Balkan car trip 🚘

2 highschool friends and a white Skoda Fabia
7 countries (🇦🇱, 🇽🇰, 🇲🇰, 🇷🇸, 🇧🇦, 🇭🇷, 🇲🇪) and 1750 KM
9 days (6 to 14 April 2024) En savoir plus

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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇽🇰 Pristina - Bill Clinton Boulevard
7 avril 2024, Kosovo ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C
One of the city's avenues is named after Bill Clinton, US president during the war in Kosovo.
In the avenue there is also a giant photograph and a statue of 3M representing the Dem President. Another street in Pristina takes the name of Rep President George W. Bush.

In the center there is a small mausoleum dedicated to all the victims of the war in Kosovo (including 2 US pilots).En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇽🇰 Pristina by night
7 avril 2024, Kosovo ⋅ 🌙 16 °C
Pristina by night is really full of people, children and young people.
Even if the majority of the population is Muslim, there are many bars and pubs full of young people and only a small minority of the women has the Islamic veil.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇽🇰 Pristina - Local market
8 avril 2024, Kosovo ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C
Before leaving the city for the next border we dediced to visit the local market. A narrow street surrounded by shopkeepers' stalls selling food, vegetables, cheeses or even used clothes and shoes.

Curiosity: the buckets in which the cheese is sold previously contained building products made in Germany!En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇽🇰 Pristina - The sitting man statue
8 avril 2024, Kosovo ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C
This statue is very recent, and was created to commemorate the peaceful prostests of Kosovo people against Serbia of 1990.

During the protest a man, Faik Rexhepi, and other thousand of people peacefully sit and crossed legs to protest.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇽🇰➡️🇲🇰 From Pristina to Skopjie
8 avril 2024, Kosovo ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C
The mountains and rivers accompany us in every stage of this journey through the Balkans.

Behind these snow-capped mountains there is North Macedonia and the capital Skopjie. But there are not many tunnels, so we have to go around the mountains.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇽🇰➡️🇲🇰 Kosovo/N. Macedonia border
8 avril 2024, Macédoine du Nord ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C
Second boder of the trip.
The flag of Macedonia is amazing and represents the "sun of liberty" with 8 sun rays.
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇲🇰 We are in Northern Macedonia!
8 avril 2024, Macédoine du Nord ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C
3rd country of this car trip!

Curiosity: why NORTHERN Macedonia? Because part of Macedonia is in Greece and the name led to a diplomatic clash between the 2 countries that lasted for years.
In 2018, to join NATO and (in the future) the EU, Northern Macedonia accepted to change its name and signed an agreement with Greece.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇲🇰 Skopje - Foreign Ministry office
8 avril 2024, Macédoine du Nord ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C
Skopje is the city with the biggest contrast between periphery and turistic center. Outside the city, also just 5km from the center, the streets are really bad, there are work in propress everywhere and only small shops and old houses.

Just 2 km after, in the center, the city is completely different.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇲🇰 Skopjie - Archaeological Museum
8 avril 2024, Macédoine du Nord ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C
The most beautiful part of the city is near the river Vardar.
In particular the area of the Archaeological Museum of Macedonia and the many bridges which are full of statues.
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇲🇰 Skopjie - Main square monuments
8 avril 2024, Macédoine du Nord ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C
In the main square there are many monuments including the Statue of warrior on horseback and the triumphal arch called "Makedonija Gate".
There are many curiosities on these (fake?) monuments.

The Statue was built in 2011 and it cost more than 7M euro. Even if officially represents a generic warrior, it portrays Alexander The Great (who however was born in the Greek Macedonia).

The triumphal arch was built in Greek style, but has cyrillic leters on top. Also this was created in 2012, is 21 meters tall and it cost 4M euro. On the big facade of the arch there are many scenes from Macedonian history, including characters from Greek Macedonia, which led to strong protests from the Greek government.

All these monuments are part of the Project Skopje 2014, aimed at giving a new look to the city center.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇲🇰 Skopje - House of Mother Teresa
8 avril 2024, Macédoine du Nord ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C
Mother Teresa of Calcutta was born in house in 1910 to an Albanese family.
Mother Teresa is much loved in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia (all non-Catholic countries), where there are numerous buildings named after her and gadgets.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇲🇰 Skopje - Old Bazaar
8 avril 2024, Macédoine du Nord ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C
It's truly wonderful to walk in the streets of the Old Turkish bazaar, full of food shops, jewelery shops and suvernir sellers.

