Bosnia Has Three Presidents

A Few More Hours in Montenegro and Then It’s Onward to Bosnia and Herzegovina 

Our last morning in Kotor we had until 10 am to explore. Since Em was finally starting to look human again and really wanted to see something more than our apartment walls and the waterfront, we ventured back to Old Town. The nice thing about being out and about at 7:30 am, is that most other people aren’t. We had a great time snapping away with our cameras and wandering the street of Old Town and the old ramparts unimpeded by fellow tourists, or really even locals. Em even managed to walk about for 2+ hours (abet slowly) without dying; so I called it a win.

When the whole group piled into the mini bus to head to a local Montenegrin style lunch, we were told that it would be a two hour ride, so we settled in for our drive, but were surprised when 20 minutes later we were stopping and told to disembark. It turns out that Zejko and Louise were surprising us with a trip to the islet, Our Lady of the Rocks. It is an artificial island just off the shore from the small town of Perast, that was created by bulwark of rocks and by sinking old and seized ships loaded with rocks.

The legend of the area goes that on July 22, 1452, some local fisherman saw an image of Madonna and Child on a rock in the area where the island now stands. When one of the fishermen, who was sick, touched the image, he was healed. Because of the image and the power it held, the local people of the area wanted to honor the Virgin, so they decided to make her an island and then build a church on it. The island was built over centuries by passing boats tossing rocks into the bay. The tradition still continues to this day, when at sunset every July 22nd, the locals climb in their boats, head out to the islet, and drop additional rocks in the water; thus slowly enlarging the island.

The church is most famous for a votive tapestry embroidered by Jacinta Kunić-Mijović from Perast. While waiting for the return of her husband from Sea, she spent 25 years embroidering the tapestry with such fine stitches that she eventually went blind. She used golden and silver fibers throughout, but what makes this tapestry so famous is the fact that she also embroidered her own hair into it (and you can see her age progression via the color of the hair used). The sad part is that both versions of the story’s end with the husband never coming back.

Randomly of note, there is one additional islet next to Our Lady of the Rocks and that is Saint George’s island. It is a natural island that is only big enough to hold the small 12th century Benedictine Monastery and tiny graveyard that are located there. What makes it more interested in is that this island is part of Hungary. They have a 100 year lease on the island. 

It was a fun little excursion to take the motor boat out to the island, wander around the church (which is also a mini museum of sorts), and then continue on our way to lunch in the country. 

In the down season, Louise likes to rent a car and drive aimlessly along the different roads throughout the Balkans. This is how she discovers random different locations that are slightly off the beaten path and wonderful. It seems though that word of some of these places has gotten back to others, as they’re not so secret gems anymore. One such gem that Louise found in her wandering was Etno Selo lzlazak, an ethnic Montenegrin village overlooking the rich blue and green hues of Piva lake. The village sits at the edge of the borders between Durmitor National Park and Piva Regional Park and contains bungalows and a restaurant. The operators will also organize excursions into the parks or along the Piva river for you if you opt for it.

Because we were having exceptional weather (in that it wasn’t “boil your skin off” hot), we opted to sit on the patio overlooking the lake. Our companions at lunch were some local kittens that we kept encouraging to come closer with fish heads and chicken. The best part of this was that Dale seems to detest cats (even the adorable fuzzy kittens) due to thinking they’re the devil incarnate, so of course we took great pleasure in trying to get the kittens to come close to him and brush up against his legs. We had a great lunch, where in traditional Balkan style they fed us too much food so that by the time we piled back in the minibus and were 10 miles down the road, the van was living up to its nickname of “The Narcoleptic Van.”

When we crossed the border from Albania to Montenegro, it took an exceptionally long time considering there really weren’t that many cars and nothing we could see to really cause a hold up. Louise said that that was just kind of typical at the Albanian border. But as we came to the Montenegrin and Bosnia and Herzegovina border, the cars were crawling forward at such a slow pace that a few us got out, walked to the tavern, had a cup of coffee, and caught back up with the van 20 minutes and 200 yards from crossing the border. This is where we reassessed the data and determined it’s not the Albanians that are the problem, it’s that the Montenegrins are lazy. It’s not unusual for there only to be one guy working the border and then for that guy to get up randomly, close the gate, and go for a coffee. I’ll admit that Bosnian coffee is wonderful, but I’m not sure it’s worth the aggravation and time delay of so many that you should leave your post in the middle of the working day.

Just shy of an hour wait at the border and then a three hour drive through gorgeous mountains, past cute little towns marred by evidence of the Bosnian War and we arrived in Sarajevo; our home for the evening and the following day.

Sarajevo, the Capital of a Country With Three Presidents

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a very unique country in that it is comprised of three main ethnic/religious groups: Serbs (Orthodox Christians), Bosnian Croats (Catholics) and Bosniaks (Muslims). As a condition of the peace treaty that ended the Bosnian War (which took place between 1992 and 1995) the country is required to have three presidents at all time; one for each major group. Even though the country is called Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is comprised of two autonomous entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia is primarily the area in which the Bosniaks live and Herzegovina is primarily the area in which the Bosnian Croats live) and Republika Srpska (the area where the Serbs primarily live). Sarajevo is the capital of the entire country, even though it sits in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Due to its long and rich history of religious and cultural diversity, Sarajevo is sometimes called the "Jerusalem of Europe"or "Jerusalem of the Balkans". It is one of only a few major European cities which have a mosque, Catholic church, Orthodox Church and synagogue all within the same neighborhood. 

As a result of its size, diversity, and status as the capital, it was surrounded early in the Bosnian War by Serbian forces, which resulted in the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare (April 5th, 1992 until February 29th, 1995). Because of the siege, the citizens of the city were almost completely cut off from the rest of the world (for periods of time, there was no water, food, electricity, or monetary system in place...denizens bartered and used cigarettes as currency) and subjected to daily rocket and mortar attacks, as well as sniper fire. Over 11,000 civilians were killed during the siege. 

Today, many people have returned to the city and Serbs, Bosniaks, and Bosnian Croats live side by side once again (with some underlying tensions, but mostly peaceful). The physical scars left from rockets and bullets remain on most of the buildings throughout the city (and the country) partially due to lack of funds to fix them and partially as a reminder of that turbulent time. The effect of the hustle and bustle of the modern city with the evidence of war that is only a few decades old creates a kind of surreal feeling. There are newer, post-war buildings interspersed between the hollowed out remains of burned buildings and those that are still lived in but pockmarked with bullet and rocket holes. 

