I had never heard of the Valbone to Theth hike before reaching the Balkans, but once here talk of it was ubiquitous. Or at least it seemed that way to me, perhaps because it sounded so wonderful. It’s a hike across the Albanian alps, between two mountain villages. The starting point for travellers is Shkoder, from there you travel to Valbone by taking a bus then a ferry then a second bus. You stay overnight in Valbone and in the morning you hike the 17km to Theth (well 12km, but if you want to do the peaks it’s 17km). You spend a night in Theth and take a bus back to Shkoder the following day. So many people raved about it, and as someone who loves a hike, and is getting even more into hiking on this trip, it was definitely a must for me. The best thing about this hike was how easy it was to organise. Basically, the hostel in Shkoder does everything for you. Because of this, so many people from the hostel are there to do the hike, meaning there’s a nice little gang of you heading up to the mountains together. Maybe I was just lucky, but I had the most wonderful group of people to spend the nights in the isolated guesthouses with, and to do the hike with.

The experience

I knew I’d enjoy the hike. What surprised me was how much I enjoyed all of the other stuff. The immersive ferry journey up the Shales river for 3 hours, with scenery that could have been South East Asia. The gorgeously isolated guesthouses - the Valbone one sat alone in a clearing behind some trees, with the clear glacial river wrapping around it, at the foot of the mountains; and the Theth one with its wooden cabin and delicious homemade wine. The group of people from the hostel who really made the whole experience. We dined together like a family for all meals, enjoying the Albanian delicacies the guesthouses had prepared for us. We sat by the bonfire in Valbone, looking at the stars and discussing how beautiful the scenery was. We hiked as a group, sweating and chatting the kilometers away. We celebrated reaching Theth with cold beers and fanta exotics. I was sad to slowly say goodbye to each of them as we went our separate ways, but there is no one I’d rather have experienced it with.

The ferry

It was cramped and long. It was also beautiful. A group of dutch girls had bought a whole watermelon and spent the journey handing it out.

Valbone

The guesthouse’s location took all of our breaths away. We plunged into the freezing cold river after lunch, feeling so invigorated. Especially with the mountain view. Santtu, Anna Vera and I did the same the morning of the hike. Now that really was the best way to start the day. A couple in their van made a fire for us to all sit around. The temperature dropped in the evening, making it known that we were in the mountains even when their outline had disappeared in the darkness. We huddled around the fire for warmth.

The hike

It began with some flat along the dried up river bed. Then we went up, and continued going up until we reached the top. The scenery was mountainous, but also still very green. At the mountain top there was a gang of dogs, hoping to get some of our packed lunches. We marched down into Theth, with me slipping over the most times on the loose rocky path. We stopped at a little mountain cafe, having a rest before finishing the descent.

Theth

More of a town than Valbone, our guesthouse was surrounded by other guesthouses and a little odd looking church. Santtu, Anna Vera and I lucked out and got a private room in a separate cabin. The others got stuck with less ideal sleeping situations… Another glacial river flowed by this guesthouse, so we ended the day as we’d started it, with a cold plunge. After taking the most wonderful shower we enjoyed an even more wonderful dinner outside, watching the sunset as we ate. The homemade wine was free-flowing and delicious.

Anna Vera and I got up early the next morning to squeeze in another small hike after breakfast, before we got the bus back. We walked down to the waterfall, with an unexpected additional member: Bashko the guesthouse dog! He was a great companion, guiding us to the waterfall and refusing to leave either of us behind at any point.

The bus back

I found the bus journey back to Shkoder really enjoyable. I found a comfy position next to Santtu. There was a cool breeze from the window. Amazing scenery. Drowsiness from the mountain air and the walking settling in. Good music. It started to rain and the smell of rain on the hot tarmac filled the bus. And the smell of BBQ for some reason. I put my hand out of the window and caught the cold raindrops. The bus driver was hungry so obviously we all therefore had to stop and wait for him to have a full sit down lunch (balkan buses summed up nicely). We got back to Shkoder and I realised I’d just had the best few days of my trip so far. In a bubble of the mountains and nature and good food and even better company.

The logistics

This bit will most likely be boring for those reading at home, so feel free to skip. I’m including it because I’ve spent so long explaining to other travellers how to go about doing the hike and how it all works, so I thought it would be nice to have somewhere to point them to instead (and some free blog promotion!).

1. Arrive in Shkoder and stay 1 night. The hostels that I know organise the hike for you are The Wanderers (this is the one I used), and Me Casa es tu Casa (I also stayed here and it was lovely, but didn’t do the hike with them). They’re both really cheap, £9 a night. I’d recommend The Wanderers if they have availability, mainly because they organise the hike in the Valbone-Theth direction which I think is the better way to do it. The other hostel does it in reverse. They also have free breakfast and the other one doesn’t! Once at the hostel, explain that you’d like to do the hike and they’ll sit you down and talk you through everything. You can leave your luggage at the hostel for the few days you’re away, taking with you just a little rucksack with the essentials in.
2. You’ll catch the minibus at 6:30am the next morning and travel for 2 hours to the ferry terminal at Lake Koman. The ferry takes 3 hours to get to the destination - Fireza. Here you get on another minibus for another 2 hours to Valbone. The hostel provides the tickets for all of this, and it costs 22EUR.
3. You spend the rest of the day and the night in a guesthouse in Valbone. They cook dinner for you, and breakfast, and provide stuff to make a packed lunch with. The stay costs 25EUR.
4. You hike to Theth!
5. You then spend one night in Theth, at another guesthouse. Again, dinner is provided and so is breakfast. It also costs 25EUR.
6. In the morning you catch one last minibus back to Shkoder. This you organise with the guesthouse. It costs 11EUR and takes 2ish hours. You arrive back to Shkoder in the early afternoon, so you can travel elsewhere or you can stay one more night in Shkoder.

The total cost for the trip is 88EUR. That includes 2 nights accommodation, all of the transport and 5 meals. On top of that the only money I spent was on lunch in Valbone, snacks to take with me and the wine in Theth.

