An epic adventure across the Balkans
Leaving Greece behind, a road of surprises lay ahead, with each country more beautiful than the one before. Visiting North-Macedonia felt like discovering a hidden gem. Although we spent less than two weeks there, it quickly became clear that cities buzzed with life and nature was simply magnificent. Bustling fruit and vegetable markets decorated the city centre with enormous piles of apples, heaps of cherries and little cups of berries. Living healthy suddenly became very easy, and cheap.
In the evening the city truly came alive. Children ran and played around the square, families and friends met up for a drink, little stalls appeared along the streets and young couples timidly walked along on their first date. But as it goes when on the road, we soon had to leave the liveliness behind and continue our journey.
Having managed to buy our motorcycle insurance for Albania online, we decided to take a smaller border to enter Albania (the Blato border). We thought nothing could beat the splendour of North-Macedonia, but alas, once again we were proven wrong. The natural beauty and ruggedness of Albania were refreshing. True mountains decorated the landscape, a group of the cutest little pigs dotted the roadside and the biggest figs we have ever seen could be found at the fruit- and vegetable stalls along the road. The size made the peel so tough that, as it turned out, these figs had to be peeled before eating! Oh, and did I mention the amount of amazing street dogs? Although this wasn’t an entirely new phenomenon. Both in Greece and North-Macedonian there was no shortage of street dogs to give some love and attention.
Needing to reach Hamburg within about three weeks, the journey kept sweeping us forward along Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakija, Czechia and finally, Germany.
In Montenegro we were greeted by clouds and a beautiful thunderstorm. Maybe it’s just me, but don’t mountains always look more beautiful when being hugged by dark, stormy clouds? Lighting lit up the skies, thunder rolled through the valley and rain drops hit down on us. I use the word hit deliberately, as, riding through the rain there truly felt like being hit by tiny water bullets. Luckily, these water bullets are peaceful and don’t really mean any harm.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina we were rather disappointed by Mostar, but staying the night at ‘Kamp Nirvana’ with Dragan the day after, made up for that. Still unloading our motorbikes after a long day’s ride, food was already being prepared for us. The evening was spent talking with Dragan and his family over drinks and in the morning we were served freshly caught catfish. Oh, was it delicious!
The last more exotic feeling stop was Hungary. We started to feel that we were getting closer to Western-Europe as we know it. The food was still delicious and the landscape beautiful, albeit more rural and man-maintained. Endless fields of grain, sunflowers dancing with the sun and magnificent old-looking houses hidden away. And have you ever heard Hungarian? It’s nothing like the other languages we heard in the area. For someone not speaking the language one bit, it sounded rather like a Nordic language with a Balkan twist. City names were composed of a heap of letters, often containing the words ‘Magyar’ or ‘Gregy’. For sure this is a language I might learn a little more about in the future!
After Hungary we met back up with the Europe of rules, speed cameras, cleanliness and less happy looking faces. The people we met were still amazingly kind, but somehow when looking around, we felt more of a hurried unhappiness. Places started to look more and more alike. The same chain restaurants. The same multinational clothing stores. Big money throwing smaller players out of the market, or at least out of sight. A little greyer, a little less common sense and a little more rules.
It felt disheartening and slightly frightening to realise that this is our society. Are we happy with it? Not that much. Does it have its benefits? For sure, and a lot of them, and that’s exactly what makes it so easy to give away freedom for so called safety. Our society has many good things to offer, but never forget to make choices for you and not because it somehow feels like society expects it from you.
Choose you, because you deserve it.