After the war, the scars left in concrete from the mortars hitting the ground (and taking human life) were filled in with a red resin. The resin harden and made the areas look like abstract flowers. As a result, these areas were dubbed Sarajevo Roses and the locals consider it bad juju to walk over them.

In addition to the most recent war, Bosnia and Herzegovina - Sarajevo in particular - is also the site on another very important historical event; this is where self-declared Yugoslav, Gavrilo Princip, a member of Young Bosnia assassinated the Archduke of Austria Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, on June 28, 1914, thus instigating World War I.

Our group only really had one full day in Sarajevo, so while the Aussie contingent opted for a multiple hour tour that discussed in depth the Bosnian War and took them to important sites, Em and I split from the others in order to pack in as much as we could. 

We started the day with a walking tour of the main downtown/Old Town area. The tour started at the site of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, walked us across the Latin Bridge (which is also called the Gavrilo Princip bridge after the belief that he was standing on the bridge earlier in the day during the failed attempt on Ferdinand’s life), to the City Hall (which was burned almost completely during the war obliterating over 2,000,000 important books and documents...it’s been rebuilt and renovated since), and through the Old Town, with its various cultural sections. 

This was the only day of our trip (to date) where the weather wasn’t cooperating. About 20 minutes into the tour strong winds from the mini hurricane occurring in Croatia at the same time started knocking souvenirs from stalls and stirring up the dirt in the air. This was coupled a short time later by light rain and led to our tour leader shortening the “walking” portion of the walking tour in favor of having the group retreat to a coffee shop to try Bosnian coffee. I had tried Bosnian coffee a few times before this in the preceding days and determined that I really liked it (like actually enjoyed the taste whereas most coffee I just drink with creamer and honey out of habit and addiction rather than care for it), so I was game.

Bosnian Coffee is similar to Turkish coffee in that it is a strong, thick coffee served with the grounds still in the cup. The coffee is made by putting 2-3 small spoonfuls of grounds in a small metal (typically copper) container and heating it until the aroma wafts up. Then water is added, along with another spoonful of grounds, and left to boil three times. 

The coffee is served in the metal container in which it was brewed, on a platter with a small cup (probably holds about an ounce, two at the most), two sugar cubes, and a piece of Turkish delight. The proper way to drink the coffee is to lightly dunk a sugar cube in the coffee, take a nibble, and then take a sip of coffee. You repeat this process until the coffee and sugar are gone. Each container of coffee gets you one or two (if you’re lucky) small cups. 

Shortly after coffee, the walking tour concluded and Em and I decided to visit a few of the local museums to get out from the worst of the inclement weather. Our first stop was the Velika Avlija (The Old Temple), a Sephardic Synagogue built in 1581. The synagogue was built by donations from Turkish Beylerbey Sijamush Pasha as a way to help the poorer Jews in the city. 

Due to the Spanish Inquisition in the 1490s, a large percentage of Sephardic Jews from Spain fled to Bosnia and were welcomed with open arms by the Ottoman Empire. Ashkenazi Jews began migrating to the city in the mid-1600s when the Ottomans were expelled from Hungary. Just before World War II, there were around 20,000 Jewish citizens in Bosnia, 14,000 of which lived in Sarajevo. Today, there are barely 1,000 in the whole of the country. Velika Avlija currently serves as a museum dedicated to World War II and the Jewish populace of the area during that time. The only time the synagogue is used for active ceremonies and services is during specific High Holy days. 

Next we wandered through the narrow streets to the Despić House, a 18th century Ottoman merchant house that has been preserved to show what it would have looked like during that time. When we arrived, there were movie makers and actors milling about so the proprietor told us that we didn’t need to pay to enter since they’d kind of taken over various parts of the house. While I thought it was interesting to walk through a movie set of some sort (they were currently just sitting around waiting for the rain to stop), Em was less than impressed that work followed her half way around the world. I think the crew was even more surprised that tourists where still wandering around their “set” since the property was open to the public even though they were making a film.

After our trip to the 18th century, we returned to the present to visit the Gazi Husrev-beg's Mosque, Madrasa (school of learning), library, and museum. Husrev-Beg was a Bosniak Ottoman Governor in the 16th century who was known for developing and constructing many parts of Old Sarajevo and for helping the Turks expand their territory further into present day Croatia. 

The mosque was built in 1530 AD and is the biggest historical mosque in Bosnia and Herzegovina and a great example of Ottoman structural design. We didn’t venture inside, but saw the exterior. We did however, go into the modern Husrev-beg library (this one opened in 2014, but the original one dates to the 1500s), where there was a small museum with donated artifacts related to Islamic calligraphy, time keeping, and traditional dress. There also was a video about the saving of volumes from the original library during the War.

A quick lunch and then we headed to catch the Tunnel Tour. When we arrived at the tour office, we found out that the tour for that day consisted of an entire Dutch contingent (20 older individuals and one guide who broken off from a larger tour group) and us. This led to an interesting experience. I think that the Dutch group thought they were going on a private tour to the tunnel and probably wondered how they picked up two young Americans. 

The Bosnian tour leader spoke amazing English and was a great orator. On the 30 minute drive to the Tunnel of Life, he told us an abridged version of the history of the country, focusing on the Bosnian War (as this tour was about that). While Em and I enjoyed the history lesson, some of the Dutch waited 20 minutes to say they couldn’t hear anything nor understand what they could hear. This led to their tour leader translating a portion of the rest of the guide’s words, but only some. It didn’t really help the hard of hearing folks cause they continued to grumble for the rest of the afternoon even though they were sitting closest to where the guide was talking and he projected his voice well.

The Tunnel of Life was an 800m tunnel that was dug between the Sarajevo Airport (once it was claimed from Serbian forces by NATO forces) and a neighborhood within the besieged city. The tunnel took four months and four days of nonstop digging to create and was 800m long, 1.6m tall, and 1m wide. 

Once it was constructed, it was the only way for food, weapons, medicine, and support to get into the city and the only way for refugees to flee the city. Anyone and everyone (once vetted) were allowed to go through the tunnel and it was open unidirectionally for two hours one way before transitioning to the other direction. 

