Skadarlija Ulica is a Pleasant Evening

I've been in Belgrade, Serbia for a few days now and it's been an extremely interesting trip to visit the country of a people who were completely vilified in western media. To this day, you mention the name Serbia and people still cringe. Well, as I figured was going to be the case, the people here are incredible friendly and just like elsewhere in the Balkans, very hospitable and welcoming. It really is paradoxical to think of how the whole war in this area started until you realize that it just came down to a couple of guys that were power hungry trying to grab on to territory and more power, who had those under them go along with it. But, that's not a topic I want to really get in to more as it's a touchy one to ay the least.

Belgrade is far too large to cover in one post and so I thought that I would make a quick mention of Skadarlija Street in the center of Belgrade. The center of Belgrade is awash in completely different types of architecture that show it's varied past and the waves of other powers that have washed across its banks over the centuries. Obviously, the part that most people consider the ugliest comes from the Communist construction that dominated throughout most of the 20th century. I'm staying in an apartment that is a blaring salute to the building style of the Yugoslav government. But, we walked throughout the center of town, Elia and I came to a street which is actually more of a short alley that is called Skadarlija. It is something of the bohemian area of town and is a great respite from the Communist and Secessionist buildings that surround it. The buildings are small, cozy and inviting. It's much more of the old style European town. While just a small spot, the atmosphere of it bleeds out to the surrounding area and it has a feel akin to how Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco bleed out, but the rampant and cheesy commercialism is missing here.

There are scads of restaurants here and they all look great. The really cool thing is that unlike Las Ramblas in Barcelona where the locals have been chased away, you still see the Belgradians having a meal there or enjoying the latest soccer match. It's a lot of fun and cool to see before any kind of rampant tourism floods the area. If you find yourself in Belgrade (although I'm doubting much of my reading audience has any plans to visit the "white city" anytime soon) stop on by.

27 06 2007      0 comments

Tags: belgrade, serbia, the europe

The Train Through Montenegro

The Bradt travel guide for Montenegro (the only one that I now of) recommended taking the train from the coast of the country if you decided to cut inland to Podgorica or onward to Belgrade. I really prefer trains over buses, so it seemed like a no brainer to take the train. The only catch is that you had to take the train from Bar, which is a sucky town.

But, getting over Bar, the train ride is nice. Actually, it's really nice. Stunning I would even say. It's a fast trip to the capital of about two hours. Onward to Belgrade is a slogging six and a half from there, or even longer as the train is often delayed. It took us ten and a half, which was two hours longer than it should have been. But the view you're treated to along the way is akin to taking Yosemite and stretching it out to the size of a country. There are jagged, looming mountains the entire way that jut out of the valleys you pass through. At times, it seems like you're in tunnels more than outside of them. These mountains made for one hell of an engineering feat to run a train through. Not to be outdone by the Swiss, the Yugoslavs did pull it off, but the price is that there is just this one line through Montenegro. Regardless, they actually have their own state-run rail company. I'm guessing it must have two trains.

There is one real highlight along the trip and that's when you pass over Lake Skadar. This is gorgeous. Someday I'll have to make it back to this lake and spend more time in Albania and Montenegro to see it properly. It's unfortunate that due to this being a very straight section of track, they really fly through here, so you need to be ready with your camera.

One last bit I need to add is that you really don't want to take the train from May through September when it is very hot, hot, or mildly hot. There is no air conditioning and the 37C that it was outside for the duration of the trip made for a miserable time inside the car.

26 06 2007      0 comments

Tags: montenegro, the europe

Bar, Montenegro is Unfortunate

I think that if someone held a gun to my head and told me that I had to say something nice about Bar, this port town on the coast of Montenegro, I'd probably be dead.

When heading there from Budva, it was originally our intention to head on to Ulcinj and then to Albania. When we arrived we were greeted by sleazy taxi drivers who were trying to tell us that there were no buses to Tirana (the capital of Albania) or even just across the border. Not wanting to believe these annoying guys, we asked the woman at the ticket counter if there were any buses to Albania. She said that there weren't. We then asked if there were buses from Ulcinj in to Albania. She glanced over at the taxi driver and said that there weren't. This glance was all we really needed to realize that they had a lovely little scam going to hook tourists. While we can speak the language, it's clear that we're not locals and so they were trying to take advantage of us.

With the realizing that we looked like cows ripe for milking, we made the quick decision to take the train straight up to Belgrade to stay with a cousin of mine and avoid this whole mess. You see, beyond the sleaziness of this town and the fact that the ticket woman was a remnant of the Communist attitudes that will hopefully die off in a couple more decades, there is nothing in Bar. Yeah, there's a little beach, but I wouldn't swim in it because their massive port is right there as well and the water is bound to be filthy. Maybe it's a bit cheaper to stay there for a holiday, but you'd have to be pretty down on your luck to do that, since Montenegro in general isn't that expensive just yet.

