Balkans ‘19

a quick fire tour of the south east of europe

Summary

a few months before departing, my friends and I booked a flight from London, UK, to Split, Croatia, with a return from Sofia in Bulgaria on the other side of the grouping of countries. Without a plan, we landed in Split in mid-July and with everything still to sort out.

The resulting adventure saw us visit a different place every day of our trip and with a lot of unexpected turns along the way.

Croatia

Split & Dubrovnik

Bosnia

mostar

Montenegro

Podgorica

travelling

During our hectic adventure, buses were the preferred form of transport in getting from one city to the next. With a tight schedule, we soon realised the harshness of this choice and the sacrifice of a 3 day bus journey that would be required to get to out end location of Sofia, Bulgaria. Instead we decided to found some cheap flights from Podgorica, Montenegro, to Sofia via Athens, Greece. A little bit of a detour but at least we could relax in Bulgaria, or so was planned. Our first flight left delayed but with our spirits still high and hopeful, it was only upon arrival in Athens and watching our connecting flight which we realised that our time saving solution was going to cause issues. However, it seems that despite the seeming bad luck until this point, we were now in some luck. The airline re-routed us for the following day and set us up in a 5-star hotel in the city centre including dinner and breakfast. That night we enjoyed a more peaceful evening in our own individual rooms rather than a hostel dorm and a drink at the rooftop bar with views of the Parthenon.
The next day, the adventure continued as we discovered that we were routed first to Istanbul and then finally to Sofia. Yet another stop-over. It wasn’t all that bad though because the flights were comfortable and it provided us with the opportunity to witness the shear size of the new World’s Biggest Airport (as of 2019). It is something that just needs to be experienced, because descriptions will not do it justice. Finally in Sofia, the boys and I didn’t really sit still. We visited the nearby mountains and ended up staying only 2 nights in the capital as we headed by bus to Plovdiv for our last day.

These photographs are all attempting to capture some of our time on route.