Balkans 2023 - into Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania

[SpinDrift]

We are just back from a month long trip to the Balkans. Spent time in Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania - seaside, mountains, good and bad roads, dirt tracks and culture. Round trip was around 4,400 miles or 7,200 km's.

Some of you will recall I broke a drive shaft over on Strata earlier in the summer. That was replaced with a Terrain Tamer shaft by West Coast. Happy to report that we had absolutely no issues throughout this trip. We didn't even get stuck so didn't need the ton of recovery gear we were carrying - how boring is that! Actually it was a great trip. The only tool I did use was a cross head screwdriver, and subsequently couldn't remember why I needed it - I remember now - to swap the bracket on the GoPro housing!

In terms of fuel consumption - we used 1,033 litres of diesel at a cost of around £1,550. The cheapest diesel was in the £1.30's in Croatia and Montenegro (although the price did go up by the time I left) and highest was £1.72 in Albania (no motorway services were used in the procurement of fuel). Consumption worked out to be around 19 mpg, which is what I was expecting.

The route followed is a customisation of those in Vibraction's Balkan series (sadly Vibraction's founder Philippe Rosa passed away this summer), Bernard Louvot's 'Albanie sur le Pistes' and others found on the internet.

One of the areas visited was Durmitor National Park and the near by Tara Gorge in Montenegro - there is some stunning scenery there. Here's a link to a map of the park. I downloaded a .gpx for the route from somewhere - I'll see if I can find the link to the file.

I haven't looked at the photos yet but will share once I've had time.

 

[stumog]

Nice looks like you were close to where I used to live in Croatia

 

[Bodie]

Looks like a great trip, always fancied going to Montenegro.

 

[garygiles1963]

very envious, has beeen on my list for a while, looking forward to some pics

G.

 

[Jacob100]

And there I was wondering what you were doing going south on the A1 outside Doncaster. All makes sense now.

 

[Lorin]

Superb. We’re just returning from our 6 month trip to the same countries! I’ll do a little write up in a week or two. No doubt we visited many of the same places.

 

[SpinDrift]

Would be great to share notes Lorin - in 6 months you've obviously seen a lot more and absorbed more than we have. Looking forward to your write up.

 

[SpinDrift]

This is my third overland trip to the Balkans - The first was in 2017. A link to that trip's report is here.

The second trip was in 2018 - the windscreen on the LC cracked just before we were going to travel so we went with the BMW instead. That trip was mostly Croatia, travelling all the way down to Dubrovnic but was strictly tarmac. I had removed the backseat to accommodate the fridge and we slept in a ground tent. It was a great trip even without the dirt tracks. I don't think I had done a write up for that trip.

As mentioned previously, we had no issues at all on this trip and did't even get stuck. Taking a page out of fb and the like, I thought I'd start by posting a photo of all the recovery kit we were carrying (but didn't use).

The above includes a normal tool kit and and electrical tool kit. What's not on there is the compressor, a hydraulic bottle jack and obviously the winch. It would be great to see what everybody else carries.

So on with the trip report ...

We departed on a Friday evening after work, driving down to Dover to catch a 2am ferry crossing to Calais. This wasn't our preferred choise but the P&O crossing was not available for the date. The timing of the crossing meant that it was close to 5am before we managed to get to a services in Belgium where we could get some sleep. By evening we were just short of Munich in Germany, and again bedded down in a services.

In order to avoid the high cost of motorway fuel, we left the autobahn in search of cheaper fuel - but beware, Germany has now implemented an emissions Umweltzone scheme in some areas, mostly city/town centres. The zones are clearly signed. Autobahns are exempt, and I was given to understand, so are B-roads even when they pass through an Umweltzone (but check this for yourselves). You need to register in advance and get a sticker showing your vehicle classification at a cost of 5 euros - the 100 series is classed as Yellow/Amber, meaning that I cannot enter any Green only Umweltzones. If you are caught in an Umweltzone without a sticker, the fine is 100 euros plus whatever fine for being where you shouldn't be. Having said that, other than actually being stopped on the ground, not sure how it is enforced on foreign vehicles that have not registered ...

From Germany we crossed into Austria to enter Slovenia through the Karawanken tunnel. Given that it was mid August, traffic was heavy and access through the tunnel was controlled with long queues on either side. The bane of peak holiday travel. Once through, traffic on the Slovenian side was fine until Ljubljana, but built up gain in the direction of Koper/Capodistria and continued until we crossed the border into Croatia. We headed for the coast in Istria for a few days of relaxing by the sea.

 

[SpinDrift]

From Istria, we headed south towards Mostar in Bosnia along the excellent A1. We left at around 11am, after a morning swim, and reached Mostar at around 9pm. As we reached the Croatian/Bosnian border there was a big thunderstorm, with one lightening strike taking out power to the whole border crossing. Thankfully the computers were still working in the blacked out border post and we got through in no time. With the storm still raging, we made slow progress from the border to a campsite I had used before in Mostar, with the drive involving a descent into the valley along a narrow, winding road with no barriers - not fun on the dark, stormy night! The campsite was empty when we got there, with a second vehicle pulling in a short time later.

This is a crossing over the motorway for wildlife - the sign indicates bears and wolves, unfortunately we didn't see any.