TIP: If you have the time, I’d recommend staying two nights in Theth. There’s a day hike you can then do to the Blue Eye (a natural spring), and it means you have more time to soak up the mountains.

I hadn’t planned on going to Kosovo, but as I was nearby and it was on my way back to Shkoder I thought why not. On the bus ride through Kosovo I appreciated just how green and vibrant it was. I later learnt it has the most fertile soil of the Balkan region, and that was evident from its landscape. I had heard that the smaller city of Prizren is much prettier than the capital Pristina so decided to go there. It was indeed very pretty, and I was in the mood for a smaller, prettier city after recently visiting Tirana and Skopje. However, it didn’t have any museums on the history of Kosovo or any walking tours which means I didn’t get as good of an understanding of the situation there as I’d have liked. I’m sure Pristina would have had these. But luckily there are some fairly good podcasts on the subject so I supplemented my time here with those.

Kosovo is the first country of this trip where I felt a distinct contrast to Western Europe. There were no churches, only mosques. The call to prayer was so loud, because of the number of mosques, it was almost deafening. It felt much more eastern. On a separate note, it also felt a lot less developed. The streets outside of the old town were filled with houses that weren’t finished, rubbish and rubble in the roads, and a tangle of electricity wires hanging overhead. The one museum that was there had no information, not a single board explaining about the exhibits. But it was also still definitely Balkan - the corn on the cobs were everywhere in the main square. The Kosovo twist on Balkan food was very good, I really enjoyed my traditional meal here (but more on the food later). On my last evening in Prizren there was a big storm, with torrential rain and lightning. When it eased up I went out to get some food. The fort on the nearby hill looked so mysterious in the stormy weather and with the colours of the sunset. Before I’d really decided it I was on my way up. It was amazing, and reminded me of why I travel. The storm had moved on at this point, leaving the air damp and heavy. I could see the lightning in the distance still. I hurried down in the dark, realising I’d forgotten to actually buy the food I’d gone out to get. In the safety of the hostel I ate the only food I had, a bread roll I’d saved from a restaurant and honey.

A tiny bit of the situation there: the ethnicity of Kosovo is 95% Albanian, 1.5% Serbian, and the rest a mixture of others. It was most recently a region of Serbia and Serbia does not recognise its independence (hence the dotted border on the Serbian side on google maps). It seems like their argument is based on the Serbian populations living in the north, and that historically it’s been part of Serbia. But it seems strange to me since so much of Kosovo is Albanian. Who knows what will happen there, I wish I had more insight but alas no free walking tour! Since I’ve left Kosovo tensions have risen dramatically, with the Kosovo government preventing Serbians moving freely in and out of the country. I’m very glad I was able to fit it in before anything dramatic happens!

The horrors of Balkan buses

Kosovo takes the top spot as being the hardest Balkan country to get a bus in. The reason nothing has gone terribly wrong on my trip so far is because I refuse to leave the bus station without finding information on the bus I need to get the following day. I was close to giving up in Prizren however.

There was a huge information desk in the bus station, but not a single person managing it. I sat and waited for 20 minutes hoping someone would appear, but had no such luck. I scanned all of the bus timetables on the wall, but couldn’t see any with my destination. I wandered around the station until I found the police room, I knocked on the door to see 3 policeman watching TV on their phones. I asked them for help and they were entirely useless, taking me back to the main room and looking as surprised as me when there was no one behind the desk. He then told me that there was no bus to Shkoder (my hopeful destination in Albania). I didn’t believe him however, so continued my search alone. I ended up in a little office round the front of the station with a woman that only spoke albanian, and a man that only spoke turkish. Together with google translate I managed to ask them for help, and after them ringing and texting with someone, they told me that there was a bus at 8am the next day heading to Ulcinq, Montenegro that stops in Shkoder! Online it said the bus was at 10am, so I’m very glad I checked at the bus station…

The 8am bus did indeed exist and I caught it to Shkoder. Sadly the bus driver interpreted Shkoder loosely, so it dropped me 4km out of the town centre. It wasn’t a fun walk in the heat with my bag, but I made it!

Officially North Macedonia since 2019, but you won’t hear anyone refer to it as such and will get a disapproving look if you do. Macedonia is a lovely little country in the Balkans. I only visited the two most popular locations - Lake Ohrid and Skopje - but I think they give you a fairly rounded view of the country.

Lake Ohrid

Macedonia is land locked so lake Ohrid is their answer to the seaside, and is a popular destination for Macedonians on holiday. Ohrid is one of the towns on the lake and the one I stayed in. It was fairly touristy, but in a Balkan way. This means the strip was filled with people selling corn on the cobs and weird arcade machines. If you walked out of the town a little way you got to a boardwalk which wrapped around the lake, delivering you to a little beach and then to the monastery that sits on a piece of the cliff jutting out. The lake is lovely to swim in, but beware of the water snakes. The sun sets behind the monastery so climbing up there gives you the most amazing views. I spent both my nights captivated by this, the latter complete with beers and card games. There are lots of lovely, traditional restaurants so you can try the Macedonian twist on Balkan food with a stunning view of the lake. I got up for sun rise one day, and watched this from the little beach. It was so peaceful walking along the boardwalk in the early hours of the morning, with just the stray dogs that I picked up along the way for company. I sat on a little wooden jetty and just took in the sunrise, before doing some yoga and having a swim. An old man was the only person I saw, and he exclaimed with joy when he entered the water, shouting over to me “therapy” whilst gesturing to the water. I couldn’t agree with him more. Before everyone else joined in, and before it got too hot, I walked around the old town, seeing the fort and the old churches. It wasn’t anything too impressive, but it was very pleasant, especially with no one else around. The rest of my time in Ohrid was spent hanging out by the lake with friends - new ones I met on the bus over from Tirana, and old ones that I’d met previously.

Looking through my photos of Ohrid I think it’s the prettiest place I’ve been to so far.

