Serbia

So, Serbia. The bay boy of the Balkans. The country everyone wants to blame. Russia's little friend in the region. Nationalists, bullies, etc etc etc. Well, it hasn't quite worked out like that ( surprise, surprise).

 

Belgrade was full of young, trendy types living it up. People just being people and trying to get along with life.

Trendy restaurant in Belgrade

What did surprise me was the lack of tourist sites to see in the capital. Belgrade has a long history but much of that history has been turbulent and not much of the past has survived. The main citadel has witnessed something like 115 battles in its time! So I went on a walking tour but there weren't really any iconic buildings to photograph. The National Museum was closed and covered in scaffolding. It has been that way for 12 years! 

 I did learn a lot though ( which was the main point after all)

Walking tour of Belgrade, in English.

People from France, Russia, Mexico, Spain, Australia and Italy. 

1. Serbians drink a lot.

2. They have a dark sense of humour, which has probably served them well in recent times.

3. They like Russia.

4. The average monthly salary in Belgrade is €300.

5. There is now only one mosque left in Belgrade. ( Quite a contrast to Sarajevo)

6. The Serbian language uses both Latin (Roman) and Cyrillic alphabets. This was interesting. Even though Croats, Serb and Bosnians essentially share a language Serbia uses both alphabets. It's still taught that way in schools. 

7. Because he offered stability, jobs for all and a stable economy Tito is still respected in Serbia.

8. My guide was quite knowledgable on Serbian history but skipped over the Bosnian war of the 90s. 

9. She talked about the NATO air strike on Belgrade (1999) but didn't mention why it had happened. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at this but I was hoping for the 'Serbian side of the story' having been to Sarajevo. I didn't really get it. 

Talking of not getting it, what has been come clear is that the whole 'Balkan question' makes the Middle East look simple. 

Kalemegdan Citadel

Gavrilo Princip is very popular here!

Highlight of the day? I saw a bloke with t-shirt that read 'Go fuck your selfie' 

Next day I headed for Nis ( pronounced Neesh) but stopped off first at a castle. No trip is complete without a castle visit and Smederevo didn't disappoint. Situated next to the Danube, 25 miles downstream from Belgrade, Smederevo was built in the 15th Century. The faded display board told me that this was the 'last bastion against Ottoman invasion'. Serbia never seems to miss a chance to tell me it's an Orthodox Christian country in the front line against those Muslim invaders. 

Once the temporary capital of Serbia this huge fortress, supposedly. one of the largest city fortresses in Europe in fact, originally had 25 towers around it. As you can see from the photos, most are now crumbling, some alarmingly so!

The fortress survived hundreds of years of battles between the Ottomans and Christians but didn't do so well in the Second World War. The Nazis used it for ammunitions storage and in 1941 an accident caused a massive explosion. The explosion destroyed the railway station next door and, apparently, much of the city.  Around 2,500 people died! 

I think you often tell how wealthy a country is by how much money they have to spend on their national treasures. Smederevo is certainly important to Serbia and there was some construction work going on but the place also looked scruffy and neglected and was covered in graffiti. Shame.

Then on to Nis in southern Sebia, my last stop before Bulgaria.

Nis is the home town of Emperor Constantine the Great, Roman Emperor in the 4th Century, famous for adopting Christainity. He built a Palace which I went to see but unfortunately it was closed. This is as close as I got.

But I did see this.

Nis's most famous tourist site is the fortress. Originally built by the Romans the current one was constructed by the Ottomans in the 18th Century.

The main Stambuli gate, which leads out towards Istanbul.

I like the fact that inside it's just a huge park littered with archeological delights.

The last remaining ( of ten) mosques in the fortress. 15th or 16th Century

Was- Roman baths. Now - cafes. 

Nis was under Turkish rule from the 14th to 19th Century and my next stop was the 'Tower of Skulls'!