The matriarch of the family that owned the property where the tunnel popped out would greet the wary travelers with water as the emerged from the tunnel. She was nicknamed “The Light at the End of the Tunnel” and is considered now a national hero for putting herself and her family in peril to save countless others.

Due to lack of preservation until it was almost too late, only a small portion (23m) of the original tunnel exists today. That 23m has been preserved and turned into a museum that talks about the need for the tunnel, its creation, and and how it saved the besieged city. While the museum was well done and had what I believe were some nice exhibits, we were rushed through and didn’t really have a chance to see much. I didn’t even get enough time to take a non-blurry picture of the Tunnel section we walked through. The tour leader later apologized and said he’d kind of rushed us through because of the large Dutch group that wasn’t understanding anything and complaining. 

When we arrived back in the Old Town from the Tunnel tour, Em and I had just enough time to do one additional touristy thing. We took the brand new (opened on April 6th of this year) cable car to the top of Mt. Trebević. The original cable car was opened for business in 1959 and was used by many to get to the top of the mountain; a favorite excursion site for many locals and tourists alike. It unfortunately met an untimely demise early in the Siege of Sarajevo and the area around it was littered with mines and snipers, making it far less attractive. 25 years after the war, the cable cars are once again running.

Besides the novelty of the 8 minute ride up the mountain with amazing views of the rain soaked city, Em and I had an ulterior motive for the excursion; to visit the decaying 1984 Winter Olympic bobsled and luge track. The sign at the top of the hill wasn’t the most intuitive, so after some bumbling around (including a short excursion through a small bramble covered path that Em insisted was a real trail), we found what we were searching for. After the Olympics were finished, the tracks were used for additional competitions until 1992 when it was taken by the Bosnian Serb forces as an artillery outpost. After the war, there was talk of fixing the tracks so that they can be reused again for their original purposed, but for the last 25 years, the bobsled and lunge tracks have been left to be reclaimed by the earth.

Over the past few decades, the tracks have become a Mecca for graffiti artists, cyclists, and adventurous travelers. Due to the inclement weather, Em and I didn’t have to fight off hordes of other tourists for shots of the graffiti covered runs. We had the whole place to ourselves and merrily wandered down the first course, happily snapping away with our cameras.

We capped our time in Sarajevo off with a nice dinner at the local brewery (where I found a dark beer that I thoroughly enjoyed), followed by a diabetic inducting waffle. The kid at the waffle counter says you can pick whatever you want as a topping and proceeds to pile the sugar on. It was delicious, but definitely sugar overload.

1300 Steps for a View isn’t that Bad

Montenegro and the Adriatic Coast

We left Albania and crossed the border into Montenegro, where we headed for the Adriatic Coast. Montenegro translates to Black Mountain and was one of the six republics in Tito’s Yugoslavia. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia they tried to stay a socialist county with Serbia, but eventually they declared their own independence in 2006 via referendum by vote. This is the only one of the former Yugoslavian countries to gain their independence without violence.

The city we were headed to, Kotor, sits on the edge of the Bay of Kotor, one of the most indented areas of the Adriatic Sea. According to the locals, this region was never under the direct rule of the Ottoman Empire (a fact that the people here are more than happy to share with you). Even when the Ottomans ruled the surrounding areas, they found the people of Kotor (part of what was called Old Montenegro) to be innately warlike and uncontrollable and left them to be mainly autonomous. Kotor fell under siege multiple times from the Turks and allied themselves with the Venetians (from 1420 to 1797). The end result is that Kotor has a very different look and feel to it than other areas of the Balkans (one of the most significant is that the population is mostly either Catholic or Orthodox Christian, and not Muslim like many of the surrounding cities and countries).

For our two night stay in this adorable waterfront city, we stayed in apartments a block from the water’s edge. Once you hit the water, it was a nice 15 minute stroll along the promenade to Old Town. Our first evening in town, we only ventured part way down the promenade until we came upon a nice little fish restaurant and enjoyed dinner looking out across the water. 

Kotor was probably the city that Em was most excited to go visit, but she decided that she’d take the fact that I had garnered a cold that was lingering indefinitely and raise the anti to some weird bacteria that laid her out for 30+ hrs. This meant that almost entire day and a half that we were in Kotor, Em was laid up in bed. Zejko thinks that she probably got something from drinking the tap water in Albania. So even though they say that the water there is perfectly fine (and it was for me and a few others that drank it), drink it at your own risk.

Since Em couldn’t enjoy they sites, our fellow Aussie travelers and I did on her behalf. We woke up early so that we could begin climbing the to the top of Saint John’s Castle/Fortress (named after the mountain it sits on), which sits high above the Old Town.

Back in the day, there were only two ways into the town of Kotor; the Bay and the hills (via one road). In order to better protect the city, a fortification system that contained ramparts, towers, citadels, gates, bastions, forts, cisterns, a castle, and ancillary buildings and structures was built around the city. Although the first fortifications in the area were built by the Illyrians a few hundred years before Christ, and a revamp was done by emperor Justinian I in the 6th century AD, the current fortification structure can be attributed to the Venetians, who protected the area for 400 years. 

The forts, ramparts, walls, and gates were all staffed by garrisons, whose purpose was to protect the city from outside forces. Today, the remains of the fortification system and the old town itself (where about 300 people still live) are all recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site and an attraction for the many cruise ships that dock in the Bay on a daily basis and the giant tour buses that come down the new roads. 

If you’re wanting some exercise, and a great view of the entire city and Bay, then a climb up the 1300+ steps to the top of Saint John’s Fortress is a must. We found out that if you don’t want to pay the €8 entrance fee to expend some energy, you can either start climbing before 8am (when it’s nice and cool out) or walk up the switchbacks of the Old Road until you arrive at Saint George’s Church, where you can then hop in the window of the remains of one of the fortresses about 3/4s of the way up the hill. We opted for the former method and hit the steps about 7:30 in the morning.