Skopje

I had my first bus hiccup on the journey from Ohrid to Skopje. I was napping away happily (or as happily as you can be on a crammed minibus with no AC in 35 degree heat) when a big bump and a bang awoke me, only to witness us roll to a stop on the side of the road and the bus driver get out and open the bonnet up. We’d broken down, on the side of a fairly busy road with no shade at midday. At this point in my travelling I’ve learnt to just accept the things I can’t control and go with it. So I got off the bus armed with my headphones and phone, a bag of crisps and some cream cheese, and some peaches. I sat on the curb and watched some of the netflix I had downloaded, enjoying my snacks. After over an hour a man in a beaten up car pulled up with a handful of tools. Everyone on the bus took a collective sigh at this point. We had all assumed a new bus was coming to rescue us, but it seems we were doomed to remain with the broken down one. Miraculously this man did manage to fix the bus, until it broke down again 20 minutes later. The same man reappeared and repeated his miraculous fix and this time we made it all the way to Skopje.

I liked Skopje (the capital of Macedonia). It’s definitely a strange city. In 2014 the government decided to renovate the centre completely. Which for them meant building an unbelievable amount of statues, and fancy old style buildings. They went quite overboard with the statues though. There are hundreds. For example, there are two bridges right next to each other, each with 35 statues on them. And not only are they plentiful, they are also ginormous. The statue of Alexander the Great (apparently from Macedonia) in the main square is 14.5m tall, and stands on a 10m high plinth. A saddening fact is that out of these 100s of statues, built only in the last decade, there are 0 which are women. The only woman featured is in a group statue. One reason for the recent city centre renovations is that 70% of the city was destroyed by a huge earthquake in 1963. The old train station has a large clock on its front and this stopped during the earthquake. It hasn’t ever been fixed, so still shows the time from this. Something that survived the earthquake is the Old Bazaar, which is the second largest in Europe.

Skopje is a city of quirks, another of these is the double decker red buses you’ll see driving around - a nice reminder of London and home. In the 1950s Britain gifted Skopje the infamous buses and the people loved them. The Yugoslav government decided the people loved them a bit too much for something that was from a capitalist country (with Yugoslavia being communist) so they slowly removed them from the streets. As part of the 2014 renovation program the government brought them back in.

After spending two weeks travelling with me it felt only right to offer Rosaline the opportunity to write a post for megtherollingegg.com. I’m extremely honoured that she agreed and I’m very happy to share her words with you below. Get ready to read the best written post of the blog so far!

---

By Rosaline

I would like to first of all thank Meg for allowing me to guest-write on her blog - a gorgeous hub of writing that I can only hope to contribute to gracefully. Of course, until now, you’ve only heard the rolling egg’s point of view of things. Having spent the last two weeks (including two days of horrendous food poisoning) joined at the hip - I feel adequately prepared and qualified to reveal to you the true Megan.

I’ve left summarising our holiday to the lovely host and subject of this post. Just know that I adored the kayaking, the cliff jumping, the horse riding, the walks, the hikes, the swims - both clothed and not - and the many meals we shared. Except the one meal that led to violent vomiting. Those meat sticks get a bad review.

I’ve known Meg for five years now, through her biology degree, her move to the big city, her conversion to law, and her planning for this trip. She’s been committed, driven, and passionate about everything she’s done in this time. She’s been up for a laugh, there for a cry, has listened to my stories and told me hers, and has always been the most devoted of friends. She even delayed this trip to be at my graduation. And brought me flowers. Five-star review. So you can imagine how excited I was to be able to travel with her for a few weeks after two long months of not seeing each other - and before a much longer stretch of having to communicate solely through a screen.

My aim for this post is to tell you all about the Megan behind the scenes. When I booked to join Meg in the Balkans, I was in the midst of exam revision and gladly left all planning to her, and boy did she deliver. Meg mentions below that you learn a lot about a person while travelling with them, and I got to see how perfectly Meg can balance planning with spontaneity. Maybe it’s the two months of experience she’s accumulated, or maybe it’s an inherent skill, but Meg has a wonderful ability to plan a trip that is full of activity but never feels rushed. I admit I may have been a tad too easy going - providing no strong opinion at all most days - but I hope that’s a testament to the full trust I had in my wonderful companion.

Hereby some of the things I learned about Meg on our trip:
⁃ She is an expert packer. She has been living out of a single backpack for the last three months and has managed not to accumulate any more possessions than she started with. To illustrate how much of an achievement that is, I arrived with a single backpack and left two weeks later with that same backpack, two more bags, a pair of water shoes, and a hat.
⁃ She knows how to strategise her snacks. I learned that trail mix is nutrient dense and volume dense, making it a perfect snack for a hungry traveller. I learned that you should buy biscuits that you find edible but not too tasty, so they last longer (how long she can make them last is one of her recurring personal challenges). Meg carries with her a block of cheese, mayonnaise, and peanut butter at all times. She would love to carry marmite but this is sadly not a common spread outside of the UK. I don’t blame the rest of the world for that.
⁃ Meg has a serenity about the future that I have not seen in many people. Alongside some healthy nerves about travelling through the ‘stans knowing so little about what that experience will be like, she has a faith in the future that keeps her going.
⁃ She can sleep anywhere. Except when we’re on a bus to Albania and she believes we’re being trafficked. And then she has the selfless instinct not to worry me with that belief. A true friend.
⁃ Meg is absolutely obsessed with card games. This isn’t new information to me, but I thought I’d reiterate how much Meg loves card games.

In all seriousness, it’s been an absolute pleasure travelling with Meg and seeing her so completely in her element. Through all the time I’ve known her, I knew there was an adventurous spirit and a curiosity about the world that could only be satiated by an experience like this, and I’m so happy she’s getting to do it. Her travel ethos is all about the authentic experience. A lot of people treat travelling almost as a country bucket list - racing through each one trying to tick them off, without standing still to properly look at them. Meg has a wonderful way of speaking to locals about their culture, researching each country’s history, and committing to their customs and traditions. Meg doesn’t just eat a burek, she eats a burek with yogurt, as the locals do. Meg doesn’t just sit back in a taxi, she asks the driver about his experience of the war. Meg travels actively rather than coasting through, and I think that’s beautiful.