The ancient bazaar is a reminder of the long history of this country and of the dominance and cultural influence that the Ottoman Empire had in this area for decades.
Despite the devastating earthquake of 1963 and Yugoslavian wars, the bazaar has been preserved and today attracts many tourists.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇲🇰 Skopjie - N. Macedonia dinar
8 avril 2024, Macédoine du Nord ⋅ 🌙 21 °C
North Macedonian banknotes are beautifully decorated.
The texture and safety elements (the swan is transparent and looks like translucent plastic) are also fascinating.

The exchange rate is €1 = 60 dinars (April 24).En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇲🇰 Skopje - N. Macedonian food
8 avril 2024, Macédoine du Nord ⋅ 🌙 19 °C
Norhern Macedonian food and beer in the old bazar.

The food is a mix of Turkish, Greek and Balkan food, and the meet is very tasty. As usual in this part of the world, amazing coffee in a bar nearby.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇲🇰 Good night Skopje
8 avril 2024, Macédoine du Nord ⋅ 🌙 13 °C
The view on the city from our room. Like the other balkan cities, you can see a mix of new tall buildings, factories, churches and mosques and old familiar residential buildings.

A curious thing about the city is that all buses have double floors, and are reminiscent of English buses.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇲🇰 ➡️🇷🇸 It's time to refill
9 avril 2024, Macédoine du Nord ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C
We take advantage of the petrol at €1.39 to fill the tank and be ready for the longest part of the trip: Skopje/Belgrade, 432KM and almost 4:30H.
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇲🇰➡️🇷🇸 Borders adventures pt. 2
9 avril 2024, Macédoine du Nord ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C
The moment of truth!
Will we be able to enter Serbia with an Italian passport, an Albanian car and a Kosovo stamp as the only stamp in our passports?

Funny moments at border part 2:
Agent: are you Leonardo?
Me: yes
Agent: start smiling, and does not ask nothing to the others. (I suppose he read I was born in Venezuela, but who knows)
Agent: which countries have you visited? Albania, Macedonia, ...
Me avoiding say Kosovo: We have been in Tirana, then we passed from Pristina and Skopjie and now we want to visit Belgrade.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇷🇸 We are in Serbia!
9 avril 2024, Serbie ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C
Compared to the previous two borders, this one was the most meticulous security checks, but we are in Serbia.

Serbia highways are perfect, probly better than the highways in many EU countries. Everywhere there are flags and graffiti on Kosovo and most of all in the first part of the trip we met dozens and dozens of military vehicles (jeeps, amphibious vehicles, petrol tanks) going up and down the nighway (last pic).En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇷🇸 Entering in Belgrade
9 avril 2024, Serbie ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C
The E-75 road passes through the city, also crossing the Sava river, tributary of the Danube.
The streat, up to the airport, is full of thousands of Serbian flags.
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇷🇸 Belgrade - Kafana SFRJ
9 avril 2024, Serbie ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C
This restaurant is inspired by the former Yugoslavia.

Insidere it is full of picture of the former communist leader Tito, flags, plates and maps of the former socialist federation of which Belgrade was the capital.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇷🇸 Belgrade - Kasfana SFRJ
9 avril 2024, Serbie ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C
The food is very typical and super good and also the view on the river is amazing. Very low prices (less than 10 euros per dish).
I took the Cevapi, a spiced minced meat dish originally from Serbia but also eaten in Romania and the Czech Republic.

Very funny the coffee served in a Lamborghini cup but with a sugar sachet depicting the flag of socialist Yugoslavia (last picture).En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇷🇸 Belgrade - Temple of Saint Sava
9 avril 2024, Serbie ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C
The largest Orthodox church in the Balkans, over 70 meters high and beautifully decorated.

Everywhere you turn there is a triumph of marble, domes, golden mosaics and sacred icons. Speachless.
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇷🇸 Belgrade - Nikola Tesla's museum
9 avril 2024, Serbie ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C
As for Mother Teresa, also in the case of Nikola Tesla different countries claim to be the homeland of the scientist.

The scientist was bon in Croatia, in the small village of Smiljan, but its family was fully Serbian. Moreover, during the life he became a US citizen.
After the dead, the ashes were transported to Serbia, where they are still kept today.

In 1952 the Socialist government decided to create this museum, in which have been collected many of the inventions of the scientist.
Moreover, the face and one of the formulas of Tesla are also present in the banknotes of Serbia.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇷🇸 Belgrade - St. Mark Orthodox Church
9 avril 2024, Serbie ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C
Another Orthodox church, in this case dedicated to St. Mark.
Although more modest, both inside and outside, also in this case the church is full of golden images and mosaics.

The final part of the church, behind which there is the altar, is a mix of colors and it is really full of holy images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.En savoir plus
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Balkan car trip 🚘Leonardo Floridia
🇷🇸 Belgrade - Serbian Parliament
9 avril 2024, Serbie ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C
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