Oh, once we decided to move on, the taxi drivers kept following us and even a polite, "Stop it, we're taking the train." Was answered with, "The train?!! That takes two days to get to Belgrade." A slight overstatement as it's really a scheduled 8.5 hours and just another reason to mention that if you find yourself in Bar, Montenegro at any point, get the hell out as fast as you can. Now if you happen to be a Brit, Aussie, or Yank on a drinking holiday and then, "Bar? Bar?!! You mean it's spelled B-A-R?!! Oh yeah, get the lads, we're there!" by all means go to Bar immediately and begin the binge of a lifetime.

25 06 2007      7 comments

Tags: montenegro, the europe

Budva Makes Me Smile

Charming is not the first word that comes to mind as I sit here writing this in Budva on the Montenegrin coast. But, given time and a willingness to see the town, there are aspects of it that I find quite nice, which spurred Elia and I to spend a full three nights here. My association with the city started two weeks ago though in a strange way.

It was in Dubrovnik that I bumped in to some rather crusty New Zealanders. They immediately complained about the cleanliness of the pension we were staying in and admittedly it wasn't a baka-cleaned (baka = grandmother in Croatian) place it wasn't that bad and I could show them worse if they were interested. But, we put that aside and chatted to them about the package Balkan trip they were on. We looked down a sheet of their itinerary and asked them what they thought of Budva. They then said, "Oh yeah, Buhdva was nice." I didn't bother to correct their pronunciation as this is common problem with many English speakers in that we'll continually pronounce something from a foreign language wrong even when corrected. I try to make the effort to say it the right way, but often fall short myself. But beyond that, we now will jokingly refer to Budva (really pronounce Bood-vah) as Buhdva.

So, I am enjoying Buhdva and marveling at how easy it is to get around. The beaches are in one spot. The crappy touristy promenade, where you can buy t-shirts that say things like, "THE MAN" is in another spot. The old city is in another spot. Then the bulk of rentable housing is in another spot. But, by "another spot", I mean that they're well separated in a manner where they don't bleed on to one another. It's more of a San Francisco tourist layout as opposed to a Santa Cruz layout. If you want to traipse around the old city, you won't get someone trying to push you in to buying pirated DVD's. When you want to sleep at night, you don't hear the discotheque. And then, it seems like everything is a 15-20 minute walk from everything else. Naturally, there is a Fatty Train to drag around the lazy tourists who can't make the walk.

We can thank the Communists for this. They developed the hell out of this place and they did a good job because well, that's what Communism did well; deal with lots of people. It's just a real pity to think that there was a nice vineyard in the spot where this whole tourist villa got erected called Slovenska Plaža and given the lovely size and quiet nature of the old city, it must have been an amazing site at the turn of the century.

As for highlights, I would have to say my top items are: the beach, the old city, and tourist watching. You really leave the English language behind once you come down here, so you get a taste of some pretty silly tourists from all over the place. The old men with the pot belly in the speedo, while revolting, never get old in their macabre display of far too much leathery, sunburned flesh.

In another two or three years, I'm sure this is going to get just as packed as other former Communist areas on the coast and a lot more expensive that the relative bargain it is now. This is especially true if the budget airlines open up flights to here. All hail the impending influx of the Lager Lad!

24 06 2007      0 comments

Tags: budva, montenegro, the europe

Montenegro is Not the 'Next Croatia'

It's more the fact that Croatia was the next Montenegro and there is a bit of history behind this that people who run around making uninformed off-the-cuff statements like this often don't know.

You see, the areas of Croatia that are now the real hot spots for foreigners, namely the southern Dalmatian coast, were traditionally some of the poorest areas in Croatia and then Yugoslavia. It wasn't until the Germans started popping down there in the 1950's to roast themselves in to oblivion that tourism started to develop and escalate through the 1980's until the war, pause, then start up again. In contrast, Montenegro has always been a popular spot for summering Serbs (as well as affluent Russians it would appear.) Much like how it seems just about everyone in Sarajevo has a summer home in Makarska, it seems that everyone in Belgrade has a summer home somewhere on the Montenegrin coast, in places like Budva. The tourist infrastructure was built up rapidly here and radically more planned than it was in other places.

Take for instance Dubrovnik. That town can only hold so many people and has already reached this limit, but more still come. Because there were never any methods created for dealing with all these people, it's something of a free for all right now. While they're trying some quick fix methods, it doesn't seem that anyone was prepared for the mass influx of tourists, despite the fact the government advertised like hell to get people there. All I can see if that everyone who visited the city previous to 2005 should count themselves lucky.