Thanks, Meg, for the most glorious of weeks - I’ll look back on the entire experience (yes, entire, because even the horrendous food poisoning was almost a pleasure with you) with fondness forever, and I can’t wait to watch the rest of your journey across the world.

After 2 months of travelling alone I had the pleasure of having Rosaline join me for 2 weeks. In this post I won’t go into detail about the countries we visited, those will come later (a lot later for Montenegro and Albania, as I won’t be done exploring them until September!). Expect more of chat about what we did together, and how the experience of travelling with a friend differs from travelling alone.

What we did

Rosaline met me in Zagreb, Croatia and after a quick coffee in the centre we caught the bus to Korenica, a small town near the Plitvice national park. We dived straight in and spent our first full day kayaking down waterfalls (read: being shoved down small waterfalls unceremoniously by the guide, where our barrel of belongings would fall out every time and every time I would fail to notice this until Rosaline reminded me to check…) and jumping from high rocks. This is definitely the sort of thing that is more fun with a friend - being able to laugh together whilst paddling down in our double kayak, sharing the experience. Something that’s a bit more special than doing it with a stranger. The next day we explored the national park itself. Then it was off to the Croatian islands, stopping off in Split for a few hours then on to Brac. An evening picnic on the beach, visiting the infamous Zlatni Rat beach, a fancy meal out on the harbour, and the first time I was able to convince Rosaline to partake in some card games. Korcula was the next stop (another island), and it surprised us both with how beautiful it was. We had a day in Dubrovnik before catching an evening bus to Kotor, Montenegro. I had been here previously with Will and Paul, and it was really lovely to be back and to show Rosaline where I’d be staying for all of August. We lounged in the sun, we did yoga, we used the paddle boards, we did yoga on the paddle boards, we cooked a delicious veggie chilli and we of course took part in the evening activities of drinking games, pub crawls and skinny dips. We had decided that we’d really like to do some horse riding and had settled on a ranch in the national park above Skadar lake. Sadly, this required us to stay in Podgorica for one night. It’s regarded as one of the worst cities ever and I’d absolutely have to agree. Do not go there if you can avoid it. It has zero redeeming qualities, it’s just a dump. Thankfully the horse riding more than made up for it, and it was quite fun to see how shit Podgorica really was. But oh wow the horse riding, definitely the best thing I’ve done on the trip so far. We had to wait around for quite some time at the ranch so it’s never as seamless and perfect as it all sounds, but once we were on the horses and ambling through fields I was quite content. The first leg was lovely, we mostly just walked, small bits of trotting here and there, as the group was mostly beginners. It was along tracks and through fields, past an old castle in ruins on a hill, eventually reaching the river entering the lake. If you’ve read Where the Crawdads Sing, it was exactly like a scene from that. The warm river with reeds on the edges, with little boats tied up and locals swimming, a shack restaurant on one side. We swam in the water and enjoyed a cold drink. The really amazing part was the way back. We rode as the sun set, the colours of the sky were just perfect, highlighting the outline of the mountains on the horizon. It was all so soft, and looking back over my shoulder at Rosaline on her horse and the other horses behind her, with the backdrop of the pink sky and mountains, I intentionally held on to the image. Oh, and there was a foal that came with us for the whole journey! The pinnacle came as we were walking through the fields. The horses’ hooves crushed the plants underfoot, releasing their aromas into the air. And so with every step fresh wafts of mint and lavender would surround you, adding a whole other layer to the sunset, the mountains, the horses and just the memory.

We left Montenegro on that high and entered Albania with our first location being Shkoder, a lakeside town. The lake was beautiful and so warm. We took an interesting day trip to the Lumi i Shales region in the north, getting a small boat from the weird ferry port up the river. It was very pretty, and looked like somewhere in South East Asia rather than Albania. That evening we were struck down with food poisoning (more below on this) so the next few days were spent mostly horizontal and asleep. Rosaline’s last night was spent in Tirana, which neither of us had particularly favourable things to say about. But I appreciated the last bit of time with her, realising just how quickly the 2 weeks had passed and how thoroughly I’d enjoyed it. We spent our last morning going out for brunch, perusing a book shop and having a coffee - we could almost have been back in Oxford if it wasn’t for the intense heat! And then it was time to say goodbye. Rosaline sped away in her taxi to the airport and it was back to travelling solo!

Travelling as a two

After travelling for 2 months alone I was a little nervous about travelling with someone, I’d gotten so used to doing whatever I wanted and deciding stuff very last minute. Luckily the nerves were ungrounded. It was really wonderful. So let’s look at the pros and cons of travelling with someone:

Pros:

• You always have someone to do stuff with, and it’s easy. No effort required to find someone to go for dinner with, or do a day trip with.
• That person is someone you already know and like, so again it’s just easier. And more pleasant!
• The memories you make with that person can be reminisced on in future years. Harder to do if you’re never going to see the person again which is often the case if it’s a travelling friend.
• Back-up for dealing with something that’s not ideal. Emotional support and a helping hand.
• They can help decide what to do, giving you a break from constantly thinking about what wonderful thing to do next (it’s a hard life I know).
• It’s of course just lovely to spend time with someone you love, and experience stuff with them.
• You learn more about the person and see them in a different light. It’s really quite beautiful.

Cons:

• Planning for someone else besides yourself is a bit more stressful. Someone else is affected if you mess up the bus times etc.
• Not quite as easy to make friends! Perhaps just because you’re putting less effort in because you already have a friend.
• Decisions can take longer.
• Long-term I’m not sure how feasible it is, just in terms of wanting different things and getting tired of one person’s company after several months together.
• You miss out on the learning experiences that travelling solo gives you.

Overall, I think the best way to travel long-term is to travel solo and have friends come and join for parts. Luckily that’s exactly what I’m doing, and it seems to be a very common way to do it, with lots of other people I’ve met doing the same.

Thank you so much for coming out to join me Rosaline, it was an absolute pleasure.
To fend off the sadness from Rosaline’s departure I started my first morning in a new place in the best way I know: sunrise yoga. (Yep I know, I have an obnoxiously amazing life at the moment).

