Dubrovnik has to be the pearl of a trip to the Balkans. Knowing this would be a great location, we left it to the end of our trip, which was also convenient for our return flight back to Dublin. Dubrovnik was the historic city state of Ragusa, one of the major forces in the Mediterranean and […]
Taking advantage of our location close to the border, we got an early start from Catvat to head to Montenegro and a day trip around the Bay of Kotor. Montenegro is one of the youngest countries in the world, gaining its independence in 2006. Interestingly, they use the Euro as their currency, unlike their former […]
Dining in the Balkans is an interesting experience. There are lots of restaurants, but there is not much variety. For one thing, except in the capitals, we didn’t see ethnic restaurants such as Chinese, and even in the capitals, there seemed to be only one or two. Instead, the restaurants tend to be pretty much […]
Departing Split we headed North (away from our final destination for the day) in order to make a couple of stops. First was a tiny town on the coast called Kastel Gomlica, which was used as a filming location for Game of Thrones. (For GoT geeks, this is where Arya wheels her fishmonger’s wheelbarrow.) There […]
Following an uneventful drive (thank goodness!) we arrived in Split and found the apartment at which we are staying. I know such things are popular in places like New York, but this was the first time I had used a car elevator. This particular one barely fit our car and took us down three levels […]
Leaving Bosnia, we drove north, back towards Istria to get to Plitvice National Park. Actually, that is not quite true. Opening the listing for our accommodation in Google Maps, we followed its directions until we arrived at a place we realized could not be correct. This time instead of being just a block or two […]
The country of Bosnia-Herzegovia is stunningly beautiful. The deep river valleys, tall Dinaric Alps, and high meadows with wandering cattle reminded us of Switzerland. Unfortunately, politically, the country is probably about as far from the Swiss neutrality as one can get. Before the 90’s war, Bosnia was the former Yugoslavia’s most diverse state with an […]
We’ve been traveling with some guidebooks, including Rick Steves’. One thing he highly recommended for Sarajevo is to hire a local guide and he lists Amir Telibechirowich as a key resource. We contacted Amir and were lucky that he was available as he had just returned from leading a Rick Steves’ tour throughout the Balkans. […]
When you hear the name “Sarajevo”, what comes to mind? My guess is for most people, it is often something negative, such as the assassination of ArchDuke Ferdinand at the hand of the Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip that started World War I, or the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s. On a more positive […]