With Serbian defeat imminent in the 1809 Battle of Cegar, the Duke of Resava kamikazeed towards the Turkish defences firing at the gunpowder stores. He killed himself, 4,000 of his men and 10,000 Turks! The Turks triumphed regardless and took revenge. They beheaded, scalped and embedded the skulls of the dead Serbs in this tower. ( Their actual heads were stuffed with cotton and sent to Constantinople) only 58 of the original 952 skulls remain and it now stands as a proud monument to Sebian rebellion. The exact opposite of what had been intended.

Moving into the 20th Century things don't get any better for Nis. In 1941 Nazi Germany occupied Serbia and set up a Concentration Camp ( Mainly for Jews, Roma and resistance fighters) in Nis. It still stands.

I noticed the WACHE SS sign but no the 'No photo' sign! 

There was a mass break out ( the first in a Nazi concentration camp?) In1942. 42 inmates died, 105 escaped, although I think quite a few were recaptured eventually. The Nazis shots 800 of the detainees in revenge in the nearby Bubanj Forest.

In 1963 the Communist authorities erected this monument in the Bubanj forest near to where around 10,000 people were executed over a two year period by the Nazis. 

The three clenched fists represent the Men, Women and Children killed.

Quite powerful communist artwork. 

I promised Communist architecture. He's the Ambassordor Hotel. Oh and a statue to the Liberators of Nis. 

So, that's Serbia.

Young, lively, friendly, forward thinking. Confused about it's recent past. Slightly miffed with its neighbours perhaps.

Cheap and cheerful. Summed up for me by this photo.

Serbia is set up for tourists, there just aren't many!

And I've no idea what this is but I like it.

Finally, this has been a massive post. Obviously I quite like Serbia, have good wifi and the bike isn't causing me any problems. 

I'll drink to that.

Next stop, Bulgaria and Graham Field's house warming party! 

Montenegro. Land of the black mountains. Who'd have thought?

If first impressions last then I hated Montenegro. It took me nearly two hours to queue at the border. It was over 30 degrees C in the shade and I wasn't in the shade. I think the one border guard was on a go slow. When I finally got to the front I had to go and get bike insurance from a big salmon coloured building which was actually a hotel and the guy who issued me with that document clearly had never done it before. He kept flicking back through the booklet to see what had been written before then randomly copied bits out of my V5 form. And this is supposed to be the one EU country I'm visiting!

Anyway, that all took 15 minutes and by the time I got back to the border to pick up my passport which they had kept, the queue had all gone! bastards. 

So, dehydrated, annoyed and sweaty I rode to the coast. Montenegro was the one country I planned to visit that other people had commented on. People had clearly been here on holiday and praised the coastline and beeches. I wasn't so sure. I wasn't on a beaching holiday and hate crowds so I approached the Montenegro coast with trepidation. The plan was to spend two nights camping at a campsite I'd found online but was also in the LP guidebook as one of the best. It was only going to cost me £7 a night which was pretty good for a night on the Adriatic coast. 

It was hell.

I was given a spot between the toilet block and the 'kinder kamp', which meant I was surrounded by children running around shouting and generally bloody enjoying themselves. Plus the lights from the toilet meant it never got dark. I walked the 200 metres to the coast and was confronted with a Beniform style beech front. Thousands of people, noise, rubbish, food, gravelly sand... My own personal beech hell. They all looked happy - I wasn't.

It was still in the high 20's late at night and I was on my sleeping bag sweating and cursing as several kids sat right outside my tent (or so it sounded) and played farting games. I kid you not. At one point, and I am a little ashamed to admit this, I shouted at them to shut up and go to bed - in English and Spanish for some reason. It was 11 pm!

In my semi sweaty sleep I hatched a plan to escape. I was up at 5:30 and gone by 6:30. I stopped at the petrol station to buy water ( I was seriously worried about dehydrating and although I had drunk litres the previous day I hadn't peed. A sure sign things were not good.) And I checked the tyre pressure on the bike. I may not know a lot about motorcycle maintenance but I do know how to check tyre pressure - so I like to do it on a regular, annual basis. 

I then rode out of hell.