The shit bits (literally)

To show Rosaline the reality of travelling I had to include some less ideal bits. The first was when we were trying to leave the hell hole that is Podgorica to get to Shkoder. We arrived nice and early for the bus only to be told it was sold out but we could hang around until the bus arrived in case there were spaces. We did as we were told, but when the bus did arrive the lady, very gleefully I’ll add, informed me that there was no space on the bus. The thought of spending any longer in Podgorica was so horrible I looked around for a plan B. I spotted two other people who looked annoyed so went up and asked them if they were also planning to go to Shkoder. They were, and I had the idea that a taxi between four of us might not actually be that expensive. We asked a taxi driver and it worked out as the exact same price as the bus would’ve been, so we all piled in and that’s how we ended up going to Albania in a taxi with a french couple. So it all worked out in the end (it always does).

The slightly more dire shit bit was when Rosaline and I were both struck down with pretty intense food poisoning. The suspected culprit was meat sticks from Podgorica (of course they were from that awful place). After a night of hourly vomiting and diarrhoea we were both feeling rather destroyed. Rosaline’s parents had the brilliant idea of staying in a hotel, so with our small amount of strength we set about forming a plan. Rosaline would go and try to get a room at the hotel next door. I would go to the shops to acquire fluids, hydration tablets and a lemon (the lady in the hostel assured me lemon water would cure us both). We met back at the hostel having both been successful. With our last ounces of strength we walked the 50 metres to the hotel and collapsed on the beds. I’m not being dramatic honest, it was awful. We proceeded to sleep literally all day. We got chicken soup via room service, which was a delight for me as it was my first time ever having room service. The next day we still did not feel 100% so stayed one more night in a hotel. This time we were well enough to use the spa facilities though (did I forget to mention it was a 5 star hotel?). On the third day we finally felt up for the 2 hour bus to Tirana (where I convinced myself that we were being trafficked but I’ll save that for the Albania post). Whilst the whole being really ill bit did suck, it was quite a laugh. I’m very glad to have not been travelling alone for that bit, being ill with someone is a lot more fun! We relaxed in the fancy hotel, we watched netflix, we ate room service and we wallowed in combined self-pity, comparing our symptoms. Sadly we weren’t as healed as we first thought, and spent the last days in Tirana feeling a bit off and having to make urgent dashes to the toilet quite often. Something I’m still having to do, but hopefully soon it’ll be back to normal! In the interest of integrity I’ll mention the possibility that our demise was not caused by Podgorica meat sticks, but by a bug or something else. We bumped into 2 guys we’d been friends with in Shkoder who had returned after 2 nights away, and they had also had the exact same thing as us. We happily compared our ordeals, finding comfort in the shared experience. But they hadn’t eaten the Podgorica meat sticks…

Croatia is not my favourite place. It’s been unlucky in its placement next to Slovenia, as the contrast with this wonderful country makes Croatia look more sad than it probably deserves. I don’t know what it is about Croatia, but it just doesn’t speak to me. It doesn’t make me feel excited. I just don’t love it. It has a huge stretch of coastline, lots of islands and some cool national parks that are pretty green. But it still lacks something. The people aren’t the friendliest so that doesn’t help.

Places we visited (I was travelling with Rosaline for all of these):

1. Zagreb
   I explored this city more on my journey down to Montenegro the first time around, and included a run down of it in that post. In overview, you can see it all in a couple hours. It’s fine.

2. Plitvice national park
   Okay this place is very beautiful. I can’t argue with the views. BUT you can’t swim in the water, it’s very busy at the famous pretty bits and it’s not mind-blowing in any way.

3. Split
   It’s prettier than I remembered from my last visit here 5 years ago. Nice old town. Very busy. Ferries to all of the islands.

4. Brac
   Cheaper island alternative to the crazy expensive Hvar. Zlatni Rat beach was cool, and the promenade bit there was really nice. The main town of Supetar is pleasant. Seafood was good.

5. Korcula
   The only place I’d recommend. I really liked this island. Was actually beautiful. Old town was cool, with a big bridge to get in. Just a pretty place.

6. Dubrovnik
   The old town and the city walls are impressive. But it’s crazy expensive and busy and hot. You can see the old town in a day, you don’t need to stay overnight.

I’m not going to go into any more detail on Croatia. The islands and beaches are nice if you’re looking for just beaches and little old towns. For anything else, go somewhere else.

Full Moon Check-in

(The last two months it’s been cloudy on the full moons, so this is the first time I’ve seen it.)

1. Last: Workaway in Dobrusa, Slovenia, taking the dog Siba for an evening walk.
2. Current (14th July): Sat on the beach in Kotor, Montenegro with a group from the hostel, and Rosaline of course. We watched the full moon rise over the mountains.
3. Future: In Kotor again, volunteering at the hostel. Probably sat on the same beach.

A love letter to Slovenia, and a full review

Slovenia is my favourite country out of the ones I’ve visited so far in my life. And it easily wins. I recommend visiting Slovenia so fully. If you want to hear me passionately talk about travel, ask me about Slovenia.

On my post A level trip I visited Slovenia for about a week. On this trip I spent 10 days living with a family (see my Slovenian workaway post for more on this) and 10 days travelling around. Here is my ranked list of places I’ve visited.

1. Velika Planina
   I did a day trip to this herdsman settlement when on my workaway, so all of the details are in that post. It was such a unique experience, and I really wasn’t expecting it to be as beautiful and fun as it was, so that made it even more unforgettable. It’s my favourite thing I did here.

   Details: Day trip from Ljubljana. Can be done by public transport but requires some funky logistics. Only cost is the cable car and chairlift ticket which was 16EUR for students.