Along the pathway to the castle at the top, there are some fortresses and storage building remains that you’re allowed to explore at your own risk. Being the adventurous type that I am, I broke off from the pack and climbed the additional steep stairs through these edge buildings for some great views and photographs. This is also how I accidentally found Saint George’s Church and the old road. While exploring, I saw a path that lead to an old church outside what once was a window and noticed that with some minor maneuvering I could reach it; so I did. The church was relatively intact, but empty inside and the frescos mostly obliterated from the walls. As I was headed back in through the window, I met a guy from Malta walking up the road, and looking for the entrance into the fortress.

The view from the top of Saint John’s Castle is grand, but it was was hazy and I actually liked the view from the Church of Our Lady of Remedy (built in 1518), better. This church was located about a third of the way up the steps and is still in use today.

On my way down from the ruins, I noticed people in old time costumes and of course decided to talk to them. It turns out that there is a free adventure that one can do as they climb up. There are four people located along the climb, a coin maker, a blacksmith, a mason, and an architect. Each only gives you a bit of history and assigns you a task (i.e. I had to mint my own coin using an old fashioned mold and a sledge hammer per the Coin Maker) and if you get to the top and do everything, the architect gives you a prize. Unfortunately, I was doing this in reverse because the actors only arrived after I had started my decent, so I missed the architect at the top. It was still neat to get to talk to the other three and I think they were happy someone was curious enough to talk to them. The adventure is free, but it’s not advertised anywhere so everyone just kept walking past.

After my adventure up the mountain, I returned to the apartment to make sure Em hadn’t died in the interim. It seemed the extra sleep had revived her some and she was well enough to decide she wanted to venture into town. As we were getting ready to set out, the others were arriving back from some wandering and apparently the gathering of a picnic lunch, to which we were invited. 

Everyone grabbed some seats and we sat in the lovely courtyard of the apartment complex eating fresh bread, cheese, olives, tomatoes, and cucumbers. The owner of the complex saw us all gathered outside and contributed a bottle of homemade red wine. It was slightly less sweet than Manischewitz and therefore I was really the only one (Mary said she didn’t mind it) that liked it.

After lunch, Em and I meandered at a snail’s pace towards Old Town. The longer Em was up and about, the worse she started to feel. We made it about half a mile, located a pharmacy, picked up some drugs, and then I sent Em in a taxi back to bed (she pretty much had expended all the energy she had and was done for by that point). So I ventured to Old Town by my lonesome.

I had a bit of time to kill before I was to meet the others for a walking tour, so I purposely got lost within the twisting streets of the old city. I stumbled upon the Cats Museum (of which Louise had previously mentioned) and decided it was worth the €2 to check out. The place is small, but chocked full of postcards, coins, stamps, comics, art, etc with images of cats. Most items in the museum have been donated and your admission fee helps pay for the food and care for the numerous cats around Kotor. Because cats ate the rats carrying the Black Plague in the 1300s, they are considered saviors of the city and revered by the citizens to this day. If nothing else, the magnets with Photoshopped images of Putin, Kim Jong-un, and Queen Elizabeth holding cats were worth the price of admission.

At 4:30, I met up with the Aussies and we had a lovely walking tour of the Old Town area and learned a bunch of additional tidbits about the city (most of the important ones I’ve already stated at various points throughout this post and the rests aren’t important enough to make this post much longer). After the tour, we wandered the ramparts of the Citadel, saw one of the other gates, and then I took my leave from the group to check up on Em once again. 

She had apparently decided not to see if the drugs we’d gotten would kick in before deciding maybe she should go to the clinic and see a doctor. They gave her some saline via IV and more of the same types of drugs we’d already purchased. She looked like death warmed over, but decided she was only temporarily dying.

Albania

Albania Arrived Out of A Dictatorship Looking Like Aliens Laid Eggs Across It

We had an early wake up call this morning because we had a date with The White City (otherwise known as Berat) and it was in another country, Albania. Albania is the only country that we’re visiting on this trip that was never part of Yugoslavia. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, Albania became a Communist state titled the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, and was under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour until 1991. From what I gathered in my short time in Albania, the Hoxha era was not a pleasant era. 

A miscellaneous tidbit from our travel through the country was that there are 173,000+ (some literature says 750,000) indestructible bunkers located all over the country. Hoxha believed that the others would eventually try invade his country and as a result, he wanted somewhere to hole up defensively so that his troops could practice guerrilla warfare on the invading parties. Josif Zagali, the engineer that created the bunkers had to be damn sure that they were indestructible because when he said that they were good to go, he had to go inside the prototype while 20 bombs were dropped on top. 

Because this things can’t be destroyed, everything was built around them. That means they’re in the middle of parking lots, people’s backyards, town squares, mountain passes, city streets, etc. The bunkers were never used for their intended purpose and now most sit derelict. Some of the bigger ones (they ranged in size from small enough for only one person to large enough for hundreds of people) have been revitalized into art communes, hostels, shops, residential homes, bars, etc.

Berat AKA The White City AKA The Town of a Thousand Windows AKA One Above Another Windows City

Berat is a city in the south of Albania that is known as “The Town of a Thousand Windows” for the architectural style of the buildings that comes from the time of the Ottoman Empire’s occupation of the area. The city’s inhabitants solved the issue of not having electrical light by just adding windows next to windows, next to windows, on all the sides of the buildings. Additionally, the buildings (in the old town at least) are staggered on the steep hills so that it appears that the windows (and roofs) are stacked one over the next.

Berat sits in a valley between two mountains. According to an Albanian legend, there were two brothers, Tomorr and Shpirag, that were inseparable. Within a few days span, both brothers unknowingly fell in love with the same girl, Osum. Osum dated both for a time until eventually they figured out they were in love with the same girl. Tomorr asked Shpirag to give up Osum, and when Shpirag refused, the brothers fought. Tomorr used his sword and Shpirag, his canons. They ended up killing each other and Osum cried over their deaths. For their transgressions, the brothers were turned into the mountains on either side of Berat and Osum was turned into the hill upon which the Castle sits. Her tears formed the Osum river, which forever keeps the brothers separated.

Crossing the border into Albania was painless, but sad since the clerk didn’t give anyone a customary stamp in their passport. We arrived for our scheduled tour a few minutes early, which according to Louise was a rarity, and met Bona, our local guide.

