Hi all; I'm a long-time lurker and first time poster today. Great site; already trawled up a lot of useful information. Planning to attend this years meet-up in Germany as well; it's only a few hours from us and looks great.

I'm planning this year's trip and am looking for some feedback on my plans for a Western Balkans tour. I've done a fair bit of European touring before and last year I made a foray into Morocco for a grand round-trip of that beautiful, crazy country - with my young lady on the back. This time around the plan is to make the journey with the young lady on her own machine - it's her first tour though so I've tried to keep things broken up and fairly easy. I've already planned in one two small off-road jaunts but we won't be attempting anything more substantial than gravel tracks and forest roads. Don't want to scare the poor girl off of two wheels! It's also worth noting that motorcycle travel is, for us, about the travel - not about the manly conquering of bumpy roads!

Anyway; what I am looking for is feedback on my proposed route and suggestions of tweaks we could make. Am I missing something truly amazing that I'll regret not seeing? Is there some secret track you know of that's worth a ride?

We plan to ride from home (Lake Constance) to Venice and spend a few days there before getting on a ferry for Igoumenitsa in Greece. 25hr ferry journey and we're basically on the border of Albania ready to roll. Do any of you have experience of this route? Are there rough seas? Lena does not have sea-legs! Is a cabin an essential, or can you get a halfway decent kip on a seat or camp bed?

From there we're going to follow the coast up a short distance, including the cable ferry crossing that takes you to Ksamil. Then we head for Vergo and plan to take the dirt roads between there and Khardiq - anyone been there? Looks fairly easy from Google Earth. Then we've a day off the bikes doing some canyoning/rafting.

We'll head to Tirana and spend a few days there before heading over to Lake Ohrid, Macedonia and spending a few days there. After that it looks like a nice journey to Mavoro national park where we plan to spend a night before heading to Peja in Kosovo. Looking at Google Maps/Earth it's pretty clear there is a route of some kind heading north through Mavoro national park into Kosovo - does anyone know if it is passable and if the border there is open? My understanding is that Kosovo is a bit of an exception to the EU's usual open borders policy! I'd prefer to go that way rather than take the long way around via one of the main road crossings. If it's not passable at least we see Skopje.

After Peja it's on to Zabljak, Montenegro for some rafting. Then to to Sarajevo and down to Dubrovnik via Mostar - where I will injure myself jumping off of a 24m high bridge. Yay.

From Dubrovnik we head to Hvar island and then on to Plitvice Lakes. From there up to Ljublana, Bled to Grossglockner in Austria via the Vrsic Pass and then onwards to home.

We've got 28 days between landing in Igoumenitsa and needing to be home. I'm doing some pretty long hops some days but never doing two long hops back to back; the whole trip is split up so after a day or two on the bikes there is always a day or two where we don't have to touch them at all if we don't want to. I feel that's better (and easier to organize) than riding a short way every day. Thoughts are appreciated - I am a bit of a slogger; I'll ride 16 hour days when I have to so my opinions may be skewed.

We will be doing this in August - is it advisable to book accommodation early or just wing it when we are there? We're not crossing into Serbia so no worries about border crossings from Kosovo.

Accommodation suggestions are always appreciated as are places to eat; food is probably an even greater passion for me than travel or the bike - if anyone knows some real stand-out places to eat please let me know. We're not talking Haute Cuisine here; but great examples of good cooking are probably a good 50% of what drives me to travel at all!

Rough Google Maps routes below.
Part 1 to Dubrovnik
Part 2 to Home

Thanks in advance for any feedback; we both greatly appreciate it.

- Tim and Lena

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[ Tim | History - NW Italy/French Rivera, Swiss Alps, Morocco | 2016 - Greece > Albania > Macedonia > Kosovo > Montenegro > Bosnia > Slovenia > Austria ]

Lake Bled gets very busy in August, I've found Lake Bohinj (20Km away) more peaceful at that time of year.

Croatian coast road is magic once you leave the motorway traffic behind but it will take 2 days to get from Dubrovnik to Piltvice on the coast road.

When you buy your insurance for Bosnia at the border, make sure it will cover you long enough for when you are riding up the coast road. That 7 miles of Bosnia you have to ride through is, I am sure, a place where the police will like to stop check people for insurance!

All in all, sounds like an excellent plan!

I have just done a recent trip in the Balkans and covered some of the places you mention. Have a look at my ride report (link in signature block). If you have any questions I will try and answer them. Lovely place to ride and great things to see.

