Ljubljana & Bled, Slovenia

Nicole and I rolled into our hostel in Ljubljana, Slovenia around 1AM in the morning. Both of us were beat from hiking around Plitvice National Park the day before. We were accidentally placed in a private room, which was nice because we didn’t have to worry about waking anybody up. Of course the next morning we then had to move into the 4 bed room we originally booked. Also, gazing at the forecast, it looked like rain was coming our way. So, instead of giving Nicole a break to just check out the town our first day here, I dragged her to Bled, Slovenia.

Bled

We got to Bled a little after 1PM and we immediately rented a couple bikes and started around the lake. I may have been a little annoying because I had to constantly stop to take some pictures. When we got to the beach area there was a dock to rent row boats to go to the island. I jumped at the chance and we headed out onto the lake to go to Bled Island. The church was nice, but once we checked out the church and went up the clock tower, we headed back. I only rented the boat for an hour, and we ran down the time perfectly.

Bled Island (Picture 1) (Picture 2)

After the island, we road to the start of the trail to the castle. Nicole was pretty much hating me at this point because all the walking from yesterday was catching up with her. Still, we made it to the top and I enjoyed the view of Bled Lake and took a few pictures. There was a museum too, but I didn’t find it to be that great. After the castle, we made our way back down the hill, on into town, and over to Vintgar Gorge.

The ride to Vintar Gorge was hilly in a number of places. Nicole was hating me even more now, but I kept pushing her to keep going. If she did not see this place, she would regret it down the road. When we got there, the walk through the gorge was spectacular. The water was so clear and blue. The rapids were so beautiful. When we got to the end, we took our pictures of the waterfall and headed back to the start of the trail. I of course had to pop my earbuds in to listen to Garth Brooks- The River a few times. It was just one of those moments music needed to be involved!

Vintgar Gorge (Picture 1) (Picture 2) (Picture 3)

When we got back to the beginning of the trail, we met a few women who asked if we wanted to taxi back in and then catch a van back to Ljubljana. We agreed and got our bikes back pretty much on-time and made it back to town in about 40 minutes. The whole way back we were all jamming to club music and drinking beers! After Nicole and I made it to the hostel, we both were pretty much ready to get some sleep out of pure exhaustion!

Ljubljana

We got up and got moving the next day to check out Ljubljana around 11AM. The city center is pretty small, so seeing the city shouldn’t take to long. We first headed up the big hill that had Ljubljana castle on it. Shortly after we got there it started raining a little, but nothing serious. We decided not to pay to go into the tower or museum because it didn’t seem that interesting to us. So, we left the castle after exploring the free stuff and headed to the bus and train stations to book our tickets to Bratislava, Slovakia.

First we tried the bus station, but no busses were leaving Sunday. Luckily, we were able to get on a train route with about 4-6 transfers. When we were about to leave the train station, we ended up getting stuck there in a huge rain and hail storm. Once it let up a bit, we started making our way back to the hostel. Something we found frustrating about Ljubljana is that the whole town sort of shuts down by around 2PM on a Saturday. It was really hard finding a reasonably priced restaurant or any stores open to do some shopping. We did happen to find an open convenience stare, so we bought some wine and beers to stay in with. Though there wasn’t a lot to see in Ljubljana, I did like the atmosphere. Now to get ready for the next couple days in Austria and Slovakia!!

Zagreb & Plitvice Lakes, Croatia

Zagreb

We made it to Zagreb in the early afternoon after a long bus ride from Budapest, Hungary. That 6AM bus time comes up pretty fast when you go to bed at 1:30 in the morning. Fortunately, Nicole and I didn’t have to waste money on a cab because the subway was running!

We ended up at the back of the bus between three other people with seats that would not recline. The little woman sitting next to me was so lucky to be small because she just curled up in her seat and it looked like she had all the room in the world. Despite the uncomfortable situation, I did get a little shuteye until we came to the boarder.

