshly renovated, very comfortable and with all the mod cons, great views of the Old Town, fabulous! We are so happy to be back, for some reason, Kotor feels a bit like Naxos, a kind of second home. I remember the last time we were here, talking to the check out woman at the supermarket, all of us complaining about the bloody tourists. Anyway we go to the supermarket and stock up on some nice produce as we finally have a kitchen and can enjoy Papa’s food again. We have the first of our fabulous meals, Papa’s world famous chilli mussels with nice Macedonian wine in Kotor. Now, it’s time to eat well, drink fabulous wine and beer (have we mentioned how cheap the beer is in this part of the world???), do lots of amazing, scenic walks and hikes and overall, just enjoy this fabulous Fjord and the Old City of Kotor.
And walking we go, we do 17 kms on the way to Tivat, checking out lovely villages and churches along the way. On another day, we also walk 12 kms to Perast checking out villages, monasteries and churches along the way and then take a little boat for 4 euros return to the incredibly scenic Our Lady of the Rock church. We also take our daily regular 10km walks as there’s no better way to see this beautiful place than walking along the coastal road. We also do the Free Walking Tour to learn a bit more about the history and culture of Kotor and Montenegro, enough walking for you? Remember that, this being our third time in Kotor (we’ve stayed here before for first a week then for a month here before) it’s still so nice and exciting to be here. We go out for pizza and beer (1.50 for 500ml from the sports club in the Old Town) and we also check just to make sure the 2 euros slice of pizza from a local pizza place in the old town is still one of the best ever, and it is!! We also go back to one of our favourite restaurants in the world Dobroski Dvori, for another massive mixed grill with shopska salad and some very cold beer. We just love this place!
We have a great time in Kotor and on our last night the summer carnival opens, so again we go out for cold beer and pizza by the slice check out the parade and the fireworks. The next morning we take another transfer (via Montenegro Hostel), from Kotor to Tirana in Albania. This time it’s a minivan and we share it with 3 other people. It’s fast and comfortable and this time, we pay only 25 euros each for 5 hours. The driver is not very nice or communicative and leaves us in the centre of Tirana, a bit lost and not knowing where the bus station is. We ask around and one of the passengers is also going to Sarande, so we share a taxi to the bus station. We buy a bus ticket to Sarande and the bus looks very old and tired. It’s also full and halfway through our trip there’s smoke coming into the bus. No, not twice, but three times it happens as they try to fix it and then keep going! We finally stop at a roadside restaurant for one hour while they take care of it, avoiding us all being murdered by cabon monoxide poison on our holidays. The 5 hour trip becomes 6 and we get to Sarande in the early evening. Our hotel is up on the hill, like almost everything else in this town, so we take a taxi uphill to get there, though it’s very close. The JB Hotel, 41 euros, is basic but has a nice pool and decent breakfast. The walks up and down the hill ensure that we burn all the calories from our Tirana Beer. There is a massive heatwave all over the continent, making it hard for people to stay out between 2 to 7pm. Our days in Sarande, are very chilled. As we’ve been here last year, we take our time to relax and work on our tan, have great pizza at the Limani Restaurant and up our protein intake with cold Kaon Beer, at our favourite place to eat in Sarande, The Beer House, where the waiters are friendly!
Funny story, one day we go for a pizza and salad at the Limani restaurant washed down with a bottle of white and when we go to pay, we realise we forgot our money at the hotel. We talk to the waiter and he says, “no problem, you can pay later”, which in a touristy busy place, is quite unusual! The next day after paying our bill at the Limani we wake up and then catch a furgon from Sarande to Gjirokaster where after buying a ticket for the “Crazy Holidays” bus to Greece, we check in at the “Magic Hotel”, nice, 20 euros. We go out for a really bad lunch and then chill till the next day, as we have been here before and the it feels like it’s 43 degrees. Ciao Albania, Hello Greece!