And into paradise

The coast WAS lovely, especially that early in the morning when it was still cool and with few people about. And there had clearly been a huge amount of development undertaken since Montenegro got independence  in 2006 and I hope the wealth is ticking down to the people ( obviously I doubt it) but it has ruined the scenery a little. 

But only a little. I rode north to Kotor and then found an amazing mountain road which took me up from sea level to 1500 metre via 56( I think) hairpin bends. And on in to the National Park. I posted a couple of videos of this on my Gone Riding Facebook page yesterday.

Montenegro was starting to impress me.

Then I headed north. First down to sea level and the very hot capital ( Go on see if you know the capital of Montenegro) and up and out via an amazingly beautiful gorge northwards. I finished in the very north of the country at Durmitor National Park. Think Dartmoor surrounded by massive granite massiffs.

The last two days couldn't have been more different. Such is travelling I suppose. 

Saturday was spend walking around a lake in the Park. I hope the pictures speak for themselves.

Oh, and that tyre pressure thing. I think I was so annoyed and grumpy and dehydrated and pleased to be out of there, I left both my dust caps at the petrol station. Bugger. 

Sarajevo - You are my witness

That title is the title to the haunting, disturbing and worryingly real exhibition called 11/07/95. The gallery bears witness to the massacre at Srebenica 20 years ago. Welcome to Sarajevo!

Actually I hadn't been sure what to expect of Sarajevo and next time someone asks me ' Why do you travel?' I will say 'Sarajevo'. I have leant so much and discovered a lot about a place I knew very little of, which is why I travel. Sometimes it results in me thinking, 'Hum, I'm glad I don't live here', but in this case I've been impressed.

I guess I first heard of Sarajevo in 1984 - the Winter Olympics. And yet only 8 years later e Olympic City was in the middle of a four year siege where the Bosnian Serb forces surrounded and tried to starve out the 100,000 people who lived there. I won't go into details here but today I went on an excellent tour of the city which took in the 1,000 meter tunnel built under the (UN controlled) airport, which brought in vital supplies during the siege. 

Sarajevo, a long thin city tradically surrounded by hills. 

it took four months to dig out a 1,000 metre long tunnel. 

Plus, of course, Sarajevo saw the assassination which sparked WWI. It was weird to actually stand on the corner wher Princip killed the Arch Duke Franze Ferdinand. And no Tracy, there wasn't a Hungary Ostrich in sight.

This was the place wher Princip, very fortunately, came across the arch Duke and his wife, Sophie. He fired two shots and killed them both.

Apparently one of these was the gun used to 'spark' WWI.

The Arch Duke was returning from the town hall. Built in the 1880s it survived WWI I and WWII. Then it housed the National Papers and Library of the Bosnian Government. Bosnian Serb forces fire bombed it in 1993. 

The other thing I learned was that Bosnia is sort of divided and the northern part is called the Republic of Srpska, practically a self autonomously Seb controlled area, with its capital Banja Luka. I enter Bosnia here and was, at the time,  a little surprised to see no ' Welcome to Bosnia' signs at the border. I guess that's because the don't really want to be associated with Bosnia so I was welcomed into the Republic of Srpska, not Bosnia. In many ways it seems like an uneasy truce.

My first night in Bosnia was camping (£3, including showers and wifi !) in Jajce. Near these amazing watermills.

Anyway, Bosnia and Sarajevo have been interesting, illuminating, thought provoking. ( Every time my guide today spoke about the Sarajevo siege of the 90s I couldn't help hearing 'Damascus today' and wondering what we should be doing to stop it.)

But there are many positives to take from Sarajevo. It is only 20 years and things are getting better. Yes, mankind does seem to spiral into the hell that is a Civil War far to easily, but we also come out the other side quite quickly as well. As I walked around Sarajevo I looked at people my age and thought, to misquote the famous UK WWI Propaganda poser ' What did you do in the war?' And I looked at those under 20 and wandered what they made of it all. Bosnia seems a very secular ( although I didn't think that at 6 am today with the call to prayer,) country with a great mix of people. With good guidance there is hope.