The boarder went pretty smoothly for everyone except one girl. I’m not sure where she is from, but she held us up because she was not allowed to cross into Croatia. So, this meant all of us had to exit the bus and wait an hour or so for the bus to take her back to the closest boarder town and come back to pick us all back up again. This usually annoys me a bit because it cuts into my adventure time in a new city, but today I didn’t really care.

When we got to Zagreb, we were very satisfied with the hostel. It was comfy, clean, and very home style feel. We were a little early to check in, so we decided to go get a bite to eat at a restaurant with no menu, but they said they could make anything we wanted. We ended up having a chicken steak with veggies and we then ran to the ATM. By this time it was time to check in and we got some advice on were to go in the city. What we found was only one really cool place. And, this was the huge Catholic Church. Not to say the city wasn’t beautiful, because it is. But I’m a sucker for big beautiful churches.

 The Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Picture 1) (Picture 2) (Picture 3)

 Plitvice Lakes

This place is the whole reason Nicole and I came to Croatia for this leg of my trip. I learned about it in one of those Facebook posts “32 Amazing Places You Must See Before You Die” type articles. All I can saw is that this place is breathtaking. Now, there is a downside to all the beauty and that starts with the letter “T”, for tourist. This place was worst than Disneyland. The cue to get in the place probably was about 200 strong, from what I could see. We arrived when all the big tour buses came, so we had to battle with 50+ more people per bus. And we found the entrance fee was about $32US. I felt like that was really steep, but if it maintains this places beauty, than so be it!

Regardless of all the people, I say go there if you have the opportunity. If you want some epic photos, just be patient and let people go by until the opportunity arises. I found generally nobody has patients to wait while you take a photo, so you pretty much have to snap and go in many places. Now this may have been because I arrived at the worst time.  Either way, I was truly in a place one with nature.

 Plivice Lakes (Picture 1) (Picture 2) (Picture 3) (Picture 4) (Picture 5) (Picture 6)

Nicole thought we walked about 10+ miles in the park. I have no idea because when I get into a nature setting, I could hike all day. We did arrive at our van, for our pickup, just in time and we headed back to the hostel. We pretty much had to hang out for a few hours for the 10:50PM bus to Ljubljana, Slovenia. I wasn’t really thinking when trying to do the planning and later thought maybe another night at the hostel would have been a good idea. Oh well, what is done is done. We ended up getting to our hostel in Ljubljana around 1AM in the morning. As for the next day, depending on the weather, we will hang out in town or go to Bled, Slovenia.

Budapest, Hungary

The train ride to Budapest was pretty nice. Other than Nicole being sick most of the trip, I was fine. I did eat in the dining car and that was pretty disgusting. Plus, the food was way more expensive than I wanted to pay for dinner, but I only had one choice… chicken. The food wasn’t that bad, but I think they were reusing food others didn’t eat. For example, my chicken was hot like it was just cooked. But, a small piece was cold. I was just looking forward to leaving the dining car as soon I finished what I could stomach. Plus, smoking was allowed in the car, so I smelled like a cigarette. After going a year without a smoke, I try and steer clear. A year ago though, I would have been in that car smoking like a chimney.

We arrived in Budapest around 10AM and hit up the McDonald’s for breakfast before finding out hostel. When we got to the hostel, Nicole had a face of being very unhappy, which was understandable because our room was next to the main entryway and balcony for smoking. For me, it was not a big deal. The kitchen was nice, I had a clean place to sleep, they had wifi, and a little gathering area. Plus, it was cheap!!!

At this point it was about 12:15PM and we found out that there was a Free Walking Tour at 1PM. Nicole and I rushed to the meeting place because we figure this would give us an opportunity to see and learn about Budapest and anything we didn’t see could be done the next day.

