Easter in the Balkans
After the past 4 years without sharing a complete spring break, we made the most of our 10 days off. And being the accomplished free-loaders that we are, we wanted to take advantage of having friends to visit in Serbia and Albania before they moved away. As many of you know we both love the idea of the epic journey, and we share many conversations planning ideas for great adventures.

On this trip we realized for the first time that we must have inherited this trait from our fathers, who both planned and implemented quite adventurous family journeys. Mel's dad, Mike, took the family on many see-what-was-over-the-hill trips; the two most phenomenal had the family circumnavigating the island continent - first when Mel was 9 months old in a caravan and then again when she was 10, this time in a passenger bus refurbished into a mobile home, complete with the family station wagon and bicycles towed behind!

Marc's dad, Lew, after 2 years in rural India in the 60's and Ramallah, Palestine in the late 70's, devised a road trip for a family of four in their tiny car, camping throughout Europe. After taking the boat from Israel to Greece, they spent a month journeying overland through much of Europe to Amsterdam. We would be remiss here not to mention driving a baby blue Jeep Cherokee from Wabash to the West coast of the US and back in '84 (and the infamous carbon monoxide poisoning incident). Neither of us are sure how our mothers were convinced to embark on these adventures but we are glad they did! Although this trip was by no means epic we are pretty pleased with ourselves for having slept in 7 countries in the twelve days. More importantly we had a GREAT time in so many ways.

We flew into Belgrade and spent the weekend with Mike and Aleka. Aleka was in the same cohort with Marc doing a Masters degree in School Administration, so after having studied for one month in France and another in England, it was fun to catch up without the need to do any research!

(at Mike and Aleka's apartment in Belgrade)

We also enjoyed two days wandering around Belgrade, particularly the site of the old citadel, on a hill at the confluence of two rivers, now a beautiful park where young and old are enjoying the outdoors.

(sights from, and on the citidel, respectively)

Also the grandure of the church of saint ..... concurrently under construction and being used as a place of worship. The icy interior houses, marble, beautiful iconic art and echoing organ music as well as scaffolding, piles of sand, empty windows waiting for stained glass as naked cement!We took an overnight bus from Belgrade to Mostar - a picturesque town in Bosnia-Hertzgovina. This was our only bus which lacked sufficient leg room, and we encountered a lot of rain there, so we were content to take a nap, in between several hours of wandering around the old streets.

Mostar had been devastated in the war, and had been shelled by the Serbs and the Croats, and they chose to leave the burned-out, bullet shelled buildings as they are, and just built new buildings next to them. The town has recovered well, though, and it was a delightful place to wander around....

(the centuries-old bridge was rebuilt by UNESCO after the war)

We next took a 3-hour bus to Dubrovnik, Croatia. The drive there shouldered the beautiful coast, and once arrived we spent the afternoon circumnavigating the city on the top of the ramparts.

(views of Dubrovnik... one with us in the way)

The next day we took the bus to Kotor, Montenegro which was spectacularly "the long way 'round". The short way is across the neck of sea that opens into the deepest fjord in Europe. The long way took us along the winding coast of the sound through little sea-side towns clinging to the tall and craggy hills and spilling towards the deep, clear-green sea. Snow topped mountains hover amoung the clouds in the distance. The bus trips, looking at the scenery and listening to talking books/music on our iopods were a highlight of this trip for us. Kotor is a town spreading along the stunning coast from an old walled city, complete with moat. Fortifications, battlements and guard towers zig-zag the crags above the orange tiles and church bell towers like ivy clinging to the rocks. Once the stone steps rang with protector's boots and the guard towers with the "all's well" call. Now the bleat of goats and tinkel of their bells echo and blow in the wind. Fuelled by the the local bakery's offering of delicious ham sandwiches and rich cherry studel, a local specialty, we headed out to explore the fortifications. We roamed the stone streets and peered into alleys until Marc's almost unerring sense of direction found some stairs heading upward.We climed past houses where the city backs onto the cliff, then through a small wood, then finally we were following the the ancient stone stairway beside the battlements. While we were taking a break at a guard house a man in army fatigues, boots, canvas rucksack and staff came up behind us. He made it clear by motioning, acting and pointing that his brown goat and her kid were stuck on a ledge of the near verticle rock face hundreds of feet up. He called out to her and she bleated in answer. He was going to rescue her. As we continued a light icy rain started. We continued up, finding shelter in a small sone hut next to a pine tree. We watched the goat's owner nimbly scale the peak, appearing back on the side facing us, not far above the goats. The kid bleated planitivley. The man waved a to us with a cloth in his hand. We waved back encouragingly. After some more exploring we left the goat-herder to his task. He had tied a rope around his body and secured it to a big rock and climbed down the rock face until he was just above the goat. He tried to lasso her unsuccessfully and then climbed down to the ledge and while blancing precariously, tried to coax her to him with food, which she snatched from his outstretched hand before shimmying back out of reach. As we left he finally had her by the leg.

From there we took another bus to Ulincj - a Montenegran town near the border of Albania. Leaving an over-priced hotel/castle, we ran into a man who happened to own a rental just next door, so we truly enjoyed a couple hours reading on the balcony, overlooking the Adriatic ocean. We had to leave early (5:30) the next morning to go through the border to Skodra, Albania. This was our first non-tourist destination since Belgrade, so it got a bit interesting. An old taxi driver across the street from the buses first tried to convince us that we wanted to take us to Tirana, our eventual destination. After a cup of coffee/tea, we went back to ask him to take us to visit the Castle and to bring us back to the same place (or so we thought).

(a view from the castle)

After leaving the castle, we turned the opposite way, and I just assumed we were taking the scenic rout back to Skhodra. Well - 10 minutes later we realized that we were actually well into the 2-hour journey to Tirana. Oops!!! Oh well - the extra expense did make it easier to find Travis and Amy's place. We spent the next two days seeing the bright buildings of Tirana... and the cobblestone streets and shops of Kruja, an old town in the hills to the north. It truly was a wonderful trip, and we'll carry many fantastic memories for a long time to come. As for the goat heads roasting below... Mel just wanted to add this picture for dramatic effect....