Albania! Albania! Albania!

Come quick.  It’s the best.  There are mountains all over, and small villages, and dirt roads.  Alternatively, there are bustling big cities and smooth paved roads in the mountains, nearly vacant, save for a shepherd and a man on a horse and a classic Mercedes every fifteen minutes.

Albanians will greet you, unabashedly, with a friendly “hello, where are you from?”  

Albanians will invite you to their homes.  They will kick their children out of their beds for you.  They will feed you like kings and queens.  And if you are American– lucky us!– they’ll buy you another beer at the cafe.  Or the bag full of figs at the market is free.  A big friendly thumbs up to Americans.  

All the boys over a certain age ask to “giro” my “bicycleta”.  The first few times I just smiled and nodded, not sure exactly what they were saying.  They’d throw a leg over, smiling, and ride away.  Now I know.

Albanians love Americans, for more than a few reasons, but mostly and most recently for the US support of Kosovo.  Aside, Albanians like fancy cars and money and new things, all of which is assumed to grow on trees in America.  Elsewhere, shepherds are shepherding, farmers are farming, and people are living.  The clash of late-series Mercedes sedans and sheep is a daily occurrence.  Grandmothers walk mountain roads with cows, a willow switch in one hand and a mobile phone in the other.   Don’t try to speak Serbian, or Croatian, or Ukrainian, Russian, Macedonian, Slovenian, or Polish or any other Slavic variant; it’s all Serbian to them and they don’t want anything to do with it.  The Albanian/Yugoslav border has been a region of great tension, marked by thousands of one-man concrete bunkers.  These are things we notice with great curiosity. 

The riding is great.  The coffee is small.  Water is clear.  People are famously hospitable.  Albania is amazing.

We cross the border from the coastal lowlands of Montenegro, in a region with an Albanian majority.  Immediately, all roads lead to Shkodër.  We seek a map and a route, and some Albanian currency.

Przemek is looking for a bottle cage to replace a broken cage.  Some bicycle related things can be found at motorbike shops, hardware stores, or the market.  

We blast through town, and make quick work of the map, currency, and other affairs.  We’re out of town on an abandoned paved road to the north, toward Montenegro.  We have some intel from a Polish cyclist which suggests a mountain road along the northern border of Albania, eventually crossing into Montenegro near Gusinje and Plav.

We turn off the main road on a lesser road toward Dedaj.  

We stock up on goods.  We later learn that stores are uncommon in rural Albania.  Buke means bread, our first Albanian lesson.  Second lesson: raki, like rakija, means homemade liquor.

We turn left towards Zagora, Bratosh, and Kastrat, over a small mountain pass to another road further north.  Turn left at the ominous monument with the noose.

This route can easily be made from Podgorica in Montenegro, although the ride around the lake is worth the extra time.

In our first mountain town, we discover several things.  Men without business sit around most of the day, drinking coffee and smoking tobacco.  Here, they play an excited game of dominoes.  We fill our waters and ride on.

Into the evening, we climb away from the tentacles of the city.

Onto rocky roads, we climb.  The road is lined with rock walls, and small trees with red fruits.  We learn that these fruits, called thana, are most often used to make raki.  

In Bratosh, at the town center, we inquire about a place to camp.  The man who owns the store laughs, and says “anywhere”.  We opt for the churchyard.  

Soon, a man appears asking if we wish to sleep indoors.  It will be cold he warns.  We assure him that we are from Alaska (and Poland and Slovenia), and we will likely survive the night.  Nonetheless, we tour the building.

While Catholics are but a small majority in this country, Albanian Catholics are proud to call Mother Teresa their own.  She is Albanian, but was born in Skopje, which is now the capital of Macedonia.  Both countries were part of the Ottoman Empire at the time.  The pope makes his first visit to Albania this week, ever.

As we are preparing dinner, a group of young men begin banging around inside the church.  They are making renovations to the choir loft.  Without a common language, we help by hauling timber out into the yard.  

In the morning, the store across the street comes to life.  A group of men and the proprietress are hollering, about life or politics or coffee, I do not know.  Within the hour, the store is again closed.  The same thing happened last night for an hour or two.

Away from Bratosh, I stop to watch a man cooking something outside of his house.  Naturally, he invites me to coffee.

He’s making raki.

Amazing the things people make when they cannot be bought.

In fact, he beckons his daughter to prepare a warm cup of sheep’s milk for us, sweetened, of course.

And for the man, a small glass of raki.  The drink is offered to me, but once they discover Lael is also interested, more glasses are summoned.  Two more glasses are brought once Saŝka and Przemek discover our bikes laying by the roadside.

The man’s name is Konstantin, his daughter on the right, Konstantina.

And his twins, Samuel and Samuela.  The concept of twins was curiously communicated with gestures.  Use your imagination.  

We descend from Bratosh toward the main road.

It seems the road has been paved.

Fresh asphalt, aged less than ten years, is not uncommon in Albania.