Bona took our group around Berat Castle on an informative two hour tour. The castle is the first Fortress that we’ve seen on this trip that actually still has some of the original buildings and homes in it from the time when the Fortress was an actual city. This Castle still has numerous homes where locals still work and live, and thus it gave all of us the ability to see what these ancient cities would have looked like back in the century. Bona says that for the most part, only the older generation still lives in the castle since there are no supermarkets, schools, or doctors within its walls. If a younger person grew up there, they would move down the hill to the more modern parts of town as soon as they could, to be closer to amenities. 

Within the walls of the Fortress, are the remains of many churches, homes, and the two mosques (the Black and the Red) that once inhabited the area. Most of these are currently closed to the general public or in such a a state of disrepair that they’re either bare, or in need of some structural makeover. 

During the period of of 1944 to 1985, the country was under the Communistic rule of Enver Hoxha, who declared that Albania as “the Worlds first atheist state”. As a result, many of the churches/mosques/other religious buildings were destroyed or at least subjected to the painting over/scratching out/destruction of religious art and iconography within these buildings. So much amazing culture and history was obliterated during this time period.

Luckily, not everything was destroyed. Within the Castle walls lies the Onufri Iconography Museum inside the Church of the Dormition of St Mary. This museum houses 176 religious relics (106 of which are icons and 67 are liturgical objects) that once belonged to the iconographic Albanian painters of the the 14th - 20th centuries. Of these objects, most of the religious art was done by Nikola, the son of Onufri, for whom the museum was named. The art is amazing (even if I’m not one for the subject matter) and there is also area dedicated to famous religious texts that were found in the floor of the church.

After our tour of the Castle, we had a traditional Albanian lunch at a family owned restaurant inside the castle walls. While meat is still a huge part of the diet in many of the Balkan countries, the Albanians at least like vegetables as well. We got to try an eggplant dish with minced onion, tomatoes, and garlic (yummy), some sort of mush with tomatoes, peppers, and the salty feta like cheese from the region (very tasty on the homemade bread), and a spinach and egg dish that scared most of us since the eggs are sunny side up and look like a giant eye staring at you (just taste like boiled spinach and egg). There were a few other dishes as well, but except for the chicken pieces, they all included animals Em and I don’t eat.

Our appetites sated, we closed our eyes and braced ourselves for the decent back down the hill. The roads in many of these parts are barely wide enough for one car, yet they’re meant for traveling in two directions and the large 60 person buses also like to whip along them at unsafe speeds. This all adds up to making driving in a lot of places bad on your blood pressure. The only other way into or out of the castle was a wider and less broken up road with the problem of being make of nice shiny marble. The marble has been smoothed down over the years so that it creates a super slippery surface and many of cars have rolled down it at one time or another. Zejko said he tried it once and the car’s tires began to slip, so now he braves the longer, scarier road instead.

The old city centre consists of three parts: Kalaja (on the castle hill), Mangalem (at the foot of the castle hill) and Gorica (on the left bank of the Osum river). We drove down the hill so the we could better see the architecture of the buildings and walk across the pedestrian bridge that connects Mangalem with Gorica. 

Krujë

After our short pit stop at the base of the hill, we headed to Krujë for the evening. On our way to Krujë, we passed the Tirana International Airport Nënë (Mother) Tereza which was named to honor Saint Teresa; and the George W. Bush statue (which looks nothing like him), G.W.B. bakery (where he ate a pastry) and the G.W.B. coffee shop (where he had a cup of coffee) in Fushe Kruja. Bush was the first US President to visit Albania in the post communism era and many of the country’s inhabitants really love him. 

Krujë is a small town in the central north of Albania, known as the seat of power for George Castriot Skanderbeg during the 15th century. Skanderbeg was the son of an affluent Christian Albanian family that was given as Devshirme (blood tax) to the Ottomans when he was a young boy. He was forced to convert to Islam and then enroll in the Ottoman military. He served the Ottoman Sultan for twenty years before deserting during the Battle of Niš. Skanderbeg then spent the next twenty-five years leading an army of 10,000 men in an Albanian rebellion against the Ottomans. He managed to successfully hold Krujë against three different invasions.

We only had the evening we arrived and the next morning to explore the town, but the main things to do were wander through the souk to explore the Fortress, and visit the Skanderbeg and Ethnographic museums located inside the Fortress. The Skanderbeg Museum is inside the renovated castle and really nicely put together. The museum houses memorabilia (some real, many replicas) related to the life, military career, and rebellion led by Skanderbeg. 

The Ethnographic Museum is designed to look like a traditional Albanian home from the 1800s. All of the different rooms contain fully done up mock scenes of what each of the rooms would have been used for (complete with tapestries, tools, furniture, etc. and mannequins to represent the people within the house). 

Both museums were nice and worth their entrances fess. Since we exited with a little bit of time to spare before leaving the city, Em and I ventured further down the twisting streets of the fortress to go see the “Secret Tunnel” of which there were signs directing you to visit. The Secret Tunnel turned out to by a small tunnel in the outer wall through which someone could have entered the fortress. How secret it was during the heyday of the castle is anyone’s guess, but unless the tunnel was hidden by a big tree or something, it couldn’t have been that secret. It was cool though and I’m glad we braved the polished pathways (why did the architects of this time think small smooth stones for paved paths on slopes was a good idea.) to see it.

Skopje is the Las Vegas of the Balkans and Ohrid is Beautiful

Skopje is the Las Vegas of Macedonia 

Skopje is the capital city of The Republic of Macedonia and has an archaeological record dating back to at least 4000 BC. The former Yugoslavian country is currently embroiled in a battle with Greece over the name of their country, as Greece says they can’t be called Macedonia since that is (a) already the name of a Greek region (which is next to the Republic of Macedonia) and (b) it was the name of the kingdom ruled by Alexander the Great. So you have two totally different groups of people that consider themselves to be Macedonians and both believe that they have the historical right to the name. 

Since we really only had the morning in Skopje, everyone opted for the recommended walking tour with local guide, Miha. Miha is a local man, with tons of energy, self depreciating humor, and a wealth of knowledge about his home city and country. It was a super enjoyable tour.

The tour started off at the museum dedicated to Mother Teresa (now canonized as Saint Teresa of Calcutta). Saint Teresa was born on August 26, 1910 as Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje. She is Albanian by birth, as Macedonia didn’t exist in 1910 and much loved in both countries. Saint Teresa lived in a small house in the center of Skopje until she was 18, at which time she moved to Ireland to devote herself to God. 