Wayne


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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The Balkans
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/poi_entity/8417

Hi Tim.
About Macedonia, you can not enter into Kosovo trough Mavrovo. It is dirt road to Prizren, but border crossing is only for locals who live in that area. Anyway, don't miss Mavrovo. It is beautifully. I would choose the road from Ohrid to Mavrovo trough Debar. Ride carefully, here, I mean Balkan, lack of respect for bikers on the roads is a common thing.
I wish you nice time.
Petre
PS
If you need some help in Macedonia, feel free to PM me.

Good luck!

aditya

That's great information, thanks for that - really appreciate it; couldn't find information on that border post for all the googling I could muster!

Lonerider - I'm working my way through your thread; already made a few very handy notes! Thanks.

davebetty - I've allowed two for the coast road; reading my post again I release that I didn't make that clear - we're stopping off in Hvar for a night before heading on to Plitvice. Good tip on the insurance.

Tourider - sounds like good advice; can always ride by Bled and then stay over somewhere a little calmer.

Thanks all.

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[ Tim | History - NW Italy/French Rivera, Swiss Alps, Morocco | 2016 - Greece > Albania > Macedonia > Kosovo > Montenegro > Bosnia > Slovenia > Austria ]

Insurance.
Be sure that your insurance is covering you for Macedonia. Getting one on border will cost you 50 euro per bike. There are much better ways to spend money.

Hello Tim:

I spent a month touring former Yugoslavia and Albania in the fall of 2014. I had a thoroughly pleasant time doing it.

You asked about the advisability of booking a cabin on the ferry south to Igo. If you are certain that you want to take that ferry, then yes, I recommend you book a cabin. I took that ferry northbound 3 years ago, and it's a long trip. I could not imagine doing 24 hours on a boat without a private cabin to retreat to. If you don't book a cabin, it's probable that neither of you will get any decent sleep during the trip, which will knock you off-balance for the beginning of your tour. That seems kind of self-defeating. The sea is not particularly rough.

Having said that, my suggestion to you is that you consider discarding entirely the plan to take the ferry south and then only ride north. Instead, I suggest you ride south, perhaps sticking to the coastal areas on your southbound tour (until you get to Greece), then, turn around, go inland slightly - perhaps across northern Greece to where you can enter Macedonia - then ride northbound. You could spend (for example) 10 days slowly poking your way southbound through Slovenia, Croatia, the coastal region of B&H, Montenegro, & Albania, then cut east across northern Greece and enter Macedonia, then ride north through Macedonia, Kosovo, the inland part of Montenegro (if you don't want to go into Serbia), and then the inland parts of B&H.

That's the route I did, and I found that there were significant cultural and geographical differences between the coastal areas and the inland areas.

I enjoyed all the countries I visited. I think I liked Kosovo and Montenegro the most. The daily cost of living drops as you go farther south, then rises as you come back up north. Northern Greece was quite nice, it is culturally very different from the more heavily populated southern areas.

Liability insurance is easily available at the major border crossings into all the various countries. If your bike is registered in Germany, it is probable that you already have coverage for Greece (an EC country) and Slovenia and Croatia (who, I think, are candidate countries). In any case, it would be to your great advantage to see if you can obtain insurance coverage for all the former Yugoslavian countries and for Albania from the same company that provides your current cover for Germany and the EC. Doing that would save you the inconvenience of having to buy insurance at each border crossing. I am also sure it would be much less expensive than buying insurance as you enter each country.

I wrote a post about the procedure for buying insurance at each border crossing, that post is here: Balkans Insurance - Here's the story, with details & sample documents. Just be sure to have exact change to buy the insurance (it's almost always sold in Euros), because the vendors don't keep change with them.

If you have toured Morocco, and enjoyed that tour, then you will certainly enjoy the Balkans tour. The difference between Northern Europe and some of the more southerly Balkan countries (Albania, Macedonia) is about the same as the difference between Morocco and Northern Europe. But, some of the southern countries - Montenegro and Kosovo, for example - are surprisingly highly developed.

Anyway - forget taking the ferry, ride your way down, then ride your way back up.

Michael

Thanks for the suggestion, I'm going to run the numbers and see if I can manage to do what I want to do by road. The trouble is that neither of us want the kind of trip where we are on the road every day, I love to ride but hate when it becomes a chore. Lena's only doing her bike training at the moment, I don't want to make her first major trip too mileage intense. I doubt that I can make it as far south as Albania in the time I've got without having to ride more often or further. That said, I could change the route and not go quite so far south. The ferry seemed the magic fix, turning it into a one way trip at relatively little cost.

Time to get the pencil and paper out again! All part of the fun!

