Albania to Slovenia: Looking for Input. Thanks

[Brett Dean]

First of all many thanks to Gecko, Graham Kawa, Vaufi, Mermaid, Tourider, Martinjeffes and Tirana Transplant who replied to my previous posting re a base in the Balkans

Based on that feedback, we have changed our plans and are now playing with the idea to get to the southern Balkans as fast as possible and take in Albania and then take our time returning to northern Europe.
Based on information from other posts I have put together a rough routing that takes in some coast and some mountains.

We will be on a tight budget, have a liking for history, small villages/ towns over large cities, paved roads or easy dirt over rough goat tracks and mud, prefer mountain passes over beaches and rather go slow and explore rather than fast and clock up large km each day.

We are on a very cheap budget, so will avoid the toll roads here possible, camp in central Europe/ Greece and try to find cheap hotels for the rest of the trip.

We hope to leave our base near Paderborn, Germany around the 16 or 17 of June and need to be back by the 7 or 8 of July in time to pack the bikes up and go home to Australia.

That gives us three weeks to do the round trip.

I am hoping that people could give us some more feed back on places to see, routes to take and places to stay. I have already noted and saved and included the suggestions from the previous posting.[/font]

A rough working concept is;

Germany
Day One. Paderborn/ Nurnberg Autobahns A&/ A70 391 km, stay a friends in near Nurnberg.
Day Two/ Three Nurnberg/ Venice 640 km (try and avoid the tolls in Austria/ Italy, but do a side trip across some of the Dolomite passes. Camping (unless anyone knows of a cheap hotel in the region for less than 40 Euros for two?)
Day Four Catch ferry to Igoumenitsa, Greece (Does anyone know how far in advance you need to book to secure ticket? Can it be left to the last minute in case the Dolomites have extra charm and delay our journey?)
Day Five arrive Greece

Here we have no real idea, but some posts suggest Meteora. Would anyone have another suggestions in Northern Greece? Plus suggested places to camp/ cheap hotel (again our upper price is 40 Euros absolute max!!)

Albania(Southern Coastal Option which looks interesting and I have lifted this suggestion from a couple of postings)
Qafe Bota
Ferry across the Vivari Channel at Butrint Tour ruins.
North to Saranda.
Make a side trip to Gjirokaster, taking in the "Blue Eye" spring along the way.
Return to Saranda head north along the coast road through Piqeras,
Bunec,
Palasa.
Up and over the Qafe Llogara pass. South back over the pass. North again over the pass. One posting reckons its good value
Orikum, Inland to Berat (castle plus riding close by, possible base for a couple of days),
North to Rroghozhine,
East to Elbasan (Turkish fortress), (Elbasan to Qafe-Thane rd is suppose to be good value)
From here we would like to head inland and north rather than visit Tirana
Then come back to Shkoder (Rozafa Castle and accommodation at Kolping House) and
exit into Montenegro

With Montenegro we will stay inland away from the coast
Just based on the maps the following looks interesting;
Podgorica
Lijeva Rijeka
Berane
Mojkovac
Zabljak (small camp site)
Niksic

Cross into Bosnia
Then head towards Sarajevo
At this stage might rest up for a couple of days so maybe use Sarajevo as a base for a few round trips as a few posting have mentioned the city is worth a closer look. After Sarajevo, we are am not sure, so looking for suggestions for the rest of BiH. Have been told that Jajce is interesting and has camping opportunities, plus Banja Luka.

After our tour of BiH we will return to the coast via Mostar and continue along Croatian coastline maybe some island hopping to Slovenia. Almost everybody reckons this coastline is a must do. Will try and take in Plitvice lakes as well.

For Slovenia I have the “Grosser Alpen Strassen Fuhrer” with a couple of suggested rides in the Alps plus a few posting have suggested that the lakes Bohinj and Lake Bled are worth seeing plus have camp sites. Also mentioned has been Pivka and Predjama Castle

Across to Villach in Austria then head north again. For the return journey through Austria/ Germany I will use the Garmin with four pre loaded rides from the Motorrad touring software that will take us from Austrian/ German border, along the Czech border, once we are close to the Hartz Mountains we will swing west and head back to base.

We have toyed with an alternative way home, via Serbia/ Hungry/ Slovak/ Czech, but Croatian coastline and the Julian Alps in Slovenia sound very interesting.

If anyone has any suggestions for cheap places to stay along the way, side trips or must see places or alternatives, would love to hear from you.

Cheers

Brett
Brisbane/ Oz
’00 Triumph Tiger
London/Tokyo 03 (via Morocco and Iceland)
Seoul/ Amsterdam 06 (via Mongolia and the Baltic)
Czech/ Poland/ Slovak 07
Pyrenees 08
Albania 09 (?)