The tour was pretty good, but this one seemed even longer than any tour I had been on before. Plus, the group only started out with seven of us. I actually like the bigger groups I had been in in other cities because I sort of get lost in the crowd and don’t feel rude taking pictures while the tour guide is talking and being occupied with other people’s questions. But on this tour, everyone slowly left in the middle of the tour until Nicole and I were all that were left. On one hand, this was nice because it was our own private tour. On the other hand, we felt like we had to tip more. We gave him pretty much all the cash we had, which was about $10US. Oh well, it is a free tour! I am just amazed at the beauty of the building architecture throughout Budapest.

Opera House (Picture 1)

St. Stephen’s Cathedral (Picture 1) (Picture 2)

New Controversial Statue commemorating all who died in WWII (Picture 1)

Fisherman’s Bastion (Picture 1)

Parliament (Picture 1)

St. Stephen’s Bridge and the Danube River (Picture 1)

The next day, we headed out to see a few things we saw on the tour more up close. We went up into St. Stephen’s Cathedral and even saw St. Stephen’s mummified hand! After that we headed over to Hard Rock Cafe to get me my shot glass and pin, walked through Central Market Hall, went to the Holocaust Museum, and headed out of town to the Memento Park (A park with many communist era statues).

Central Market (Picture 1)

Lenin Statue (Picture 1)

Overall, I feel we had a pretty productive couple of days. Budapest is easy enough to walk around, but it is pretty big. If someone wanted to get the most out of the city, including going to the different museums, you definitely need more than a couple of days. I do have to say I fell in love with Budapest. I really loved the atmosphere here and will be back to take in more of the city.

Next stop is Zagreb, Croatia.

Bucharest, Romania

Getting to Bucharest, Romania was a little more expensive than I would have liked, and that is mostly my fault. I thought my friend Nicole’s flight came into Bucharest in the morning, not the afternoon. Secondly, the train that ran from Belgrade to Bucharest was shut down, I guess until October. So, I booked a flight to ensure I’d make it to Bucharest on time. Because I got there earlier than I needed, it did give me a chance to wash all my clothes. I only pack about a weeks worth of clothes when I travel, so at this point they had all made the rotation and needed the scrubbing!

On Nicole’s first night in, we went on a hunt for the Hard Rock Café and the Arch of Triumph. It is amazing how many cities have copied the French and built their own Arch of Triumph. This was one of the pieces of architecture I was really looking forward to seeing, but it was covered up and being remodeled. It was a really nice but  long walk to get out to this part of town and we were pretty exhausted. I’m pretty glad we sprung for a cab back to the hostel so we could be fresh for the next day.

Arch of Triumph (Picture 1)

The next day, we went on a Free Walking Tour that showed some of the historical buildings in downtown Bucharest. A lot of the buildings are pretty new, historically, because they are from Communist times. Anything that was old and survived WWII was pretty much demolished in order to make the buildings the Communist leader wanted at that time.  There were also not many churches because when Romania was Communist, about 40 of them were destroyed. There was no concern for historical value. Even many of the old buildings that are still standing are falling apart. This is because during communist times, people could not own property. Rich and poor were removed from their homes and placed where the government told them  they could live. So, when the Iron Curtain fell, all of those old property owners wanted their homes back. But, many did not have paperwork to prove it was their property and many of these properties have been in limbo in the court system for the last 20+ years. Squatters pretty much live in these “abandoned” buildings and when the property is purchased or sorted our, the owners are not restoring them but letting them just fall apart and hopefully crumple in the next earthquake. They can’t just demolish the building because these old buildings are all protected for historical purposes. So all around Budapest are streets full of restored buildings next to crumbling buildings. Overall the tour was interesting, but started to get long in the intense heat.

Bucharest Fountain (Picture 1)

Old Court Princely Church (Picture 1)

Count Dracula Statue (Picture 1)

Bucharest Falling Apart (Picture 1)

Stavropoleos Church (Picture 1)

Revolution Square (Picture 1)

When it was finished we headed off to look for food, which was impossible because everything seems to be closed on Sundays. We ended up making ramen at the hostel and then when the time came, we headed to the train station to catch the night train to Budapest, Hungry.