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[ Tim | History - NW Italy/French Rivera, Swiss Alps, Morocco | 2016 - Greece > Albania > Macedonia > Kosovo > Montenegro > Bosnia > Slovenia > Austria ]

Ah, I had not considered the issue of "easy does it" for the passenger.

If that is a concern of yours, then for sure you would want to book a cabin on the ferry, if you choose to ride the ferry to enable you to start from the south end and work your way up. I think it is more likely that the passenger would be upset at an uncomfortable and unpleasant ferry experience (i.e. not having a cabin) than at a few days of long touring on high quality roads in the north.

Only additional suggestion I can offer is to not compromise the distance by cutting out touring down in the southern end. I say this because I found the far south part of my tour to be the most enjoyable. Slovenia & Croatia, while nice in their own right, are culturally pretty similar to Europe north of the Alps.

But, having said all that, if you have 28 days, I don't think it would be too difficult on your novice passenger to ride all the way down and all the way back. The roads are pretty good until you are south of Croatia, which means you could cover some pretty good distances comfortably on the northern half of your tour while going either north or south.

Michael

Hi there.
I went last spring From Vilnius to Iogoumenitsa.
I can mention a few places that were trully amazing, mostly Albania, must visit.
If heading to Sarande, just keep on road SH8, to Vlore., that passes along the coast. Place to enjoy is Park (and mountain) Kombetal Liogara. On the top is most beautifull view of Ioanean sea, also a lot of restorans with organic meniu, very accepatble prices, some 10-12 euros a course (ncluding and a drop of homemade rakia). Beautifull road and scenery.
From Vlore you can hop on the highway and reach Tirana. Drive through the block district, this is francy herritage from soviet times, busy nightlife.
Another intersting piece is road to Fierze
https://www.google.lt/maps/dir/42.25...!1m0!3e0?hl=lt
3 hours (117 km) unstopable twisties. Amazing scenery, lakes, mountains, forests, paved empty road. Make sure you have water and snacks. If you take this route, next adventure is a boat from Fierze that runs Koman lake to Koman vilage. No road. We took it oposite direction (Koman – Fierze) 9 in the morning and it goes back in the afternoon. You should check online shedule (Rozafa ferry).
From Koman there is one road that you can escape mountains for Skoder, and this is a road for enduro bikes. I drove it with my scooter suzuki burgman 650, and it was big fun .
Montenegro is all good, wherever you go, we enjoyed verry much Tara bridge (whics is on your route) and also Durmitor park. Take your time there. In the midle of the park is a biker friendly hotel and a camping. They are separate busineses. In the camping which we took, a cabin for two was 10 euro, and hotel is 15 euro per person.
You exit the durmitor exactly were you route follows (E762), and have another beautifull road along the Piva river. Lots short tunnels and twisties.
Entering B&H you will have a road works, so expect some dust, as well as cows on your way.

And I forgot to mention, Albania/Montenegro border E762 officers require passport . Anywhere else we used ID card.
I have a short report on local site, but it is in Lihuanian.. If you wish.
Enduroclub.lt • Temos rodymas - Balkanų pavasaris

Well, that was an 'interesting' day. I'll probably put something in ride reports later this week but tonight this will have to do.

I elected to ignore my GPS, which suggested avoiding the SH74 between Kelcyre and Berat. Looked pretty major on the paper map I had and it looked a lot more fun than a long main road cruise.

Well. Hrmph. She was into double digits for dropping her bike. I ditched mine once from pure stupidity and immediately after that because, for reasons unknown to me, it was out of gear. I should have checked before picking it up.

We got about 10k up and elected to turn around. It was too hot, we only had a little water, no food, I definitely had heat stroke (40°C) and shortly after that decision her battery died, resulting in a pickup truck ride for her and the bike - my jump battery failed and the random bits of wire I had didn't seem to get her started off my battery.

Two lessons to draw from this. Prior planning prevents piss poor performance, fact checking the map and bringing supplies is what smart people do. Second lesson - one months riding experience is not adequate for your girlfriend on insane Albanian tracks. She will shout at you.

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[ Tim | History - NW Italy/French Rivera, Swiss Alps, Morocco | 2016 - Greece > Albania > Macedonia > Kosovo > Montenegro > Bosnia > Slovenia > Austria ]

...and after everything that happened its still great being out there

Wayne

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The Balkans
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/poi_entity/8417

Yep, couldn't agree more!

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[ Tim | History - NW Italy/French Rivera, Swiss Alps, Morocco | 2016 - Greece > Albania > Macedonia > Kosovo > Montenegro > Bosnia > Slovenia > Austria ]