Now take Montenegro. While the roads are just as twisty as Croatia and the terrain by the coast even more rugged, we had no trouble making our way along on a bus. There seems to have been more thinking behind their design (there are quick ferries to bypass some very slow parts) and a long time ago, people saw that it would all hit the fan if access wasn't made easier. I mean, there's even a train out to Bar on the coast, which I hear isn't a great town (I'll know for certain in the next day or two) where there is no train to Dubrovnik. Then there are the cities which have the touristy areas planned out and separated from the old areas. They have bus lines and the even have room for growth.

Undoubtedly, this type of thinking was making its way up the coast and would have been in Croatia a while ago, had Yugoslavia held together. So it's only fitting that the last vestige of the former YU in former Serbia-Montenegro broke off last year with MNE getting the coast that had ironically been developed inland by the powers that were in Belgrade that they now have separated from.

So, to all those who thought and possibly still think that there are all these opportunities in this "new" country, wake up. All that passed while people had their focus on the "old Croatia".

23 06 2007      2 comments

Tags: montenegro, the europe

How to Use a Balkan Shower

Trying to stay clean while traveling is always an ordeal. Some bathrooms are flip-flop only territory. Others are non-existent. Sometimes it doesn't matter what the shower is like because you're sweating all the time, it's just a daily nicety you do for the sake of civility.

But, then there are the showers in Slavic Balkan countries. They're wacky. Actually, let me put in a mention right now that my friends in the Balkans find the showers in the US to be equally backwards, so it's really just a point of view thing in the end. Still, I would like to share my Balkan Shower experiences with those coming from North America.

First off, always remember the 4P's: Preparation, Plenty of Towels, Positioning, and Power. These are key items. Preparation is best accomplished by knowing what you're getting in to. Taking in US perceptions of what a shower should be is only going to cause harm. You see, a lot of these showers don't have doors. Those that do have doors don't really close properly. And then there's that shower head that isn't stationary and the drain in the floor. You need to prepare for the fact that the drain is there because you will make a mess and it's to be expected.

Next, realize that you need two, maybe three towels to use one of these showers. There is the one to dry yourself with to start off. Then you need the one to put on the floor to mop up your mess. The third one is recommended in case you have a blow out on the other two. I've had situations in the doorless/curtainless showers where I soaked my original towel by being careless and was thusly screwed in getting myself dry.

Lastly, pay close attention to your position in the shower. You can't flap your arms all over the place and expect the water to stay in any sort of reasonable containment. No, you need to kind of back yourself in to a corner and always have the shower head shooting towards the wall. Just because that shower head can have next to no flow, doesn't mean pointing it out in to the bathroom isn't going to cause problems.

Lastly is the power issue. Many places have the hot water heater in the bathroom and on a separate switch. If you don't turn that switch on, you don't get hot water. I've never quite gotten this one myself, but I suppose it conserves power somehow when no one else is around for some time. Otherwise, it's just stupid, since it requires a lot of power to get water back up to hot once it has cooled off. I stayed in many a place I thought had no hot water until I realized there was this little switch that was right by the light switch to the bathroom to turn on the heater.

And that's about it. Follow these four simple guidelines and you're bound to remain clean when in the lands of Southern Slavs. Oh, one last thing. Some people may tell you to turn off the water heater when showering for fear of electrocution. I've thought about this a bit and find it to be basically impossible due to how electricity finds the path of least resistance. Just nod your head and agree when they say this. Of course, if you get shocked by a water heater, don't blame me. I got a B- in Physics.

21 06 2007      0 comments

Tags: the balkans

Korčula is Quite Good

After having actually set foot on Korčula for the first time, I have to say that I quite like it. It was a bit strange to really walk through the old town, because I've seen it twice from the ferry on trips either to or from Dubrovnik. Both times I thought, hey, that looks nice, maybe I should stop there. So naturally it took my fourth trip to the mighty Hrvatska to finally see Korčula properly.

Honestly though, the old city is quite small. One could cover it in a day trip if one were inclined to do such a thing. But, one would miss the overall ease and slowness of the island. For instance, the Spaniards get a hard time about closing from 1:30 to 4:00 for lunch. The folks on Korčula one up them in this department, sometimes closing from 12:30 to 5:30! Silly islanders. Once you're there though, you understand to some degree as it gets freakin' hot during the middle of the day and there aren't that many beaches to cool off in; near the old city anyways.

We rented a car and drove in a bit to see more of the island. It's a lot the same with old stone houses and a mild, simple life. I rather liked that. The only thing that I really don't like in places like this are asinine tourists. Thankfully, the island is clear of the great many of them. The locals told us that in July and August it gets packed, but when were there just a week ago, it was really empty. I would even go so far as to say it was deserted. But, as we were getting near leaving, we started to run in to more 'lager lads' and idiots out for a drinking weekend. One group of Aussies (or Brits, didn't hear them clearly enough to tell) circled around us a few times, before finally deciding on just the right bush to take a piss on. Lovely. It's a wonder the ladies weren't chasing them down.

