From Sofia we started our Balkan trip with Heleri. I have no intention to translate all the text about our Balkan trip, but I'll make a summary about every country. Albania The journey started with epic trip to Albania, minibus with 5 passengers. Many stops and classic Balkan dance music playing while driving in the night. We passed Macedonia to reach Albania, pretty grazy roads there, it was hard to sleep. Another surprise was refugees. We had a toilet stop and when we came out of our WC there were a lot of people from Arabic countreis. It was scary, becauset it was unexpected situation. We met two Spanish guys Jasper and Pedro in the bus, they were also travelling around Balkans. Eraly in the morning we arrived to Tiriana. We started to walk though our hostel, city was empty and without a life. Fortunately one local woman helped on French girl to the same hostel, so it wasn't so embarrasing to arrive so early. The owner of this place was a middle-aged Albanian lady who loved her guests, she was like mother to them, especially to Italians guests. The love to Italians was obvious. Most of the Albanians speak Italian and products are from Italy. We walkd around the city, but it is pretty boring. though. There is not much to see to count that it is a capital city. We discovered one poor part of teh city, it looked like a Mexico. On the next day we went to Durres, a city nect to sea. Bus system to there was insane. There are illegal buses driving there and it is interesting finding them. Minibus waits until it is full and starts driving, there is no schedule. But highway goes there and road is pretty good. In the bus we met one Albanian guy, he spoke perfect English and Italian. He was cool and helpful, he leaded us to the bus that went to the best beach on that city. Coastline was full of bars like in Varna but water wasn't so clean. But it was good swimming there if you know that on the other side is Italy. It is hard to describe, but I like Albania a lot. It is soo different from Europe but on the other hand so similar. On the streets you can see expensive and fancy cars but people there are pretty poor. How they got those cars? Answer is illegal money. But this is one reason that makes this country so interesting. Sadly, Tirana is pretty boring city. No beautiful architecture or old town part, probably it isn't city for tourists. We had a meeting with Spanish guy Alejandro from Couchsurfimng. Heleri found him and he agreed to host us. Heleri was really nervous, me too, but she organized it and she had bigger responsibility than me. Now we can say that everything went well. At first we went to a cafe to drink something and meet with one Russian girl as well. By the way, I had lost all my Russian skills by that time. Then we visited communistic symbol of Tirana, an old pyramid. Heleri had some health issues and Russian girl was in hurry, so we climbed at the top with Alejandro. It was an amazing view from there and sky was so colourful. I was really scared to come down, but somehow I survived this experience. On the next day our biggest task was finding proper place to buy bus tickets. There are many agencies on the streets but no big bus station. Buses depart just from random places on the street. Fortunately we found tickets, unfortunately weather changed into a storm and a street transformed to river. We needed to walk to our travel agency on that weather. Things made better byrek, it was so cheap and tasty, I still miss it. Our bus trip was epic, at first bus was empty, only us and 1 passenger more. Then we stopped on a random place and were locked to the bus, at some point was bus full of people and in Macedonia they kicked us out from bus and we needed to sit to minibus. Early in the morning we finally reached our destination point Skopje. Macedonia We were exhausted and everything was closed anyway. So, we slept some hours in the bus station. We walked around the city centre and realized that all the institutions were still closed. They started to open malls but we had no time to wait. We discovered area beside Danube river. The city center was empty and we had opportunity to see all the massive sculptures and fantastic fountains. They make city centre so special and beautiful. We visited a castle on the top of the hill. Even there wasn't a lot of tourists which was weird because view to the city was amazing. Near to castle was a mosque with beatiful garden and singing birds. It was peaceful place to rest from the heat that was in the air. On our way to the hostel we noticed red double-deckers driving around. It is not only a London thing, you can also find them from Skopje. Out hostel was actually a private house, the owner was really lovely and helped us a lot. In that house I felt like I am visiting my grandmother. At first we were alone in our room, but in the evening two French guys arrived as well. We were located really close to the Vodno mountain and we decided to counquer it. At first we passed rich area, really modern and big private houses were there and somehow we found even right path to the mountain. This road had a medium difficult level. It was nice time walking up, time to look inside and let all your emotions turn into power that help you to continue your journey. On the top (actually it wasn't) we discovered one church, which was pretty average. There was possibility to climb even higher and visit a huge cross up there. But it was getting dark and