Belgrade, Serbia

Belgrade

The minibus ride to Belgrade made a number of stops along the way to Belgrade. From my experience, it’s pretty rare to stop so often if not ever. We also had to change vehicles after we crossed the boarder. All together, we ended up stopping about four times on the whole rip for breaks. On one hand, it was nice to actually have a few breaks and grab some food for lunch. But, it made the day on the road go much longer longer. One more thought that came to me as we drove in Serbia was how similar it looked to my home. The land was really flat and all I could see were fields of corn being grown.

When we pulled into Belgrade the driver dropped my Spanish friends and I off at my hostel. I booked the night to stay there and they just needed a place to leave their bags until they were off to catch a train. After I got checked in we headed off to change out some currency, get some dinner, and see a few sights.

After having dinner, we headed down the street to the Belgrade Fortress. It was pretty cool walking around the place. Near the entrance there were rows of artillery guns and tanks. Another example of men showing off there cannons! Inside there were also a few pretty churches worth checking out.

Belgrade Fortress (Picture 1) (Picture 2) (Picture 3) (Picture 4) (Picture 5)

After the Fortress we grabbed a cab to St. Sava Cathedral. This is one of the newest and biggest churches in Belgrade. I thought the outside was really nice and interestingly enough when I went inside, it was still under construction. After taking some pictures we headed back to the hostel to get the Spaniard’s bags.

Saint Sava Cathedral (Picture 1) (Picture 2) (Picture 3)

The few days I had hanging out with my new Spanish friends was really great. Having the opportunity to meet new people, learn about new cultures, and have a good time with other people is one of the greatest things about travel. As with anyone I meet on the road and spend more than a few moments with, I hope our paths cross again. If not, I’ll have memories with a few people that will stay with me forever!

My next stop, Bucharest, Romania.

Mostar & Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Mostar

I arrived at the hostel in Mostar just before the owner gathered everyone together to listen to his story about the war and the hardships his family and friends faced. In fact, the place I was standing and the house I would be staying the night in was destroyed by three direct hits during the war. When he finished then played a video, but I had not eaten since Croatia so I snuck out to go find some food. When I got back I was ready to pass out. It had been a long day and I needed to get up early for the hostels tour I had signed up for.

The tour consisted of two vans of people.  We first went to breakfast at I restaurant along a river. We had some kind of meat pie that I found pretty delicious. We then went to a small town with a castle on the hill that was supposed to be a stop off point between Sarajevo and Mostar way back in the day a few centuries ago. After that we went to a beautiful waterfall where pretty much everyone went in for a dip. I didn’t bring a swimsuit or towel, so I refrained. Instead I enjoyed the scenery and drank some beer. The next stop was up in the mountains where I heard the same story from last night and missed the train to Sarajevo.

 Breakfast Location (Picture 1) (Picture 2)

Castle Town (Picture 1) (Picture 2)

Kravice Falls (Picture 1)

Now at this point I was pretty pissed off because the tour did run late and the train I wanted to get on was not going to be possible. The thing that made me the most upset was that I had come to Mostar and had not even seen it. The three Spanish friends I met on the bus from Croatia were also a bit upset too. I said something to the tour guide and he said we could catch the last bus out and have enough time to go to the iconic Mostar Bridge. At least this was not a total bust, but I’m still bummed I didn’t get to spend any time in the old city checking it out. Oh well, I guess that’s part of the art of travel sometimes.

 Mostar Bridge (Picture 1)

The bus to Sarajevo was the most beautiful of all bus trips through Eastern Europe so far. The bus cruised along the river road through the mountains and it was breath taking. The water was a beautiful aqua green and the cut of the mountains was truly amazing. I’m glad I didn’t pass out during this stretch of road!