Przemek warns about a major climb coming up, as seen from his GPS.  But, it is a descent.  Back down to river level, at 500ft.

Near the bottom of the descent, we encounter the paving crews.

Graded dirt, en route to unimproved dirt.  Hurry up and ride this stuff, before it disappears.  

Of course, we swim at the bottom.  Finally.  No more rain.  It is always sunny in Albania, I think.  

We roll into the town of Tamare.  The town welcomes us with a small tourist office, a fresh plaza, and several stores.  A small army of German motorbikers indicate that we aren’t the first people to visit this place.  But, the tourists may change after the road is paved.  

Extra high fives for wheelies.  Thumbs down for skidding.  Properly tuned disc brakes are a novelty, in comparison to aging coaster brakes, or unhooked v-brakes.  Albanian kids are fantastic.  Lael has a great gallery of our favorite young Albanians.

The town has done a nice job to welcome tourists.  Some shops offer local goods, and a handsome map has been published to indicate all the hiking and biking routes, as well as other features such as caves, old mills, and folkloric attractions.

Liquor and wine.  A wide variety of berries are grown in the area, each at a unique elevation.  Blueberries grow up high, figs are found down low.

Cheeses and mustached men.

Out of town, past the post office.

Now begins the kind of rides we seek.

We camp for the night in a small grassy floodplain, before the final climb to Lepusha, and the descent to Vermosh.  Albanian wine is worth it.  We’ve had great wines from Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, and Macedonia.  Bulk or vacuum-packed olives are available is most shops.  Cheeses are exclusively of goat or sheep’s milk anymore.  

Oh, and the Adidas kicks help me blend in.  Paired with a pair of Adidas shorts (thanks Colin!), I call it my Serbian tuxedo.   

I’ve spent six years under the Big Agnes Seedhouse SL2 tent.  I purchased my third tent this summer, while the other two remain back home as pieces and parts.  I’ve looked at other models, and tried one or two, but I always come back to this one.  It’s stormproof and drab green, and the pack size and weight is agreeable.  

The few towns in this valley are provided signs by the Albanian government to promote tourism.  The signs indicate homes where food and lodging is available.  It enables the local flavor to flourish, rather than stamping it out with hotels and fancy restaurants.  Still, paved roads will change things.

That’s Montenegro over there, over those mountains.  Around here. most of the borders are defined by mountains, which at once were essential barriers.

Additional protection comes in the form of small concrete bunkers, which are present at major geographic and topographic locations, such as mountains passes or canyons.  This one currently resides in the front yard of a home.  Each bunker features two horizontal slots, one in the direction of attack, and the other as a sightline to another bunker for communication.  Up the way, a larger bunker would have radio communication to higher forces.

Nearing the border of Montenegro (formerly, of Yugoslavia), we encounter an array of bunkers.  As they were meant, they are hard to spot at first.  And then, they are everywhere.  There were over 700.000 bunkers  

Across the border, we’re off to Plav, Montenegro to connect with the Top Trail 3, billed as a route of “Eastern Enchantment”.

 

The route includes some of the locally advertised routes near Gusinje and Plav.  The entire route is over 300km, mostly off-pavement, designed to be ridden with camping gear, although it also promises to be challenging.  I highly recommend reading the free PDF of the brochure, the writing is exceedingly romantic.  

Around Shkodër Lake, Montenegro

Meet in Podgorica on Friday, 8AM.  Actually, now it is Saturday at 8AM, or 9, or something.  Looks like three trains are coming from Belgrade in the morning, not sure.  We arrive in the city the night before and seek inexpensive accommodations.  Walking around a city at night is contrary to our usual touring pulse.  Montenegro, and I think Albania, are contrary to the pulse of Europe.  More Turkish flavors are found here.  

At the station in the morning, we wait at the cafe.  Hot burek, and cold beer are on the menu.  Here, coffee is a sacred thing.  We have a habit of gulping it down.  The locals sit for hours.  Espresso machines are common, although turkish coffee is always an option, for half the price.  It’s turkish cowboy coffee.

Przemek and Saŝka arrive on a 24hour train from Slovenia via Belgrade.  It’s a long ride, made tolerable by a sleeper cabin.  In these parts, smoking is unofficially permitted everywhere, in sleeper cars and cafes.

We ride into the city to finalize bicycle assembly, and organize our packs.  Crossing paths with a wedding party on a photo shoot by the river, they borrow our bicycles for some fun.  I wonder how their wedding photos with the 29er Surly Pugsley will look to their relatives.  Bikepacking honeymoon in Montenegro?

A quick trip around the city to fill up on food and water and we are off, still not sure where.

Looking east, the high mountains call.  But rain clouds repel.  Instead, we ride west into the lower mountains around Shkodër Lake, a small fold of earth between saltwater and freshwater.

Serene paved roads abound.  We are discovering that the Balkans are really ripe for some high-powered road touring.  Lael wishes for the carbon road bike she rode all spring.  Not that there aren’t off-pavement routes to discover, but Serbia and Montenegro are mountainous, and generally well-paved, with little traffic everywhere except the main highways.  Plenty of climbing and descending in every direction.

