Balkan Express 2019

August - September 2019
August 2019 Read more
  • 16footprints
  • 12countries
  • 14days
  • 86photos
  • 13videos
  • 4.0kkilometers
  • Day 9

    Day 9 recap

    August 30, 2019 in Montenegro ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    So camping at the adriatic coast sounded very romantic. In reality it was a total lack of comfort, loty of ants and stray dogs. The latter taking a special interest in our tent at night, scratching, barking and keeping us awake. With very little sleep in the bag we took to the Albanian streets again to head to montenegro. The only goal of the day was to find the campsite that would host the second partx event with a little detour to see the old town of stari bar.
    Coming from albania to montenegro in many ways is like a return to civilization. Roads, standard of driving, shopping opportunities, they even use the € as currency albeit not being an EU country.
    Not many pictures taken that day :)
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  • Day 10

    Day 10 recap

    August 31, 2019 in Bosnia and Herzegovina ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    Last night we befriended Colin and Chris, a father & son team from the uk driving a beautiful Citroen BX Gti. After an hour of what Katharina called 'citroen nerd talk' it was decided to ride together the next day.
    Day 10 saw us drive the beautiful single file roads of montenegro, cross into bosnia and end up in sarajevo.

    Progress in Montenegro was initially good, until we ended up in a traffic jam. Turned out a bus driver decided to go up the same road in the opposite direction. Took him a while to reverse into a spot where we could pass.

    Montenegro is incredibly beautiful!

    Crossing in to Bosnia took us quite a while, boarder guards where unhappy with our expired green card and the insurance sales man was not at work that day. After hanging around 30 minutes it was decides that the only way forward was to 'exchange favors'. 40€ went their way so they would look away while we drive past. First time I ever encountered such a situation and it was quite amusing.

    Things went a bit downhill for the BX Gti in Bosnia. In a long turn oncoming traffic decided to go for an ill advises overtake. I breaked hard, the BX behind me lockes up and slid into the guard rail, denting and scratching the passenger side. Turned out Chris had removed the abs fuse and did not tell his father who just stepped on the brakes hard expeting to be still able to turn. I witnessed the whole thing in the rear mirror and it was quite sad to see.

    Once in Sarajevo we went out for dinner and started to joke about the whole situation.

    Sarajevo has some nice night life, but many parts of the city can be quite grim at night. Also quite a few scars left from the war.
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  • Day 11

    Day 11 recap

    September 1, 2019 in Croatia ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    The plan for the day was to visit the ruins of the 1984 winter Olympics that can be found nearby Sarajevo. And this is where things went a bit downhill.

    Waking up I felt a severely unwell. We streched our check out time until 12:00 and decide to head straight to Croatia not fulfilling any tasks that day. After 30 min on the road things got worse. I just could not keep any water or food in the system and was feeling more and more dizzy. A quick decision was made to visit a local hospital and get hydrated again the fast way. After that we made it to the closest major town, Split. In the evening Katharina was feeling it as well but had a quick turn around. We treated ourselves to a beautiful room and 11 hours of godsent sleep awaited us.

    Quite scary feeling sick in the middle of nowhere in Bosnia! Very happy with our overall decision making, keeping a cool head and looking after each other.

    Reading the Rally group chat the next morning we learned 40+ other people had symptoms of food poisoning as well... What a coincidence after the Montenegro get together =/

    No pictures taken for obvious reasons.
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  • Day 12

    Day 12 recap

    September 2, 2019 in Croatia ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    Feeling much improved today, albeit still quite tired. Food is not disgusting anymore, so we do our best to recharge. Only very short drive on good roads, going from Split to Zadar. Feels like we are so close to home already =) Also, i have one hell of drivers arm!Read more

  • Day 13

    Day 13 recap

    September 3, 2019 in Slovenia ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    The last true stage, the last chance to score some points. We originally planned to go to the Istria region and spent another night at the adriatic sea. But an opportunity to fulfill more challenges appeared and let us to Ljubljana in the end. Relaxed 380km, good Airbnb, nothing extraordinary to report.Read more

  • Day 14

    Day 14 - The last day

    September 4, 2019 in Austria ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    A short trip from Ljubljana to Salzburg and the finish line awaited us.
    We spent some time musing about what we learned during our trip... And we learned absolutely nothing. Which in itself is a great insight. Everyday we would get up and feel ambitious. Everyday we would set off and feel happy to be back on the road again... Forget to eat, get stressed, underestimate the time needed to complete a challenge, be frustrated and tired, end up somewhere else than planned. And then look forward to do it all again the next day.

    We are who we are. The same need for achievement, struggle, inaptitude that we notice about us in our everyday lives followed us every step of the journey. Only time will tell if we are all the better for them.

    Tonight all we can do is celebrate with Berti and Klausi and their bright organge Opel Manta... They won the whole thing and lived the spirit of the rally. Congratulations to you, more than deserved!

    Will we be back for another rally? We tell each other 'maybe', but deep inside we already know...
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