The house that Saint Teresa grew up in no longer exist in Skopje, but it is forever immortalized by bronze plates on the ground where the corners of the home once stood. It’s interesting that something so treasured is now sandwiched between a kiosk selling water and snacks and a kiosk selling books and walked/bike ridden over indefinitely. Maybe that’s why they built the museum a little ways away (on the site of the former church where she was baptized) to honor her, since the spot of her actual home was no longer available. 

Like most other places in this region of the world, Skopje (and Macedonia as a whole) was under the rule of various different empires (Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Serbian, Ottoman, Nicaea, Normans, among others). Every invading force would reconstruct or change a lot of the infrastructure of the city when they came in and therefore there’s a little bit of a lot of different cultures around the city.

On July 26, 1963, an earthquake at 5:17am decimated about 80% of the city. While the quake wasn’t of a large magnitude, most of the buildings were not built to handle to shifting earth, and they all collapsed. Following the quake, many other countries donated funds, personnel, and supplies to help reconstruct the city. The reconstruction was done mainly using modernist and Baroque architecture, so you have very modern buildings made of glass and metal next to old looking buildings with white columns and stone structures.

In 2010, the Macedonian government decided to spend about €80 million on a massive project to redevelop Skopje. Drawing inspiration from the great civilizations from the past, the project was meant to give the city an impressive, and historic appearance. The project is called Skopje 2014 and initially envisaged the construction of some 40 monuments, sculptures, renovated facades and new buildings. Here we are in 2018 and the government is still dumping more money into the project (they’re now at €560 million) thus sparking much controversy within the community as one side thinks the make over will increase tourism and business relations with the rest of the world (which it has), while the other side thinks the millions of Euros dumped into the project could be better spent on Macedonia‘s people (which in a country with 30+% unemployment, they’re not wrong).

According to Miha, the government officials that commissioned this project were mentally ill; once they started, they just couldn’t stop. The city currently has over 200 different statues. Originally the statues were all made from bronze, but then the supply became limited, but the “need for more” didn’t lessen and so they started commissioning them to be made from plaster. Then the space on the ground became limited, and so they started placing the statues on the tops of buildings. Now they have so many statues that they’re running out of people to honor and are creating statues dedicated to brother’s of uncle’s of mother’s of famous people or just everyday individuals. 

In addition to the hundreds of bronze statues that were created to look a lot older, Skopje’s government also likes to create their own version of other countries’ national monuments. There is a small sculpture version of the Sydney Opera House, an Arch d’Triumph, replica Danish boats (used as hotels and restaurants), and a Charles Bridge (doesn’t really look like Charles Bridge except that is is made to look antiquated and lined one side by statues representative of famous artisans and philosophers on the other side by statues of important military and political persons). Almost all of these buildings and statues have gone up in the last decade. The end result of all of this artistic expression is that Skopje looks like Las Vegas. It’s beautiful and the sculptures majestic and huge, but the overall feel is one of a front or fake facade.

If you cross one of the many pedestrian bridges and go to the older side of the Vardar River, there is less evidence of Skopje 2014. On the eastern bank of the river lies the Old Bazaar, a relic of the Ottoman Empire and supposedly the second largest in the world (behind the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul). The Bazaar was built in the 12th century as the city’s center of commerce, and remains so to today. This area is a series of narrow streets with colorful shops selling everything from traditional clothes and wedding dresses to sliver, rugs, and Turkish sweets; several mosques, two churches, some türbes (Turkish for tombs), and a clock tower, among other gems. We meandered through the Bazaar and eventually ended up at the Fortress above.

The first incarnation of the Skopje Fortress (referred to by locals as “Kale” (Turkish for “Fortress”)) was built in the 6th century using limestone and travertine from the Roman city of Skupi (which is where Skopje gets its name). Now the Fortress mainly consists of the outer walls with a gate tower or two and some foundation ruins in the center. There are however some magnificent views of the city that make the climb up the hill worth it.

Our tour ended back in the Old Bazaar, outside of the Mustafa Pasha Mosque, with just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat (Em and I split from the main group and got chicken burgers that consisted of two buns stuffed with chicken, cucumbers, tomatoes, French fries, and special sauce and were the size of a small baby) before climbing back aboard the minibus for a 3+ hour drive to Ohrid.

Ohrid is the “Jerusalem of The Balkans” and a beautiful little lakeside city in the  southwest region of Macedonia. At one point in the 17th century there were 365 different chapels/churches in the city; one for each day of the year. Now there are a lot more Muslims in the country than Christians and the number of chapels/churches has declined drastically.

Due to our tour guide’s normal guesthouse being booked already, we had the happy fortune of staying in an adorable little BnB guesthouse a short walk from the main river promenade. It was definitely not a bad place to recharge for the evening.

Saint Naum Without a Boat, Ohrid, and Pathways and Failed Night Photography

Zejko stated that he loves the Monastery of Saint Naum so much that he was willing to drive everyone there on his day off and thus save us the boat fare we’d have to pay if we were to go on our own. Everyone profusely thanked him and loaded back into the minibus for the hour ride along the rim of the lake to the Monastery. 

Monastery of Saint Naum is an Eastern Orthodox monastery located on the beautiful Lake Orhid, 29 miles from the city of Orhid. It is named after the medieval Saint Naum, who founded it 905 AD.

You enter the monastery (if arriving by car) through a stone archway, that opens onto a promenade lined by well manicured lawns and trees; trinket kiosks on the left, and the rich blue hues of Lake Orhid on the right. As you progress down the promenade, there are a few restaurants and row boats for hire that will take you around the tranquil rivers within the monastery grounds for around €3 a person. Eventually you climb a stone pathway, through gorgeous grounds, to get to the pinnacle, where the main church is. The church is definitely worth a look see as almost all of the walls and ceilings within the church are still lined with their original frescos or hand carved wooden ornamentation. It’s quite beautiful both inside and outside. 

After visiting the church at the center of the Monastery and taking some nice panoramic photos of the lake and the grounds, our group retreated back down the hill and hailed one of the boat guides. Everyone, minus Louise and Zejko, clambered onto a small boat and enjoyed a peaceful row down the river. The water was pretty clear and you could see the hundreds of small bubbling underwater springs if you peered down. It was a really relaxing 30 minute ride.