Sarajevo 

The four of us were able to get a room with four beds, which was pretty awesome. We got up early the next day to take the Free Walking Tour of Sarajevo. The tour was good, I learned a lot of history from many different time periods. The highlight was going to the bridge and street corner that started WWI. My friends and I also got a cab to take us up to where some ruins from the 1994 Sarajevo Olympics. I thought there was supposed to be a lot more ruins, but after further research, the rest of it may have been to far away to take a taxi.

Latin Bridge and Car (Picture 1) (Picture 2)

Winter Olympics Ruins (Picture 1)

The next day we will be taking a minibus to Belgrade, Serbia. This will be the end our travels together because I will then go to Romania and they will travel to Sofia, Bulgaria.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Dubrovnik

I checked out of my hostel at 8:00 am to catch the 8:30am bus to Dubrovnik, Croatia. I was originally planning to go to Split, Croatia, but a number of people I talked to recommended Dubrovnik. It was important that I took this early bus because I would only be there for a few hours before catching the bus again to Mostar, Bosnia. Unfortunately because of delays at the boarder, I ended up only getting about an hour and a half to explore the city.

When I got off the bus I immediately hit up the cash machine, checked my bags into the luggage hold at the bus station, and bought my ticket to Mostar. I was also a little confused on how to get to the Old Town, but following the rest of the tourists and jumping on the city bus there got, I worked out!

I walked into this amazing and old walled city full of tourists and thought to myself that this is a bad idea. I read that I should do the walk around the wall of the city, so I bought a ticket and began my journey around. There are a lot of great pictures I was able to take and it took me about an hour to make it around. At this point my time was running out before catching the bus to Bosnia, so I quickly made my way into the city to take some pictures of the streets and churches, at street level. After finishing that up I found the bus stop and headed back to the bus station.

Dubrovnik Entrance (Picture 1)

St. Saviour Church and Big Onofrino Fountain (Picture 1)

Bell Tower (Picture 1)

St. Blaise Church (Picture 1)

Dubrovnik From Above (Picture 1) (Picture 2) (Picture 3) (Picture 4) (Picture 5)

 I got to the bus station to Mostar fine, but ended up waiting an hour and a half for the late bus. This was a bit of a bummer because I could have had that much more time to check out the city. One of the reasons I decided not to stay the night here in the first place is because it is one of the most expensive cities in Croatia.

When the bus arrived, the ride was pretty good. Because of the strange route, you end up crossing between Croatia and Bosnia multiple times. There were three young travelers from Spain sitting near me and at one of the boarder crossings the Border Agent asked where we were from and one of the girls said Spain. Before I could say that I’m from the States and pull out my Passport he turned back around and walked off the bus. I guess I can now say that I passed as a Spaniard!!

When we finally made it to Mostar, I was looking at the GPS on my phone and it said we were a town away. Many people got off at this bus stop and I we didn’t ask if this was the stop. The bus driver also didn’t tell us it was our stop, so we continued on the bus another 15 km before the bus driver said something. So, he kicked us off the bus and told us to wait for a different bus. Basically, we were four travelers on the side of the road with our luggage in the middle of Bosnia not really knowing for sure if we were going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, about a half hour later a bus came to rescue us and take us to Mostar. Nothing like being lost in the middle of a strange country on the side of the road!

Ostrong Monastery & Kotor, Montenegro

Ostrong Monastery

My time in Montenegro was probably the most event filled days I’ve had on my trip so far. I woke up early in the morning to catch the bus from Podgorica to the Ostrong Monastery. I expected it to be busy because it’s a Sunday and I wanted to beat any crowds. The bus ride was only about 40-50 minutes, so this also made it advantageous to make this a morning day trip. Thankfully the bus driver let me know when I got there because I sort of passed out during the ride.

