Balkans Road Trip Part 2: Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina

The first four days of our Balkan countries road trip were mostly spent in Croatia, which wasn’t necessarily by choice, but instead due to the fact that we were denied border entry so many times. Luckily, this gave us more time to fall in love with the country, the people, the food, the sea, and everything else in Croatia. If you haven’t read the first post from our Balkan countries road trip, head on over there now by clicking here and then you can return for the second leg and pick up reading below!

This part of our road trip went by way too fast as we had a lot of ground to catch up and cover within the 5 days that we had our new rental car. We ventured into one, and sometimes two, countries a day. We drove a lot of miles on this section of the trip, but covered a lot of ground and saw even more of the landscapes and countries. Enjoy reading our story and if you loved it or even just liked it, feel free to give it a share or some feedback at the end! Cheers!

Day 5: Montenegro to Albania

Before we left Autocamp Naluka that morning, a sweet little lady came around and offered us fresh bread for 70 cents. It was basically a huge doughnut and she filled mine with chocolate syrup. It was the sweetest, warmest, most delicious breakfast I had during our entire trip.

We left the campground and headed into downtown Kotor around 8 am. We parked by the bay and walked in through the town walls. It was the cutest town and somewhat reminded me of Vicenza, Italy, but way less crowded. The one thing that made Kotor stand out from every other city I’ve visited was the number of cats! I’m not exaggerating. There were cats everywhere. There’s even a cat museum. Don’t get me wrong.  The cats were friendly enough and didn’t run when we tried to pet them. But, let’s just say that my pup was not a fan of Kotor. Still, I thought it was absolutely beautiful. It seemed like a place that doesn’t attract a lot of tourists and that’s what makes it so special. In the Bay of Kotor, we saw some incredibly nice yachts that looked like they belong to some important people.

Do you see the sign for Cat Museum? See, I wasn’t exaggerating!

I would have liked to spend more time in Montenegro, but we had a few more countries to tackle before returning the rental car, so we headed to Albania. Albania is considered a second world country, but we have heard the beaches there are beautiful, and the Albanian Riviera is gorgeous. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to head that far south, so we’ll save that for another trip!

When we first entered Albania, it was a total change of scenery. We could see the poverty and poor living conditions as we crossed the border from Montenegro. The first town we came upon was Shkodër, which we avoided all together and instead drove toward a mountaintop castle/fortress we had spotted nearby. Rozafa Castle, a landmark Venetian limestone castle, was worth the 4€ for the both of us. Its walls stretched more than 1 km and although it was well kept, it was almost completely vacant. The chronology of the walls dates back to 4th century BC. Inside, the monuments were incredible, making it worth the price of admission.

Castle inhabitant.

After the short detour to the castle, we continued on to Lake Ohrid where we would search for a campground by the lake. Some of the things we saw while driving through Albania aren’t necessarily your everyday sightings, including: a donkey carrying tons of bags on its back; a guy carrying a lawnmower on the back of his motorcycle (can you picture that?!); beggars in the middle of the road; absolutely insane drivers; and some type of tall, straw or hay huts out in the fields. And, we had to stop and wait for several farmers and their cows to cross the road. There are not many highways in the north where we were, and the autostrada that we were on for a short time was seemingly new and there were no tolls. It appears their roadway system is not as modern as most of the surrounding European countries.

We found a campsite near Pogradec on Lake Ohrid, Camping REI – a very basic campground. For 5€, it was an amazing deal. For once, we had electricity without requiring a specific camping plug, and they had a restaurant on site right by the lake. We had a fantastic dinner there while watching the sunset over Lake Ohrid. It was a delightful evening, and the people at the campground were extremely friendly towards us.

Costs & More Info:

• Albania Currency: Albanian Lek (LEK)
• Rozafa Castle, Albania: 2 €/person **we paid everything in € due to no convenient ATMs in sight
  • Address: Rruga Rozafa, Shkodër, Albania
• Camping REI, Albania cost for one night: 5€
  • Address: E86, Albania
  • Website: https://www.pogradec.info

Day 6: Macedonia & Bulgaria

Crossing the Macedonia border from Albania at 8 am with no other cars in sight made us think we were going the wrong way! That is, until we rolled up to the border control and a guy was sitting inside the glass office. We crossed the border without any hiccups.

Our first excursion for the day was National Park Galicica where we could see Baba Mountain, which I had read about. I was unaware that we had to pay to enter the national park, but luckily we had a few euro coins left over to cover the 4€ entrance fee to drive through. It was a beautiful drive and there were numbered spots along the way for scenic viewpoints and picnic areas. A few stopping points throughout the park featured panoramic views of Lake Ohrid, which is saying a lot because the lake is massive. From these points are also wonderful views of the curvy roads throughout the Park.

Driving through Galicica is incredible, and if you’re lucky when you pass Baba Mountain, you might see hang gliders or paragliders taking flight. We saw a group unloading and beginning their hike up to the mountain. There are many hiking trails throughout the park as well.  One note of caution:  the road through the park has very low visibility and can be dangerous at times, so there’s no need to speed.