A short break for some coffee and it was back in the van to return to Orhid. On the return trip, we stopped briefly at the Bay of Bones. While the name sounds wonderfully macabre and right up Em and my’s alley for one reason, it’s actually a “Museum on Water” and a Roman military fortification. The museum is an authentic reconstruction of a part of the pile-dwelling settlement, dating back between 1200 and 700 BC that used to inhabit this area. The Roman military fortification (Gradiste) was reconstructed on the hill above the Bay of Bones simultaneously with the Water Museum. The two sites are linked so that the visitor can see what the area was like in both prehistoric and ancient times.

While we stopped at the outlook above the Museum, we didn’t actually get to go in. We had the option, but since I was the only one with any real inclination to visit and everyone else seemed like they’d be less than thrilled to wait 30 minutes in the hot sun for me to geek out on archaeological replicas, I never spoke up and thus missed my chance to see this site. Guess that’s just a reason I’ll have to come back to the region.

We left the Bay of Bones and headed to Samuel’s Fortress, located at the top of Ohrid city. The Fortress was built in the 10th century on the remains of a 4th century BC fortress. The Fortress, like most of the others in the region, currently contains primarily just the outer walls and some towers (heavily reconstructed in this case); as well as the ruins of a few of the interiors buildings. Your admission allows you to climb up super small and steep stairs to the top walls to wander around and taken in the views out over the city. In the center are some ruins and in the lower part of the Fortress, evidence of an archaeological dig could be seen. I asked Louise if I could stay here and join the dig...she wasn’t as thrilled with the idea as I was 😉.

From the Fortress, our group wandered through the woods on a path that Louise had to reaffirm was legit and not some really weird off roading. The path passes by a new library that the city is building and appears to a building that can house the entire population of the city, and then some. We all thought it was supposed to be a hotel.

As you go down the path, you end up at the Saint John at Kaneo Church. This is a Macedonian Orthodox church situated on the cliff over Kaneo Beach, overlooking Lake Ohrid. It’s the picturesque church that popped up in all the Google searches that Em had found when researching this vacation and therefore she’d been keen the whole trip to take the same photograph as everyone else had. When we got to the church however, the sun was superbly situated behind the Church so that no matter how you took the photo, it was gonna be washed out or blasted with sun. We took our bad photos and then opted for another “The Shining” photo, as that has become our theme for the trip - taking creepy, non-smiling twin photos at different points of interest.

We then continued the rest of the way down the path to the promenade and Old Town, where we split from the rest of the group. Everyone kind of went their own ways for a few hours. Em and I got a lovely ice coffee (which means coffee and ice cream) to recharge and then wandered the touristy streets for a while. We also stopped in the “Cake and Bake” bakery where Zejko said the best burek (salty feta-like cheese pastry) was. I got one and decided Zejko and I have different ideas of best.

After a little bit of a respite back that the BnB in the afternoon to recharge, Em and I set out again to explore another part of the city and get some night shots of the lake and Saint John’s Church. The plan had been to get to the water’s edge, hail a small boat, and motor back over to the church so that Em could try again to get the perfect shot of the church and the bay, with the sunset behind. It was a good plan, but I took too long getting out of the hotel and we reached the water with minutes to spare in terms of the sun sinking beneath the mountains of Albania on the horizon. Em did get a couple of nice photos of the sun’s rays spaying across the water as it sunk below the horizon.

Since our shot at a boat ride was gone, we wandered the local bike/run/walk path for a while. This path seemed to be the popular place to go with the family in the evening as everyone was on it when we first started our evening stroll, but as the darkness of evening deepened, everyone seemed to melt back into the shadows (or more likely retreated home for supper). We took the hint and heading back to the old town to meet Louise and Zejko for a pizza dinner.

Devils and Skulls, Alien Eggs, and Local Hidden Gems

Skulls, Sausage, Rugs, and Gibanica

We started today off with a nice and morbid morning history lesson. We piled into the minibus and headed to Pirot by way of Skull Tower. Skull Tower is a stone structure embedded with human skulls. It was constructed following the Battle of Čegar of May 1809, during the First Serbian Uprising. 

Serbian rebels under the command of Stevan Sinđelić were attacked by the Ottomans on Čegar Hill, near Niš. Due to poor communication and some bad leadership, no reinforcements were coming to help the rebels and Sinđelić knew that he and his fighters would be impaled if captured. So he detonated a powder magazine within the rebel entrenchment, killing himself, his fellow rebels, and many of the the encroaching Ottoman soldiers. 

Vizier Hurshid Pasha, the Ottoman ruler of Niš at the time, ordered that a tower be made from the skulls of the fallen rebels as a deterrent to others that may want to rebel. When originally constructed, the tower was 15 ft high and contained 952 skulls embedded on four sides in 14 rows. Due to erosion from the tower being uncovered until 1878 and due to the fact that Serbian families used to sneak to the tower and chisel out the skulls of whom they believed to be their loved ones so that they could give them a proper burial, there are only 54 skulls remaining in the tower today.

Our history lesson over, we headed back to the car for a day trip to Pirot. While I thought we were going to have time to actually explore this little city, the day was more for experiencing traditional Pirot goods and food that we would otherwise never know about (although as fascinating as they were, I would have preferred just a day in Pirot to explore). 

The first stop (and the one I really did enjoy), was a small village high up on the hill where we drove down some super skinny streets in an effort to get to a wonderful lookout over Jelašnica Gorge and a hydroelectric dam built using Tesla innovations. Is was beautiful out and this lookout was fantastic. 

Our second stop of the day was more for meat lovers than for Em and I. We stopped at the home/factory of Dalibor Tošić, who is famous for creating Pirotska Peglana sausage. This is a Flat or Ironed Sausage that is made only from animals (cow, sheep, and goat....although he does have a special one made of horse 😳) that live on the Old Mountain and eat the grass there. The sausage is prepared in a certain way and only sold in this town. Apparently Tošić’s sausage is so good that it’s won every sort of “meat award” out there. So if you’re a meat - sausage in particular - lover, you should come check this place out. For the men, this sausage is also known as “Serbian Viagra.”