When I got off the bus, immediately taxi drivers hounded me. I said I would walk it and kept moving until I saw a sign that said the monastery was 8 km away and I didn’t want this to be a full day trip. So, I walked back to ask how much and made sure the price included everything I wanted to see and a full ride there and back. This venture cost me 20 Euro, but in the end it was worth it.

The Ostrong Monastery was very cool. It is built into the mountain and is an important place for Orthodox Christians. The old paintings on the walls were amazing and in one of the rooms people were going in to kiss an important dead person. It was an open casket with a body shrouded and a priest there in a chair sort of standing guard. I’ll have to look up who the dead dude is later.

Ostrong Monastery (Picture 1) (Picture 2) (Picture 3)

Lower Chapel (Picture 1)

About the time I was done seeing all that I wanted to see it started sprinkling. Not cool. I ended up standing on the side of the road for 50 minutes with a crappy and leaky umbrella in a downpour. Fortunately, I had an umbrella!! This was only made possible because it rained when I was in Berat, Albania. When I got back to town I booked the next bus to Kotor, Montenegro.

Kotor 

It was pretty much raining the whole trip to Kotor. I had the night booked there and was pretty much thinking this stop would literally be washed out, when it came to sightseeing. But, it stopped raining when I arrived and I was able to drop my things off at my hostel and hit the streets. The town was so cool! It was easy to find my way around down the cobble stone streets. When I was through checking out the town I preceded up the mountain to the castle at the top! God this was a long and tiring hike. I was sweating profusely and many guys doing the hike shredded their shirts off to try and say cool. The views way up and down the mountain were definitely two epic moments with beautiful and breathtaking scenery. On the way up I also ended up bumping into the couple I met when crossing into Montenegro. We decided to meet up at 8pm for dinner.

Kotor Castle (Picture 1)

Kotor From Mountain Top (Picture 1) (Picture 2)

Kotor in the City (Picture 1) (Picture 2) (Picture 3)

We had an amazing dinner! The couple bought some food from the market and we used the kitchen at the hostel to cook dinner. It was nice having a home cooked meal. After dinner we continued putting back the beers and watched a bit of the final World Cup game against Germany and Argentina. I was cheering for Germany, who happened to win it in overtime. Now I’ll be done with soccer for another four years.

I headed to bed late and am heading to Dubrovnik, Croatia for the first half of the day and then catch a bus to Mostar, Bosnia in the early afternoon. Should be an exciting day!

Berat, Tirana & Skroder, Albania

I arrived at my guesthouse and was just in time for a BBQ that they were about to have. I put my things away and joined a large group of traveling hippies, for the most part. You can always find a dude who hasn’t shaved in a year, a chick with dreadlocks, an old man always with a book, and a lot of other people, all with stories of their travels. Some people pick others brains to help plan their next step while others just soak it in. I happen to be sitting next to the acward Asian guy still in university backpacking on his own for the first time and the French poet. The stench of body oder was in the air along with the smell of some delicious meats cooking on the grill. We enjoyed our dinner together sharing laughs and camaraderie before heading to bed because of my early wakeup call

Berat

I did get up early and caught a prearranged taxi to the bus stop. Of course he took me to the wrong one and then charged me still for getting to the right one. I ended up sharing a seat with an Aussie girl, Helan on the trip down. The trip itself was so bumpy! It was a bit of a hellish 3 hours to get there, but the good conversation and beautiful scenery made up for it.

When we got to Berat, Helan and I ended up taking a taxi into town from the bus stop as it began to pour on us. We found a place in town that sold umbrellas and found a place to get some lunch. I had veal again, but this time it wasn’t as good and the waiter gave me the large portion instead of the small, so I couldn’t even finish it. We saw that the rain started to let up, so we started to make our way to the Berat castle.

The walk up to the top of the hill was a challenge. The road was made of slippery brick, so it took a little longer that it would have dry. But, we did make it up to the top and went around the inside of the castle. The view from above was amazing. An interesting thing I found too was that people still live within the walls. There are also four special and old churches within the walls, but I only found two of them. One of the coolest things for me to see was the stone head. This is from the Roman era, I believe.