So here's a photo of the Sarajevo tram system

And one of Heidi and the campsite.

I 'm going to have another beer, then bed and then Montenegro tomorrow. Probably down to the coast because 30 degrees just isn't warm enough!!

Ha Ha. I was just about post this and a Brit has turned up on a Czech registered bike he's 'rented' for a week in Croatia. He tried to put his tent up, which he bought in a hurry at a supermarket, and it's a child's beech tent, just two sided and no floor! See, I'm not  the only muppet on the road. 

So, one more beer and I'll sing myself to sleep with The Cranberries 'Sarejevoo oo oo'. 

Beginnings

Nervous, apprehensive, excited, worried, confused. I had all these thoughts swimming around my head as I set off on my trip. In fact they lasted for the first few days. You'd think that after all the travelling I'd done I would have got used to it, but not so. This trip will probably last 40 days but the feeling I get at the start will slowly dissipate and I may well forget it eventually so it needs to be said now. I still question why I'm doing this and worry about all the things that could possibly go wrong. On my first night, camping in Kent, I looked out at the sea, France was just visible on the horizon, and I tied to imagine myself riding a bike all the way down to the Balklans and back. It's a bloody long way! 

A reasonably uneventful ferry crossing was followed by a reasonably uneventful 200 across Belgium to a lovely little campsite on the Luxemburg border. Wifi let me communicate with Tracy as I had already created a problem for myself. At the campsite in Kent my smart phone had stopped working as when I took the back off ( I thought taking the battery out might help) the screen cracked. Now it won't work at all - totally unresponsive to my touch. Not so bloody smart after all.

So I have no phone. And therefore no easy way to take photos to put online. I have a small camera but can't upload the pictures and I have iPad but haven't used it to take any photos yet. Sorry, I'll remedy that asap.

I also carry a lot of my money with a preloaded Caxton MasterCard. But it appears to not work, a PIN number problem, even though Tracy used it in the USA a few months ago. So I have to email them and get that sorted out.

I don't know, I manage to ride half way around the world and when I want to go on a shortish easyish trip to the Balkans technology lets me down. 

Day three saw me ride across Luxemburg ( I knew  I had enter Luxemburg as I saw a sign that said so, and I knew I was in Luxemburg because I filled up on reasonably cheap petrol, but I didn't see where/ when I left Luxemburg so perhaps, in a way, I'm still there) 300 miles later I was in Augsburg, Bavaria - Heidi had come home - the B in BMW stands for Bavaria for those of you who know less than me :)

I have been to Augsburg once before, 29 years ago looking for work on my doomed GAP year. Then I was camping in van with two other people. It didn't end well. This time I'm on a perfectly performing Bavarian motorcycle and spent the night in a cheap IBIS Budget hotel (cheap in Europe means £30) 

The 18 year old me, in 1986, couldn't have dreamed of things like WiFi and IPads and the Internet. I wonder if the next 29 years will bring as many amazing changes. I doubt it. I think those of us old enough to remember life before the Internet but young enough to appreciate it now, really have lived through something special. I tell my teenage students this. And in a way I feel sorry for them. They can't, just can't, appreciate all we now have in the same way that we do. 

Or maybe it's just an age thing. 29 years is a bloody long time. I wish I could back to 1986 and tell myself to go to Berlin. But be quick about it, the wall won't be there for ever! I would have laughed. Oh and while you're at it buy a house, you won't believe what will happen to house prices!

I think I'm getting a little obsessed with the weather. Bloody Internet, tells you everything. And today it told me that a huge storm was coming through central Europe. Anyone out on the road, or camping would surely die after being hit by lightning. If you've read my book, or know me a little then you'll know that I've got a ( I would say perfectly legitimate and sensible) fear of lightning. So a slight change of plans for Saturday. Just 100 miles today to a small Bavarian village with a nice hotel, after an unexpected detour to visit Dachau Concentration camp.

