If you’ve had no contact with the Balkans until now, there are two possibilities. Either they enchant you and you simply haven’t had the chance to discover them yet, or they leave you indifferent. Because it’s impossible to have visited Balkan cities and not been left in awe. We’re talking about little-known places of tremendous natural beauty, cities where you feel like you’re coming home, while at the same time they carry the history of 10 different civilisations.
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But how does this happen? How can you travel kilometres away from home and feel the same warmth? First of all, we’re Balkan too. Our musical tastes are shared; many melodies stir us instinctively and we catch the rhythm easily. Naturally, we wouldn’t have major differences in food either. Simple dishes with plenty of fragrant paprika, warm and steaming, because we have the best recipes for the biting cold. And of course lots of smiles, lots of warm hugs, lots of open arms.
The Balkans may have lived through wild eras and extremely hard times, with wars, destruction and poverty leaving their marks, but the people of the Balkans don’t sink into sorrow and misery. Worn out by the breakup and the pain that others always arrange for ordinary people, they got back up, erased their differences, built upon the rubble and joined hands. Because, as we said, what matters is finding the things that unite us and bring us closer.
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They are, like us, authentic and hospitable people. If you’re hosted at the home of a local from Montenegro, they’ll surely treat you in the evening to rakija, the local plum spirit, and share their meal with you. Likewise, the Bosnian will treat you to Bosnian coffee, barely different from our Greek one. Let’s not forget that the entire Balkan Peninsula was once under Ottoman rule, so they’ve absorbed many Turkish customs, words and architecture. The very word ‘Balkans‘ comes from the Turkish word ‘balkan’, meaning ‘mountain’.
Especially when it comes to the architecture of Balkan cities, depending on the country, its geographic location and the powers that passed through, it can be strongly Ottoman like Mostar, with Italian influences like Dubrovnik, in the Austrian style like Bucharest, or many styles at once — even neo-Arabic, as in Sarajevo. Many different styles and influences that came and nested in one big neighbourhood.
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Something else that can’t leave you unmoved on a roadtrip in the Balkans is the nature and the villages you cross beyond the big urban landscapes. The wild, free nature of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the rushing rivers of Bulgaria and the lakes of Croatia challenge you to walk and photograph them, to lose yourself in the scents of a forest in Slovenia following the footprints of deer. So simple and fairy-tale. Until the road continues through small, remote villages of Albania and you see an elderly man with a weathered face loading his cart with his donkey, or a small mountain of onions in the middle of a field with women sitting around it, headscarves in their hair, cleaning them while cheerful chatter flies left and right. Some images are never captured by any camera. They are only imprinted forever within us as a sweet memory, a pure reminder of the journey. And luckily, the Balkans have countless such images to give us.
Last but very important: all the Balkan countries are extremely affordable. One could say that only Greece escapes this general rule, with our country considered fairly expensive. As an example, a cheese piroshki might cost €0.30, a coffee €0.50, and a beer €1. I think I saw you smile — and if not you, then your wallet certainly did!
If you’ve travelled the whole world but haven’t yet explored our ‘little neighbours’, or even if you haven’t done much travelling at all, then the Balkan Roadtrip is always a good place to start.