Mostar campsite - apologies for the big derriere, the wide angle on the phone distorts the images sometimes.

There are still war damages buildings in Mostar and throughout the country ...

From Mostar we headed NW into the hills picking up the first track leading to Boracko Jesero and then on to Sarajevo, passing the remains of the war damaged 1984 Winter Olympics Hotel.

There are still signs warning of land mines - so stay on the tracks and don't wander off!

The 1984 Winter Olympics hotel just outside Sarajevo ...

 

[SpinDrift]

Again, we headed to a campsite in Sarajevo that I had used in 2017, and again there was just one other vehicle at the site. We spent a day visiting Sarajevo. Before we left, we visited the Tunnel Museum, above the entrance to the tunnel under the airport runway that linked the city to Free Bosnia during the Balkan wars in the 90's.

The Tunnel Museum ...

 

[SpinDrift]

From Sarajevo we headed towards Montenegro via the M5 and the Praca Park. We drove till the damaged bridge (we were aware that the bridge was down, but went to have a look anyway. Beyond it the the track is known as the road of tunnels - next time we might approach it from the other end if it is open at all). We took an alternative route, a narrow tarmacked uphill road with many bends, to Gorazde and on to Foca. From Foca we followed the road along the Drina towards the border with Montenegro. The road along the Drina is not in great shape. It narrows in parts and the surface is broken in places. There was a lot of holiday and farm traffic along the road.

If you are wondering what took the bridge down, look here

Once at the border, the crossing didn't take that long. A narrow single track bridge crosses the Tara River between the two border posts. The officer on the Bosnian side asked whether we had a insurance for Montenegro (we had a green card that included MNE). I think with this being a small border crossing, they would send you to a different crossing if you need to purchase insurance. Just over the border, we picked up the M3 running alongside the river Piva, passing through a series of tunnels. We stopped to visit an Orthodox Monastery just beyond Goransko and wild camped in the field beyond the car park.

The following day we drove down to the Komarnica river to pick up a back road to Zabaljak, our entry point into Durmitor National Park. The road was a single lane stretch of tarmac - it looks like this was a track until fairly recently, something we would also observe in Albania. Even though tarmacked, its a great drive with great views along the way.

 

[GeekOKent]

Looks like a fantastic trip

 

[AndyCook]

Looks great lots of interesting sites to see, nice to read a trip report, dont see Many these days on here.
that truck driver on collapsed bridge must have needed a change of underwear.

 

[SpinDrift]

Zabaljak is the entry point into Durmitor National Park. It is a small town with fuel station, super market and most importantly coffee shops with free wifi. The route through the park is a tarmacked single track road winding through the forest and mountains, with great views at every turn. As with other country roads in the Balkans, there sheer drops and few barriers at the side of the road. The volume of traffic through the park was reasonable light (this was on a weekend in the high season - late August), and you could easily find yourself on stretches of road without any other cars in sight. Officially, wild camping is not allowed in the park, but there were quite a few people parked up for the night.

 

[SpinDrift]

From Durmitor we headed to Tara River Canyon. The canyon, a few km's north, is over 82kms long and runs from Montenegro into Bosnia and Herzegovina. At 1,300 metres deep, it is one of the deepest river canyons in Europe. We spent a few hours rafting through the canyon. In the late summer the water level is relativley low and it was pretty tame, but in the spring the water level is a lot higher with more challenging whitewater rafting on offer.


When it was built, the Durdevica bridge across the canyon was the biggest vehicular concrete arch bridge in Europe and it featured in the movie Force 10 from Navarone.

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

Thanks for sharing Reinhard. Montenegro looks worth planning a visit to.

 

[felix2566]

Awesome trip, thanks for sharing. Giving me inspiration for my next one!
I will try to make a better trip report like you have done here!

 

[SpinDrift]

Thanks for sharing Reinhard. Montenegro looks worth planning a visit to.

Definitely worth a visit. Easily doable in a rental, perhaps fly into to Kotor or Podgorica, alternatively Dubrovnic. Lots of great scenery both in the mountains and on the coast. Apart from the rafting, we were touring but I think you spend time in Durmitor hiking, cycling, quad biking or even horse riding. There are small villages to explore in the mountains or on the coast - the bay of Kotor is very scenic, but I didn't spend much time there as I had been to Kotor and Budva before, and the area can be quite touristy in the summer. Just watch the seasons - August could be hot for hiking etc, while Durmitor gets snow in winter - quite a few of the passes in the Balkan Alps are closed from November to April - not sure about the National Park.

 

[Bmonck]

Great trip report. Agree with earlier comment that trip reports seems rarer than they used to be. Am also planning a Balkan trip so thanks for all the info.

 

[SpinDrift]

From Tara River Canyon, we headed south through Podgorica towards the Albanian border. With a group of Greek motorcyclists reaching the border just ahead of us, the crossing took a little while. Once through, border insurance is available at a kiosk at the side of the road - 49 Euros for 15 days. From the border we headed into the Albanian Alps - picking up the recently tarmacked SH21 from Shkoder to the Theth National Park. The road is well surfaced but narrow with steep sheer drops. It is around 55 kms long and reaches an altitude of just under 1,700m.