   

2. Hiking Krn
   Slovenia has some truly epic hiking, and lots of people who visit are here for this. The Julian alps run through Slovenia and are in the Triglav national park. Triglav is the highest peak at 2864m. There is a great set up of mountain huts which means you can easily do a 2+ day hike, which is needed if you want to summit Triglav for example. I didn’t know about the mountain huts until I was already here so didn’t end up using them, but next time I definitely will! I still wanted to do a challenging hike, and decided to hike Krn mountain which is 2,244m (my first over 2000m peak!). It felt like a surprisingly good achievement! The views from the summit were absolutely insane, because Krn sits a bit separate from the rest of the Julian alps, giving you a great view of Triglav and the neighbouring peaks. The hike up is also easy in a technical sense, no climbing or even scrambling (just a lot of extremely steep zigzag paths). I did a loop on my way back, taking in another peak and descending down into a mountain valley, and then down the mountainside. It was all just so beautiful, and I genuinely couldn’t believe my eyes at certain points.

   Details: I stayed in Kobarid for this hike, which is a nice little town in of itself. In the summer months a small bus runs from Kobarid to Planina Kuhinja which is the starting point for Krn. From here it’s 1200m in elevation to the summit, and it took me 3.5 hours.

   

3. Bovec (and just anywhere in the Soca valley)
   My favourite part of Slovenia is the Soca valley in the North West of the country. To get there from Ljubljana the bus has to go through the Vrsic pass which is the zig-zagging road that goes up and over the Julian alps. It’s the most insane and beautiful bus ride I’ve ever done (all though I did throw up when I did it 5 years ago, luckily this time around my stomach was more used to bus journeys!). I also stopped off at Lake Jasna in Kranjska Gora on my way to Bovec which was very pleasant. The Soca valley is named after the Soca river, which is the most distinguished turquoise colour. In places it’s more of a pastel tone, and others it’s electrically blue. The water is very cold, as it’s running straight from the alps, but that makes it even nicer in my opinion, especially in the summer heat. Bovec is the main town in the valley and a nice place to stay, with two nice hostels and lots of nice pubs (one serving a beer-wine hybrid that I was not a fan of at all, but the person I was with loved). From here you can walk to the Soca river, explore waterfalls, and do all sorts of water and adrenaline activities.

   Details: Any of the towns in the Soca valley would be lovely. A bus runs from Ljubljana via Bled to all of them. It takes a few hours, but the amazing views means it flies by.

   

4. Ljubljana
   Ah the capital city. The nature and the scenery is why Slovenia is my favourite country, but I also really lovely the capital. It’s a very small city, with the old town and market on one side of the river along with the castle on a hill, and the main square and more modern stuff on the other side. The river is flanked by two beautiful streets with restaurants and cafes, lined with drooping trees. There are lots of pretty bridges over it, including the infamous triple bridge. The river is very open and creates this spacious and nature filled zone in the centre. The old town is filled with little independent shops and restaurants. The market is huge and has both indoor and outdoor areas; boasting a section for flowers, fruit and veg, meats, and cheeses and other dairy products. There are even milk and yogurt vending machines! The castle is my favourite out of the city castles I’ve visited (which is quite a few now). It’s free to enter and it’s so much more than just a historical ruin. It acts as an art space with a gallery, there’s a jazz bar and a Michelin star restaurant, a lovely open courtyard and a maze of underground parts. All of these components seamlessly sit in the architecture of the ruined castle - against the bare rock. Overall, Ljubljana is a city that I could wander around quite happily in for hours. It reminds me of Bristol in its vibe, and its plethora of arty coffee shops. I would quite like to live here at some point…

   Details: If you’re going to visit Slovenia I’m sure you’ll end up in Ljubljana just because of transport. I stayed at Hostel Celica which is an old prison. It was very cool, and had a great free breakfast buffet!

   

5. Bled
   Obviously if you visit Slovenia you should visit Bled. It’s like visiting Italy and not going to Rome. And Bled is actually very beautiful, unlike Rome, so it is worth going to! The famous island with the church in the middle of the lake is as pretty as it looks in pictures, especially with the mountains behind it. It’s fun to hire a rowing boat to use on the lake, something I did on my last visit with Sam and Louis (and it really was quite hilarious). The walk up to the several viewpoints is very pleasant. The castle seems nice, although not free to enter and I didn’t pay to do so. You can visit the beautiful Vintgar gorge easily. The Bled cream cake is delicious (but just buy it from a supermarket rather than a cafe to save money!). BUT it is very busy! Mostly with interrailers who are 18/19 years old. So just keep that in mind, and don’t forget the beautiful Soca valley which is much quieter.

   

There are still lots of places I didn’t manage to see in Slovenia that I’d love to visit, so I’ll briefly include these for completeness:

1. The coast - Koper or Piran look like great beach towns.
2. Predjama castle and Postojna cave - can be done as a day trip from Ljubljana very easily.
3. Podzemlje Pece - a cave system in the North East that you can kayak through.
4. Krajinski national park - a national park in the North East, close to Austria and Hungary.
5. Lake Bohinj - can be reached from Bled.

Luckily I definitely plan on coming back to Slovenia again and again, so I’m sure I’ll get to cross the others off eventually! Slovenia really does have everything: mountains, beautiful rivers and lakes, luscious green nature, great hikes, all of the water sports, and a lovely capital city.

It’s not all perfect all the time

I planned to hike Krn on a certain day, and I prepared everything the night before. I set my alarm ready to catch the one bus there at 6:35am. I woke in the morning and checked my phone to read 6:45am… I’d missed my alarm somehow and also missed the bus. Luckily I could do it the next day instead but it was quite annoying.