Roman Head (Picture 1)

Church within Castle Walls (Picture 1)

View from Castle (Picture 1)

After finishing with the castle, we made our way back down the hill and found the minibus stop to head back to Tirana. When we got into town we stopped for some coffee and I was able to get connected to my Albanian friend in Korea. I was planning on meeting her sister and brother-in-law that evening for dinner.

Tirana

Helan and I walked to the City Center before splitting ways. I hung around and took some pictures of things to see. The City Center is really small. So to see the capital city was a breeze. I headed back to my hostel to reconnect with my Albanian friend and work out a time to meet her sister.

Her sister arrived at the hostel to pick me up and we walked twards the city center to meet her husband. She played tour guide and informed me about the history and stories behind different monuments and buildings. When we met up with her husband, he also filled me in with even more interesting information. They ended up taking me to one the nicest restaurants in Tirana and we had a wonderful dinner of conversation about what it was like growing up under communist rule, the changes that have been made since it’s fall, and life in general. It was so nice of my friend’s sister to have taken the time out to meet me.

Tirana Pyramid (Picture 1)

City Center with Statute (Picture 1)

Tirana Turret (Picture 1)

Tirana Berlin Wall Piece (Picture 1)

Orthodox Church (Picture 1)

Skroder

I was planning on renting a bike and going off to the lake in Skoder, because I heard it was pretty amazing from Helen. So I stopped there, found information and went looking for the bike shop. Unfortunately, this was an epic fail and I do ides to just catch the next bus over the boarder to Montenegro. There was an American couple that had been traveling for 8 months at the stop with me. When we got over the boarder and were sitting around waiting to catch our buses, we enjoyed some conversation and beers together before I jumped on my bus to Podgoroca, Montenegro.

Mosque (Picture 1)

Pristina, Kosovo

I woke up early in the morning to catch the 8am bus to Pristina, Kosovo. I ended up meeting to younger guys from Sweden as I sat in a small cafe at the bus station drinking a crappy espresso. All I really wanted at that moment was a real coffee.

The bus ride to the border was really quick and there were no issues. I don’t think I got an exit stamp for Macedonia though. Been trying to find it in my passport with no luck, so I guess I’m technically still there! For most of the trip I ended up chatting with one of the Swedes and we talked a bit about what to see. I told them about the Serbian Cathedral, Gracanica Monastary, and they decided to join me as I went there. When we got off the bus I negotiated with what ended up being an illegal cab to take us there and back . The one way ride is 5 Euros, so I was also looking for a way to cut my costs!

The cathedral had a 1 euro fee each and the lady there conned us into talking about the cathedral and wanted a euro each for that. Oh well, that sometimes happens! From the Cathedral we had the cab driver take us to the city center and we spent a couple hours walking around and getting lunch.

The final place we visited was the library and an unfinished Serbian Cathedral. I found the library very interesting architecturally. The unfinished cathedral was pretty cool too. I wish I could have gone in it. The Mother Teresa Cathedral was also sort of across the street from the library. This is also where the Swedes and I parted ways. I gave up looking for the Bill Clinton statue and went off to find a cab and get to the bus station. One thing I found was the positive response of being American. The cab driver was really excited about it and started rattling off some of the world leaders that helped Kosovo with their independence.

I arrived at the bus station just in time for the next bus. I only had to wait around for about 20 minutes. My destination, Tirana, Albania. The mini bus I was on was a bit of a shit show. We actually smuggled a guy a cross the boarder because he had no documents. I did end up chatting with a couple Albanian girls. As you can see, even when traveling alone, your not always alone!

Gracanica Monastery (Picture 1)

National Library (Picture 1)

Unfinished Christ the Savior Cathedral (Picture 1)

Mother Teresa Cathedral (Picture 1)