we wanted to reach civilization before darkness. At some point we had a dinner in a Mexican place and got an interesting news. Mustafa and Anna were also in Skopje. On the next day we visited Matka Canyon. Owner of our hostel gave us a lift to the right bus station where we got bus directly to that natural sightseeing. There went one narrow path about 5 km. We made a little eating break and guess who passed by? No, not Anna and Mustafa but French guys from our hostel. Well, it was a surprise but we continued our walk in silence like we did on Vodno mountain. It was nice that most of the road was covered by shadow. When we reached end of the path we noticed those French guys again. They had swimmed other part of the canyon, water was really cold, I have no clue how they survived it 😆 We saw them 2 times more in thi canyon, so I have nothing to say, a lot of coincidents on a day. I mentioned it also to Heleri, it is such a small country that we have a pretty high possibility to meet with Mustafa and Anna. Somehow we spent our evening walking around the city and in our lovely bus station we met them finally. Suddenly Anna appeared and told us the they are going back to Bulgaria. Our buses departed almost the same time. Like whaat, how it is possible to meet so many familiar persons in Skopje? It is still a mystery for me. Serbia
Bus ride was really OK. Bus was modern and highway new but it was so much more difficult to sleep than on those grazy bus rides. Autumn was also in Belgrad, because early in the morning benches in the park were wet. But we wanted to sit and think what to do next. So we tore plastic bags and sit on them, around us homeless people. What a nice impression of the city. After walking for a while we found our hostel and had a proper sleep for some hours. I decided to apply for a youth organization. I was engouraged by Anna's and Heleri's good luck, because they both got a place in a youth exchange. We went to a castle, sun was setting and the view to the Danube river was great. There was metal consert around the area, so some parts were closed. But despite that we saw a lot of alternative people. We discovered city until it was dark. Then we decided to try Couchsurfing hangout application and everything went out of control. We got so many answers that at first it was hard to manage it. Somehow we made an appointment with Austrian girl and her Australian boyfriend to meet up. Also, some Turkish guys and a French guy promised to join with us. At our meetimng point we only met with this couple. We entered to a quite new party area. Actually it was an old factory area there made into clubs and bars. It was very popular and crowed place btw. We spentrest of our night there and we tried to connect with Turkish but thanks to a bad Internet connection it was hard. It was funny that many local people turned to me and asked me a favour in Serbian. They really thought that I am one of them. In general, it might be quite true. Serbians don't look like Bulgarians for example, Serbians have more Central European look. Our second day task was to fill in time until out train to Sofia. We visited sight in the city. For example The Cathedral of Saint Sava, there is a really nice area around the church, fountains and stuff. There were a couple of wedding so we saw locals fashion on this kind of events, pretty Slavic. We discovered reasons why people really built churches years ago. It is so peaceful to sit in it and be away from weather harming conditions. Then we discovered New Belgrade's mall. It had pretty Estonian look, a lot of shops and big grocery store. They sold sour vitamin pills that I loved. I bought many pack at home. One more positive fact about Serbia are Shop&Go groceries. They are small, but have big diversity of goods and most of them are open 24/7. In the evening we finally met with Turks from Couchsurfing. We had some beers on the riverside. We had a great opportunity to demonstrate our Turkish skills (thank you Görkem, Mustafa and Seher) and of course my favourite topics Turhish music and TV series. Our final shopping in Serbia was comic, we calculated a lot in the store to spend all our cash. We had 6 persons couchette in the train, wich we shared with 4 English people. We slept in the middle at the same level with the window and when the train started to drive a lot of cold wind blew in. We tried to close the window but it was old-fashioned and heavy so we couldn't make it. I put all my warms clothes on, and it was still cold. I was sceptical about train blanket, because there might have been bugs and other horrible things. At some point somebody from our couchette however closed the window. Border control was pretty same as crossing the border with bus. Border guart entered the train, collected the passports and after a while returned. Oh, and toilet in the train is frightful. After the border, our situatian was good, window was shutted and we didn't excpect any more stops. But then we stopped and a guardian told us a long story in Serbian/Bulgarian why we stopped and that we need to get out of the train. He was still kind enough to use international words "Tempo, хайде хайде" to make us move faster. In the train station a bus waited for us and carried us directly to Sofia's trains station.
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AuthorJust another confused youth. Archives
November 2017
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