You can take the History teacher out the classroom.....

I've been to a couple of Nazi concentration camps so I wasn't expecting to be overly moved by Dachau ( In the right way if you know what I mean) -  I was wrong. I took an audio tour and spent a couple of hours wandering around the vast complex, just north of Munich. I found myself at the crematorium  and was quick overcome by it all. I remember visiting the crematorium in Auchwitz and thinking that I never want to do that again, and then I find myself in Dachau's crematorium. 

Sometimes, as a History teacher, I wonder if I've become a little blasé about this sort of thing. And then I come to a place like this and while I'm wandering around, wondering why I spend a little time watching my fellow tourists. Although we're not really tourists or at least we're not supposed to be tourists. Dachau isn't, or at least to my mind shouldn't be, somewhere you go as a tourist. I didn't actually see any 'selfie sticks' but people where taking photos with themselves, smiling, in the shot. Chatting, loudly, about all sorts of things as they walked around and just generally oblivious to the quiet, reflective, somber ambience they were cutting through. 

As I sat, near the crematorium, contemplating man's ( and it is, usually man's ) inhumanity to man, and how we still haven't overcome this yet- I'm well aware that I'm on my way to the Balkans! - two British students passed me. Fully kitted out in rugger shirts, shorts, flip flops and carry loaded backpacks, one was even carrying a rugby ball with him. They were openly discussing the methods of the SS. 

'Travel broadens the mind' but sometimes it can be hard to see. 

*Less introspection and more (ie some)  photos next time, I promise. But at least I've remembered why I write a blog. It helps me process my thoughts and ideas as I'm on the road.

Four countries in one day tomorrow as I head to Croatia. 29 years ago an 18 year old me would have been astonished by that sentence. 

 

And I’m off. Heading to Kent today full of apprehension and excitement.(About the whole trip - not Kent)

 You’d think, with the amount of traveling I’ve done I’d have got used to it but the start of a trip is always a little exciting and worrying. I woke up this morning knowing that I won’t be sleeping in my bed again for 6 weeks. That’s exciting. I packed my bike up – that’s exciting and I looked at the weather forecast – always exciting!

I had planned my route out through Europe to Bosnia but got an email yesterday from Trent. Trent’s an American friend who lives in Alaska (I met him in Argentina in 1996) and he’s currently cycling in Europe with his family. I think he’ll be in northern Austria on Saturday so I might change my plans and ride across to see him for a day.

Other than that I’m ready to go. As Tracy isn’t coming I seem to have a lot of space on the bike but I’m trying to fight the urge to ‘take more stuff’ I know I don’t need it. I’ve had a big debate with myself over which tent to take. I have a small one and a large one. I know that if I’m camping and it’s raining I’d like to be in the larger one but can I really justify taking a 3 person tent which is quite big and heavy?? No, so I’m taking my small, light two person tent. I hope I don’t regret it.

A day of packing, unpacking, re-packing. You'd think I had the hang of this packing thing by now!

Off to Kent tomorrow and then an early ferry ride to France. Spending the night camping in Belgium and then heading down through Germany to Austria.

Quick trip through Slovenia (I was in Slovenia last summer and it was an amazing country to bike in) and through Croatia and I should be in Bosnia by Monday.

Looking forward to talking to the Coventry and Warwick Advanced Motorcyclists Wednesday night.

And then preparing for my summer trip next week.

From 19th to 21st June I'll be at http://www.overlandevent.com/

I'll be doing a presentation on the saturday.

Book now for a great weekend of adventure travel fun, information and food.

Latest review for my book 6th May 2015.

Gone Riding is up there with the best. Dom brings a unique perspective to his journey through North America and Africa. Having recently read many motorcycle travel books I have been quite impressed by the quality of writing. This is no exception. The breadth of experiences encountered by travellers on, what are often, quite similar journeys continues to surprise and inform. Unlike many writers Dom includes depth and detail about North America which is often given less focus by others. Humorous, emotional, informative, honest and touching.