#belgrade

Robert de Niro - Hotel “Metropol”, Beograd 1976

In planning a trip through German-speaking Europe that I am hoping to take this December/January, I started thinking about other overland trips that I would like to take in future.  I came up with three really exciting ones and thought I would post the theoretical itineraries here!  

I’m not sure when- but I’ll definitely be taking one or more of these trips in the next few years.

I posted about the actual winter Europe trip and the first fantasy trip- in South America, from Buenos Aires to Bogota here:  Overland Trips I Want to Take: Part 1 (South America)

the third trip through West Africa can be found here: Overland Trips I Want To Take: Part 3 (West Africa)

Now onto the second trip

Eastern Europe

This trip would be amazing!  It combines ancient sites, Soviet era architecture, small modern cities, a beautiful coast, low lying mountains and more.  For me it would be unique in that Eastern Europe is really one of the regions that I’m least familiar with- I speak none of the languages, only know the basic outline of political history, and am not aware of much of the culture.  All of this would make it the perfect kind of travel- full of learning and experiencing new things.  

The trip would start in St. Petersburg experiencing the iconic “Mother Russia” before heading west through the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) this fast developing though often forgotten part of Europe interesting combines Eastern and Western Europe with some Northern/Scandinavian flair - or so I gathered from my short weekend in Latvia in 2011.  That brief encounter made me want to see more of the Baltics.

From there the route would go through Belarus and Ukraine. These two large countries were two of the more connected to the core of the USSR and still exist as more reserved (especially Belarus) than other parts of the former Soviet bloc.  These two nations being so large would mean long hours going through country-side, hopefully stopping in small towns, seeing the rural life a bit, making new friends, who knows. 

Next would be moving into the mountains of Moldova and Romania.  Considering I love low lying mountains and hills, I think this would be a highlight! Plus Moldova is probably the most obscure of the countries on the list, so getting to know it a bit would be really exciting.

Once in Bucharest, the plan is to cut directly West through Belgrade and all the way to Zagreb in Croatia and even further to Ljubljana, Slovenia.  These two capital cities are said to be somewhat unknown gems of Europe, with the latter being popular with cyclists and sharing some parts of Italian culture because of its proximity with Northern Italy.

The ride down the Croatian coast of the Adriatic sea will likely be the peak of beautiful landscape on the trip.  At some point though I’d move inland first to visit the campus of the boarding school in Mostar that is part of the United World College movement that I attended.  After crossing through the last bits of coast in Montenegro I’d move inland a second time, through Kosovo to Sophia, Bulgaria.

After Sophia I’ll be deep in old Greek territory, visiting Alexander the Great’s sites in Montenegro and then through another beautiful capital, Tirana, Albania. I will then leave the “Balkans” proper and head down through Greece to all the ancient ruins on the way to Athens!

Wow! I’m both exhausted and exhilarated from even writing about it!  Definitely would be a whirlwind experience. Hope I will do it (or parts of it) soon!

Bonus Trip: South Pacific  While talking with a friend we came up with three other long trips, and though I haven’t put much thought into them, I’m including one in each of the posts as a bonus trip.  This idea is to island hop around the South Pacific- seeing Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Marshall Islands, and many more!  I would be done ideally on a boat, though there are lots of small planes that go between the islands as well!  Who knows!

Last month I traveled to Bosnia-Hercegovina, Montenegro and Serbia, with a quick stop in Croatia.  I was not very familiar with the region before, but this turned out to be my favorite trip ever (yes, ever more than Paris and St. Petersburg).  Now I want to improve on my very basic language skills and return!

Here are a few scenes from Smokvica, the lovely, hip Belgrade restaurant where I enjoyed lunch the day before returning to Chicago.

{Ricoh GR1 and cheap film from a Serbian drugstore}

Women in folk costumes of Serbia

source: pinterest

Small River House (83 sqm / 893 sq ft), Belgrade, Serbia by Remorker Architects

Zbog tebe sam prestao da volim Beograd

Dogovorili smo se da se nećemo zaljubiti jedno u drugo,već da pustimo da nam bude lepo,a zapravo smo se zaljubili kao nikad do sad.