Verbascum flower in National Park Galicica

After exiting the park, our next stop was Skopje – the capital of Macedonia. Since we didn’t have any of the local currency on hand, we had to avoid the highways with tolls. Usually, this works in our favor because we get to see beautiful backroads, but this was not the case in Macedonia. The roads weren’t much more than a few meters wide and consisted of mostly dirt, rocks, and lots and lots of potholes.

It reminded me of a time that I was a kid with my family on a trip Out West.  We got lost on what seemed like a “dirt road to nowhere” and almost didn’t find our way out. That’s how I felt driving on these back roads of Macedonia, and I was thanking God that I had remembered to purchase full protection for our rental car. It’s all about the adventure, right?

We made it to Skopje (with possibly mild concussions from the bumpy backroads!) and found a parking lot near the town center. We walked around this handsome town admiring the plentiful statues – mostly consisting of men on horses. The center square had the most incredible water fountain with an elevated statue – Alexander the Great on his horse Bucephalus – with lions surrounding the base. The scene it created was quite moving. There are statues everywhere, including along the many pedestrian bridges. Skopje is a very modern-looking city. For example, the statue bridge, which you can see in a photograph below, was just built in 2013. In the summer, it can get super hot and you won’t find much shade, which probably explains why people were playing in the river. We sought out a cool spot at a nearby restaurant and tried a local dish that I had read about called traditional meso. It’s usually a pork or beef dish prepared in a clay pot. This dish includes onions, mushrooms, spices, tomatoes and some yummy smoked meat which gives the dish the distinct flavor it is known for. It was amazingly delicious, but very heavy.

Considering it was only 1:30 in the afternoon when we finished lunch, we decided to continue driving rather than spending more time in Skopje. I used the WiFi at the restaurant to book us a hotel near downtown Sofia, Bulgaria, which was only a few hours’ drive, and we could make it before dark. We had been camping for the last few nights, so it was time for a hotel.

When we crossed the border into Bulgaria, they required a vignette for the toll roads (which we didn’t have). The guy at the border control was super rude, and wouldn’t even point us in the right direction to purchase one.. So we didn’t. Once we passed the vignette cameras, we knew we were going to get a ticket no matter what, so just kept going. (I’ll keep you updated on how much that fine is. I don’t recommend doing this by the way!)

I can’t even describe how many sunflower fields we saw while driving through Bulgaria. There were miles and miles of them, as far as the eye could see. Sunflowers have a special place in my heart. They just make me smile. As an aside, the one great thing about this road trip was the fact that we weren’t using data during the day so we kept our phones on airplane mode and could truly enjoy the sights around us. I rolled the window down and just gazed at the tons of sunflower fields as we drove by.

In Sofia, we stayed at Hotel Forum and, being that we had driven so much, we just had dinner at the hotel that night. Stephen had a traditional Bulgarian dish, and I enjoyed a fresh salad. It was nice to be back in a hotel for a night.

Costs & More Info:

• Macedonia Currency: Macedonian Denar (den)
• National Park Galicica, Macedonia: 2 €/person 
  • GPS Points for Park Entrance: 40°56’38.8″N 20°47’22.2″E
• Skopje, Macedonia Lunch Recommendation: Restaurant Dion
• Bulgaria Currency: Bulgarian Lev (‎лв)
• Hotel Forum in Sofia, Bulgaria price for one night: 35 euros 
  • Address: bul. “Tsar Boris III” 41, 1612 Hipodruma, Sofia, Bulgaria 
  • Website: booking.com

Day 7: Serbia

Serbia was not part of our original route. It was more of a last-minute kind of decision (like at the hotel in Bulgaria).  Sometimes social media and politics cause us to fall into this trap of thinking places like these are so terrible and are off-limits for Americans to travel. Well, let me tell you from experience, Serbia is the complete opposite. It ended up being one of my favorite countries on this trip.

We left our hotel in Sofia and drove toward the Serbian border. This was by far the easiest border crossing we had come to and the guards were super nice. I immediately fell in love with the Serbian landscape for one reason: sunflower fields. They were everywhere. Miles and miles of them. I pretty much stayed glued to the window the entire drive through the country that day. They have beautiful landscapes, great roadways, rolling hills – this sort of sounds like the midwest!

Our plan was to explore National Park Djerdap (meaning Iron Gate) and visit a castle along the way. The Danube River pierces through the Carpathian mountains here, creating the biggest and most beautiful gorge. We stopped at a stunning fortress on the Danube River, Golubac Fortress. It was, unfortunately, under construction at the time so we weren’t able to go in and visit the castle but instead, we got out, stretched our legs and walked around the grounds viewing some of the artifacts and roman baths. The Golubac Fortress is a medieval fortification that was built at the very entrance to the Djerdap Gorge atop the tall cliffs of Ridan Rock. It was a place where many battles and wars were fought because of its extremely important geostrategic position at the confines of the great empires of Hungary, Serbia, and Turkey. The plan was to drive through National Park Djerdap but we still had a few more hours until we reached Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, so we scratched that plan and went straight for Belgrade.