Not something that went wrong, but an interesting logistical note: I decided that I wasn’t going to need my jeans or jacket for the foreseeable future (or wooly hat) so sent them back to England. A potential future issue perhaps, as the post office man couldn’t seem to grasp that my house has a name and not a number and so I have little faith in the parcel ever arriving. This meant I now had a little bit of spare space in my bag… which I quickly filled with a nice dress and skirt from an independent shop and a vintage shop in Ljubljana! And a needed pair of shorts and vest top from less exciting H&M and Mango…

Bosnia and Hercegovina (I was repeatedly told off for just saying Bosnia, but will refer to it as B&H from now on because it’s too long) wasn’t in my original plan. On returning to Slovenia from Montenegro I wasn’t in a huge rush so it made sense to take a few days to see somewhere new. I’d visited B&H very briefly before, but only Trebinje which was interesting but nothing too special. I ended up spending 3 nights in Mostar, a town in the Hercegovina region, and 2 nights in Sarajevo, the capital, before catching an overnight bus back to Ljubljana. The week I spent in B&H felt very different to my previous weeks of travelling. It felt much heavier. Not exactly in a negative way though. I think there are three reasons for this: i) my personal mindset, I was running on 6 hours sleep in 2 days when I arrived in Mostar, and didn’t catch up on it for a few days, and was processing the end of Montenegro and that part of my trip, ii) it was really really hot, like 40 degrees hot, and iii) the history and reality is unbelievably heavy. A warning that this post is going to be quite history heavy as that’s mostly what I did here!

Mostar

As mentioned, Mostar is in the Hercegovina region of B&H in the south, close to Croatia. It was a really beautiful city, characterised by the Neretva river and the big arched old town bridge crossing it. It was very small, with the old town centre having narrow, cobbled streets that were lethal when wet due to their slippiness. The old town was pretty much destroyed in the siege that took place in 1993-4, but has been rebuilt exactly as it was, using the same techniques and everything. Sadly, not everything about Mostar could be rebuilt with such success. The city is still now divided, with the Croats (people originally from Croatia - in simple terms anyway) living in the west of the city, with some of them having never crossed the river in their lives, and the Bosniaks in the east. I learnt about this during a walking tour given by a 47 year old man who had fought in the siege. His insights on the war, and its impact on the community today, were so interesting, and reminded me of the thoughts I had in the Czech Republic about the lasting effects of war. This man isn’t very hopeful for B&H’s future, and thinks there will be more violence here because of how the war generation has passed their feelings of hate towards the other side to the younger generation. The ‘other side’ in Mostar is not the Serbians as I thought with my very limited knowledge of Yugoslavia and its breakdown. In Mostar, the Serbs did siege the city in 1992 but without much success, with the Croats and Bosniaks joining forces to defend it. In 1993 however, the Croats decided that they would like Mostar for themselves and fought against the Bosniaks. This is when the old town was destroyed, and this is where the resentment lies.

The walking tour itself was made more memorable by a huge rain shower half way through which saw all of us running to find cover in a cafe, all drenched to the bone. The tour guide bought us all coffees whilst we dried off and waited for the rain to stop. None of us minded so much, anything to cool us down in the 40 degree heat.

The old town bridge is definitely the heart of Mostar. Not least because it’s home to a group of divers who earn their living by jumping off the 23 metre high bridge into the river below, and helping visitors safely do the same. I saw one jump whilst eating dinner on a terrace overlooking the bridge one evening, it was insane!

Whilst in Mostar I was able to see more of the actual country of B&H by taking a little tour with the hostel. We visited a medieval house by a natural spring; a medieval town which was like being in Tatooine from Star Wars with its domed, sandstone buildings; and the biggest waterfalls in the country. We were also caught up in the pilgrimage from one town to another, as it was the anniversary of the Virgin Mary appearing in one of the towns (apparently…). On our walk down from the fort in the medieval town we enjoyed some fresh pomegranate juice - it was quite strange, not sweet at all but incredibly tort and almost drying in your mouth (can you tell I wasn’t a huge fan?).

Something else I wasn’t a huge fan of was the Bosnian coffee. I went to a traditional coffee house and the lady there gave me an explanation of how to drink it. First I was to add a few tea spoons of cold water to the pot (called an ibrik) which currently had hot water and coffee grounds inside. The cold water is heavier than the hot water so falls to the bottom, taking the coffee grounds with it. Then you take the creamy bit of coffee off the top and spoon it into the little cup. Then pour the coffee in. If you want sugar, you don’t add it to your cup but take a sugar cube and have a nibble of it with every sip. Something I was a huge fan of was the Hercegovinian wine! The red wine was called Blatina and it was honestly delicious. Like I’d genuinely choose it over other varieties. It was also cheap (2EUR for 250ml), like everything in B&H.

On the walk back from the wine bar on my last night the skies turned red. It was the anniversary of the Mostar football team doing something but I couldn’t find out what. Pretty cool though.

From Mostar I caught the 6:30am train to Sarajevo from the most abandoned looking train station I’ve ever seen. Apparently it’s one of the most scenic train journeys in Europe, but I was only able to stay awake for the first 30 minutes so I sadly can’t confirm that.

Sarajevo

The history in Mostar was still present in the division of the city, but the siege and violence didn’t shock me too much, just how recent it was. In Sarajevo the violence of its siege, lasting from 1992 - 1996 (over 1,400 days!), shocked me. Around 11,000 people died, over 1,500 of them being children. Over 3,500 grenades were dropped on the city. The assault was worse on the weekends, as Serbs would come on their days off to join the snipers in the mountains and shoot at the city. I went to the gallery 11/07/95, this is an exhibition of photographs taken in Srebrenica with an audioguide to accompany them. Srebrenica is the location of one of the genocides against Bosnian muslims. Here over 8,000 Bosnian muslims were executed by the Bosnian Serbs, mostly men but also some women and children. It was the first time I’ve ever teared up in a museum, but honestly it was such an emotional exhibition. The most shocking part is that the UN had designated Srebrenica as a safe area for Bosnian muslims, and the dutch division of the peacekeeping troops was placed there to protect them. What resulted wasn’t protection but the dutch troops watching from the safety of their base as Bosnian muslims were rounded up from outside and taken to buildings such as schools to be systematically executed. They didn’t intervene because they did not have the numbers to fight off the Serbs, and no back up from other countries had arrived. The graffiti left behind in the base by the troops suggests that there was also a dislike towards the Bosnian muslims. The Serbs buried the bodies in mass graves, and then moved them to secondary or even tertiary graves in an attempt to hide the event. This means that still now mass graves and bodies of missing people are being found and identified. In 2004 this event was ruled as being a war crime.