The third stop for the day was the Pirot Kilim school/factory. Pirot kilims are traditional rugs made only by girls from this particular town. The skill and method used to make the rugs is passed down from generation to generation and hasn’t changed in 400 years, but it is becoming a dying art in modern times (back in the day 2,500 woman made a living making these, now there are around 30 working part time). The woman that runs the school is trying to garner more interest in the tradition. 

The kilims are unique because they are two sided (you can put side either face up or face down and its the same), they have a super tight weave, only one piece of wool is used per design, and the wool only comes from sheep that graze on the Old Mountain. The motifs that are in the kilims are used to symbolize good luck, good health, success, warding off of negative energies, etc. Most of the rugs are specially commissioned to combat various negative energies in someone’s home or to ensure a good job/fortune/marriage/paycheck, etc. While beautiful, and the history of this, interesting, I could have missed this stop and the sausage factory altogether and never shed a tear.

Our last “off the beaten path” spot for the day was the Kafana Brka, an ethos restaurant located a little ways outside of the actually city of Niš. The Kafana is about 30 minutes from Niš and sits halfway up the hill in the town of Jelasnica. Apparently, the restaurant is so delicious and well known that people from Skopje will travel two hours across the border to come eat there. 

Zejko and Louise ordered a variety of local Serbian dishes that were served family style for the group to sample. For Em and I, we got grilled chicken and trout since all the main dishes were some form of mammal or other. There is something called Gibanica that is a specialty of Serbia, but similar to Burek (which can be found throughout The Balkans region). Gibanica consists of a flaky pastry shell (like a philo dough) that is stuffed with either cheese (a feta variant), meat, or potatoes. The one in this restaurant was stuffed with cheese and fantastic. They called it “Pie”.

By the time we arrived back in Niš it was early evening so there wasn’t much to do but take a lovely evening stroll with Ann and Mary along the Nišava river bank, take some photos atop a possibility abandoned railway trestle, and get a night cap and dessert.

Devils, Alien Egg Sacks, and Three Countries in One Day

This morning we awoke early, packed our bags, and prepared to say goodbye to Serbia. Today, we were going to have been in three different countries by the end of the evening. 

Our last place of call in Serbia was Đavolja Varoš (Devil’s Town). Devil’s Town consists of rock formations described as earth pyramids or towers that were formed via heavy erosion of soil that had previously been the scene of intense volcanic activity millions of years ago. The erosion and formation of the pillars however, is a relatively new phenomenon caused by the deforestation of the area, which in turn, allowed precipitation to erode the soil. Many of the towers have little caps of andesite, which protect them from eroding further.

Devil’s Town gets its name partially from the natural springs that are located beneath the towers. There are two springs: Đavolja voda (Devil’s Water), with extremely acidic water (pH 1.5) and high mineral concentration (15 g/l of water), and Crveno vrelo (Red Well). The water from these springs run blood red, but are said to have medicinal properties if either bathed in or drunk in minute quantities. The way that the formations are, also allows for eerie sounds to emanate through the canyon when the winds blow. The water + wind + lack of vegetation + legends = why the locals hundreds of years ago thought this was a place haunted by the Devil.

There are also non scientific legends as to how Devil’s Town was formed. Two versions of the main legend are as follows: 

(1) It was said that a brother and sister wished to marry each other. Their parents and friends said “No! This is wrong”, but the couple wouldn’t listen. So the mothers went to the church, and the church said “No! This is wrong”, but the couple wouldn’t listen. So the church went to God, and God said “No! This is wrong”, and still the brother and sister decided to carry on with their wedding. So on the way to the Church for the ceremony, God turned the couple and all their wedding guests to stone...and that’s how the towers were formed.

(2) The area was inhabited by kind, peaceful, religious folk. The Devil was bored with their uneventful lives and decided to spice things up; he poisoned the water so that when people drank from it, they forgot they were related to one another. Then numerous brothers and sisters started marrying each other. A good fairy appealed to God to help and God responded by turning all the married siblings to stone.

At the entrance/exit to Devil’s Town we spent our last few Dinar on some local homemade blackberry wine and piled back in the minibus to head to Kosovo.

Kosovo is a the newest country formed out of ex-Yugoslavia. It declared its independence from Serbia in 2008 after years of infighting between the Albanian and Serbian populations that lived there. Now, very few Serbians live in Kosovo and about 3/4s of the countries in the world recognize them as their own country. Serbia considers Kosovo to be an Autonomous Providence of them and refuses to recognize their independence. This is one of the many reasons that neither country likes the other very much.

Our visit to the Republic of Kosovo consisted of driving through the border crossing to the town of Pristina, tooling around for just a few hours, and then continuing to drive out of the country to Macedonia.

Our only port of call in Kosovo was the capital city of Pristina. Pristina has the second largest Albanian speaking population in the world (Tirana in Albanian is number 1), a church dedicated to Mother Teresa, a Bill Clinton boulevard and statue, and a super interesting (architecturally) designed national library (the area others things as well, but this is all we had time to attempt to see). 

The Cathedral of Saint Mother Teresa was inaugurated on the 100th birthday of Saint Teresa and completed afterwards. It honors the Albanian born (although now her home is located in Macedonia) Saint. When construction on the church (one of the largest buildings in the city) began is sparked outcry from the Muslim majority due to the relatively small Catholic population in this Muslim country. It was built anyways.

Bill Clinton Boulevard and a statue dedicated to him is a little ways outside of the main city square. This is dedicated to the US President that helped the Albanians during the Kosovo war. Thus the Albanians love Clinton and the Serbians hate him. Em and I tried to make it to the statue but we did not have enough time in town to venture that far.

The last thing of note, that Em and I were able to view, was The National Library of Kosovo. This is a super weirdly designed building that looks like a metal cage wrapped around jutting bricks, with some alien egg sacks on top. The building was designed by Croatian architect Andrija Mutnjaković, and is the subject of much controversy. Mutnjaković said that the building was supposed to be a mix between Byzantine and Islamic architectural forms. Some believe it was supposed to represent different things from both the Serbian and Albanian cultures and serve as a peace offering. Whatever the real reasons, the building is definitely weird and you either like it, or hate it, visually.

Our short two hour stop went by quickly and we all piled back in the minibus to finish transversing the country on our way to Skopje, Macedonia.

We arrived in Skopje later in the evening and really only had time for a quick stroll through the pedestrian lanes and some dinner before the day was done.