The only thing that's really missing on Korčula is red wine in great amounts. Tons of whites. They take great pride in them, especially Pošip. Don't get me wrong, they're quite good wines, but after a three days near the red regions around Dubrovnik, it was a bit of a shock. Still worth a visit though. It just sounds like July and August are to missed as thez are everywhere that's warm.

20 06 2007      2 comments

Tags: croatia, korcula, the europe

Praving Up Your Clothesline

I'm not really sure what is going on here, but the pension owner called me out from eating one day to ask for "help" in tying this piece of wood on to the piece of metal holding up the clothesline. I'm not really sure what this was improving or fixing, but he felt it really shored-up something saying, "Yes, yes, this is much better now."

While certainly not bailing wire, random pieces of wood are also vital elements to a good Slavic Praver. Let me emphasize that the wood takes on any form possible and that the wood selection is not based on the needs of the prav, but the prav is worked around the size of the wood. This may or may not require additional bailing wire, so have some handy just in case.

19 06 2007      2 comments

Tags: croatia, praving, slavic fixes

Mljet is Rather Crappish

I'm writing this from Korčula at the moment, which is a lovely island, just a stone's toss off the Croatian coast. I love it here. It's very quiet even though it has a rather strong tourist population. I'm not sure where they go, but unlike Dubrovnik, it's like paradise here.

Of course, this comes at the cost of having seen another island called Mljet right before this. The experience was nothing shot of utter craptasticness. For those who know me, you know that I love Croatia. I will speak endlessly about how great the country is. Mljet has changed that to some degree as I've found the first place that I really hate. The beaches really aren't that great there and there's not much to do except waste money. The landscape isn't even that nice and there's no freaking winemaking!

Tour books write a bit about the national park that is on the island. It features a working monastery called Sveta Marija. It's okay, but it's not worth the 90 kuna (about 16 USD) entrance fee, because that's really all there is to see in the park. You go out to the island, wander around for 15 minutes, then you wait for an hour to go back to shore. Then there are two main towns on that end of the park: Polače and Pomena. There is really nothing worth visiting on either of these villages of less than 50 people. Then there is Sobra in the middle of the island that's even smaller. There are some other towns on the island, but in total 1,000 people live in a place that is 40km long and 3km wide. In other words, it's pretty barren. There is no Starbucks, and not even in Irish Pub, which will put the level of tourism in perspective for you. This is great if that's what you want, you have your own transportation, your own gas (there are no gas stations), and you feel like wasting a lot of money getting around. I was not in any of these camps.

You see, there are three ferry lines that go to Mljet: Jadrolinija to Sobra, Atlantagent to Sobra and Polače, and then Atlas to Pomena. The only place you'd really want to go is Pomena since it has more flats to rent, a hotel, and is closest to the park. The big catch is that there are absolutely no connections between these three towns. There are no buses and there are no local ferries. This leaves you renting a bike to make 4.5km trip from Pomena to Polače, or renting an old car from Mini Brum or others to put around the island. None of these are good options and all will cost you a bit.

Ultimately, there should just be one port to make it easier to get around and also, it would be nice if the damned tourist offices in any of the towns gave enough of a damn to tell you information about another town. That's what ultimately screwed us because no one could tell us anything. They didn't care and so we got the shaft and parted with a good deal of money in less than one day to get around this island.

The moral of it all is that if you really, really want to visit Mljet, do so on an organized day tour. If you want to spend longer and enjoy the vast emptiness of it, take a car with a full tank of gas. Otherwise, don't waste your time. Go in to southern Bosnia if you want a better day trip from Dubrovnik.

18 06 2007      0 comments

Tags: croatia, mljet, the europe

Writin' Bout Wine

In case those who read here often (and yes, I know that there might be two of you who do), you may realize that I haven't been posting all that much. Part of it is because I'm in Europe at the moment and I'm skipping from one open wifi network to the next, thieving bandwidth wherever possible. The other reason is that I'm writing for a tea maker who will be publishing the writings at some point in the future. And the other reason is that I'm writing for a wine importer who I do a bit of internet work for. Specifically, I'm writing about wines around the Mediterranean. It's a pretty choice gig, I've got to admit. I roll in to some beautiful coast somewhere, find the vineyards, taste and then write about. Sometime after tasting, I usually hit up a beach and try to get rid of my farmers' tan.

So, if you're interested, take a peek at Blue Danube Wine's Blog and you can see some work that Elia and I have been doing.

17 06 2007      0 comments

Tags: smell my cork, the europe, wine