On the walking tour of Sarajevo we saw a different, much more positive side to the city. It serves as a great example of how one city can be home to several religions without any issues. I think it’s because they have all always been here, it doesn’t belong to one more than any other. There were lots of stories that showed how happily the different groups coexisted. For example, Roman Catholics building the main mosque for the muslims, and the muslims paying for them to first build a chapel on the site for them to use whilst building the mosque. So although there is historical tension between the Bosnian Serbs and the Bosnian muslims, there is also historical harmony between muslims and catholics. This sums up B&H quite well - the religions and ethnicities mixed up are super confusing, but the problems are from the ethnicities and want of territory not religion. But some ethnicities are vaguely based on religion… I won’t even try and cover it here, but it is very interesting if you want to look into it!

A general observation about travelling and history - they’re inseparable! The past 6 weeks I’ve learnt more about history than I have since I studied it at A level, and perhaps ever. And I haven’t even been trying to. I also feel like I’ve retained the information way more than I could ever from just reading about it. Something about being in a place and seeing the history in front of you makes it a completely different experience. And I love it! This is a big reason why I want to travel before starting my job and doing all that stuff, to actually learn more about the world.

After all the heavy history I spent my last day in B&H doing something a bit different. I caught the cable car up to the mountain right by Sarajevo and hiked up to its summit, a further 500m in altitude, with two hikers from the hostel. I was initially a bit worried about being able to keep up with them, as they both have done a lot of big hikes, but it was all fine. On our descent we stopped by the abandoned bob sledge track. In 1984 Sarajevo hosted the winter Olympics, kind of crazy when you think 8 years later it was a war zone. It was covered in graffiti but in quite good shape considering. You could walk down it for quite a way.

After Sarajevo I caught an overnight bus from a very dodgy looking bus station back to Ljubljana. And so my brief detour into B&H was over. It was interesting and I learnt a lot. But wow it was heavy! A week and a half in nature in Slovenia is just what I need to balance it out.

The original plan was to spend all of June in Slovenia, until meeting a special guest in Zagreb on 8th July. Instead, I spent 10 days in Slovenia, travelled all the way to Montenegro, and am now travelling back up to Slovenia (via Bosnia) to spend the rest of the time before the 8th. Why? I thought a little bit about how I was going to explain this route deviation but I’ve decided to just be honest… It’s not to save Schengen days! It’s to spend a few more days with a guy I met in Prague and liked a little too much. An Australian called Will. Because if now isn’t the time to travel 18 hours to see a guy you’ve known for 10 days, when is? And I’m so so glad I did. This is a big perk of travelling alone and having a very flexible plan with nothing really booked ahead.

But Montenegro round 1 - I’ve left the country with a lot of wonderful memories, less hair, more tattoos and a new plan for August.

In Budapest Will’s friend Paul joined from Australia to travel with him. Paul’s family are from Ulcinj, a town in the south of Montenegro on the coast, so this was our first stop. We stayed for two nights, in an apartment of a family friend. It was a nice little town, we spent most of our time relaxing and swimming at the beach. There was a night club on the seafront called Big Ben, where the DJ booth was at the top of a replica Big Ben tower so that was kind of strange. Our next 2 nights were spent in Kotor, another town on the coast but in the North. It was back to hostel living after almost a two week break for me! We all enjoyed the pub crawl that night, and the skinny dip to end it (with the hostel being 5 metres from the beach it would be rude not to). One day we caught the bus to Perast, a smaller town on the coast, and had our first true Balkan bus experience. Namely, there are no timetables, you just go to the bus station and hope a bus turns up. Luckily one eventually did. Perast was lovely, it reminded me of Capri or somewhere on the Amalfi coast. Whilst we were relaxing on the beach we had a view of two small islands, one with a monk’s house on it and one with a church. After some debate over whether or not it would be possible to swim out to them, Will was adamant he would do it. And so Olivia (a girl from the hostel who had joined us) and I went with him, although at a much slower pace! We got there eventually, it took 30 minutes I think. We couldn’t even stand up on the island once there, because it was sacred and we were in bikinis, but at least we had a sense of achievement from it… The swim back felt even longer. Then we started the impossible task of getting the bus back. We waited in what we believed was the correct spot for around 45 minutes, luckily the view was insane. And the bus eventually did come! When I walked into the hostel I heard someone shout “Meg!” - it was Andy and Kevin from Prague and Budapest! Europe really is a small place sometimes. Will and Paul were leaving the next day and I was unsure of what my plan was, but seeing Andy and Kevin made me decide to stay one more night in Kotor to spend time with them.

Will and Paul’s bus was at 8am, but Will and I woke up at 4:30am to hike to the fort half way up the mountain that loomed over Kotor, to watch the sunrise. It’s my favourite memory so far. The walk was unbelievably sweaty, despite the sun not being up yet. But the view was 100% worth it. There was a sea mist over the bay, and the colours were so soft. The company was pretty great too. Thinking about it makes me smile. It was a perfect way to spend our last morning together. The goodbye was sad, but I guess that means it really was worth me coming down to Montenegro in the first place.

I felt a little lost after their bus departed, so I bought a slab of cherry tart and enjoyed it with a coffee in the old town. Then I went to see if I could get a haircut, and I now have a true french boy style going on. This is the first time I’ve had really short hair, but I like it a lot, and am happy to have braved it. I spent the rest of the day chilling with Andy and Kevin and some other people from the hostel. A tattooist was staying at the hostel and doing tattoos. His style was exactly what I was wanting for my next tattoo, so it seemed like fate and I got this year’s birthday tattoo a bit early! At 11pm in the hostel kitchen. Olivia then got a spontaneous one on the beach, which is a pretty cool place to get a tattoo. Even cooler that she got the year of my birth (and the year of her birth, but I’m not sure that’s relevant…).

After getting a total of 6 hours sleep over the last two days I was proud to make my 7:40am bus to Mostar, Bosnia the next morning. So it’s goodbye to Montenegro for now, but not for forever. I liked Kotor and the hostel so much that I’ll be volunteering there for the month of August!