In Belgrade, we stayed at Life Design Hotel, within walking distance of many places. We dropped our stuff off and then went out to explore. First stop was a walk through the park where we found many vendors and pop up shops along the way, a great place to purchase souvenirs. On the other side of the park sits the Belgrade Fortress. It was one of the coolest parts of the city. From the back of the fortress, we had an incredible panoramic view of part of the Danube River. There is a military museum and so much history within the walls. Here you will also find tanks from different wars and countries, torpedoes, missiles, and much more. The entrance to the fortress is free unless you want to do anything extra like taking a tour or exploring a museum. There’s also an interesting dinosaur park inside the castle walls to keep kids entertained.

I loved Belgrade and the vibe it gave off. The people were so nice, and the city was clean and rich in history. It was not at all what I expected.

Costs & More Info:

• Serbian Currency: Dinars RSD (РСД)
• Golubac Fortress
  • Cost for parking: 100 РСД
  • Address: Golubac, Serbia
• Life Design Hotel in Belgrade, Serbia price for one night: 7,718.12 РСД
  • Address: Balkanska 18, Beograd 11102, Serbia
  • Website: booking.com
• Belgrade Dinner Recommendation: Manufaktura
  • Address: Kralja Petra 13, Beograd 11000, Serbia

Day 8: Bosnia and Herzegovina

Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hotel, and it gave me serious flashbacks to the amazing breakfast we had on our honeymoon in Sardinia. They served American breakfast items like pancakes, scrambled eggs, and breakfast sandwiches…oh, those pancakes were so fluffy.

With bellies full, we retrieved the car from the parking garage and began driving toward Bosnia. If you read my first post, you know that we were denied entry into Bosnia not once, but twice due to rental car problems. So we were very anxious about driving to the border this morning. Not only that reason, but because all I’ve ever heard about Bosnia and Herzegovina was through the news reporting about fighting and wars. Nothing I read online prepared me for the sights I would see there.

The first city we visited in Bosnia was Sarajevo. I had heard from many previous travelers that it was a wonderful city and a must-see. It must’ve been the mood that day, but Sarajevo was just simply not for me. The first thing we did was search for somewhere to eat and quickly decided on Kolobara, a lovely little garden type place. I was ecstatic to order the Bosnian coffee, which I had read extensively about. It’s traditional to drink it very slow and it was quite delicious. Although, I drank mine a little too slow and it ended up getting cold. While we were in the middle of our meal, a little boy came up to us begging for money or bread. Since we had no local currency, we offered him bread and he actually denied it and said he just wanted money. There were so many beggars that came through while we were eating lunch that it just became uncomfortable. After lunch, while walking through the streets crowded with vendors and shops, people were constantly asking us for things, offering us products and bordering on pushy. The worst part was that they weren’t speaking English, so I had no idea what they were saying nor could I respond. The whole ordeal just made me super uncomfortable and I couldn’t wait to get out of that city.

Without doing much exploring, we left and headed to Mostar. At this point in the day, I was really starting to understand why people don’t visit Bosnia. But after driving through the countryside, I quickly changed my mind. The mountains, the river, the roads, they were all so beautiful. The river was a blue-green color that was just gorgeous with the sun shining down on it, and the mountains had shapes and curvatures in it that we had never seen before.

Once arriving in Mostar, we found a parking spot along the road and headed toward the Stari Most, the most famous bridge in the city. We walked along the old town road and it had the coolest vibe. There were cute little shops all along the way, just as there were in Sarajevo, but with a whole different attitude. Copper was one of the common things we saw among the shops. The bridge, Stari Most – rebuilt from 16th-century Ottoman era – was massive. We walked across it and then down to the water just in time to see someone dive off. It is very dangerous to jump from this bridge and apparently only with a license are you allowed to jump.

We stayed at Pansion Rose, just down the street from the Stari Most. It was basically a house where they rent each room out separately – good enough for us for one night.

Bosnia and Herzegovina surprised me. They are war-torn nations, which is evidenced by the numerous buildings littered with bullet holes or collapsed from bombings.  The locals don’t want to talk about the war and are instead using tourism to aid in their recovery. Amazingly, in many of the shops around town, you will find (and can purchase) bullets, souvenirs made out of bullets, and other memorabilia from the wars in Bosnia. It was a sobering experience to walk among the streets of these towns where such tragedies unfolded.  I had a somber feeling in Mostar when walking by what’s referred to as “the Sniper building.”  It takes one back, makes us think.  It really made me grateful for what I have and it conjured up so many other feelings about America and the freedom we sometimes take for granted.

Costs & More Info:

• Bosnia Currency: Marks (KM)
• Sarajevo Lunch Recommendation: Kolobara
• Pansion Rose in Mostar, Bosnia price for one night: 
  • Address: Bulevar bb, Mostar 88000, Bosnia & Herzegovina
  • Website: booking.com

We hope you enjoyed reading about our adventure from the second part of our Balkan countries road trip. To read about the final stretch of the road trip including exploring the countries of Austria, Hungary, and Slovenia, click here for that post. For more photos, be sure to follow along with us on Instagram at instagram.com/outsidethissmalltown. If you’re looking to rent a car or search for a great hotel room, use the search engine below and support our site!

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