Hiking routes in the area are much too rocky and steep to ride.  But small roads keep our interest.  We’re happy to be out of the rain.

Local touristic signage indicates wineries and this curious “honey trail”.  There was a gorgeous stone house at the end of the road.  Not sure the relationship to honey; no tales were told.

 

As the sun begins to fall, we talk about plans to camp.  We’ll ride a bit further to splash around in the stream before bed.  It looks like a stream on my map.  In fact, it is a significant inlet to Skodër Lake, a large shallow freshwater lake on the border of Montenegro and Albania.  It can be hard to see big topographic features such as this on the GPS.  

Descending down to water level, now only 15ft above sea level, we find a campsite near the center of a small town, adjacent to an old stone bridge.  

Thankfully, the sun is shining and the water is clear and cold.  I couldn’t be happier, and I manage to go swimming five or six times before we depart.  

Climbing into the hills, we stop at a vista with a handful of tourists from countries across Europe, including Latvia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia.

Grape vines and a sign for “Vino-Wine” lure is down a driveway.

We are welcomed by twin brothers over 50 years old, who make wine as a hobby.  They live in Podgorica during the week and retreat to the mountains on the weekend.  The grow Vranac grapes, which are common in Balkan wines.  They also make rakija, or homemade liquor, in a small quantity annually.

Aside from the wine, they are especially proud to have hosted visitors from 94 countries.  They are excited to make it 95 with our arrival, until they discover that Alaska is part of the USA.  This summer they add several new flags to the wall.

As we climb and descend, new perspectives of the lake come into view.  The lake swells with the season, and has a highly variable area.  The lake averages only 15ft deep.

Barely ten miles down the road for the day, I turn back to find Przemek and Saŝka.  I find them with new friends.  Hospitality is serious business in many Balkan countries.  

It begins with a drink of rakija. 

And some small talk, photos, and a few slices of cheese and tomato.  Lael trades some plums for an apple.

It’s a long story, but six hours, two gunshots and several times more rakija than anyone ever needs in a day, we roll into the evening sun.  The goal is to find a place to camp.  The gunshots are the kind that involve zealous hosts, not any ill will.  Zoran is happy to share everything with us, and sends us off with a bottle of his own wine, cheese, duhan (tobacco), and of course, rakija.

We pass through town for some basic supplies, and ride into the night.  In the dark, we find a small rocky pull-out aside the road.  For a bunch of drunk cyclists in the dark, we didn’t do too bad.  At least, I discover that in the morning.  Views of the lake aren’t bad, for the price.  Few cars pass in the night.  

Our impromptu route around Skodër Lake turns out to be a delightful ride, and a good way for the Polish-Slovenian contingency to stretch their legs.

From afar, we thought the lake might be a big swamp.  In fact, the road feels like a slice of Highway 1 in California, without any traffic, stores, or gas stations.  There are several towns below the road.

Cheese for sale, almost always from goats or sheep anymore.

German cyclists are also abundant in these parts.  

 

 

As we climb to a valley away from the lake, we encounter loads of figs and berries, and eat until we are full.  It takes a moment to decide what the broad leafy plant is, but a big whiff in the warm breeze makes it clear that it is tobacco.  We pass through shady forests of chestnut trees.

Przemek remarks that the rotten looking figs are best, especially those dripping with caramelized sugars.

Montenegro has recently gained independence form Serbia, and for the most part, the countries are quite similar.  But along this route, all of a sudden, signage is now also in Albanian.  The towns look and feel different.  Mosques replace churches.  Things are changing.

We climb and descend away from the lake, towards the coast and the official border crossing.  The ride over the mountains passes within a few hundred meters of Albania.  An abandoned structure guards the ridge.

We plan to wait until morning to cross the border, and find a campsite near this old town site.

This is still Montenegro, but we might as well be in Albania, politics, pomegranates and all.

At the border, guards quickly look at our passports and wave us through.  This has been the most relaxed crossing so far.  

To Albania!

Romanian rail, Serbian sun, Montenegran mountains

Above:  Sunny shades of Serbia.  Serbia is a big surprise, as we didn’t have any expectations at all.  

Since parting ways with my family, we’ve returned to our bikes in the Ukrainian Karpaty.  We followed the route from Kolochava to Yst Chorna, again.  It is shown as a road on the map, but it is more of a stream for about half of that distance.  We continue along forest tracks and singletrack to Yasinya.  To our south, the road crosses through the town of Rakhiv and into Romania,  Or, we can climb up the Chornahora Massif, possibly ride or walk up to the highest peak in Ukraine– Hoverla– and continue further east to cross into Romania elsewhere.  However, our plans with Przemek are looming, and the weather is constantly cold and rainy, at least about every other day.  It may not be the best time of year to be exploring the Romanian highlands.  Not sure if Saška would like to be cold and wet on her first bike tour.  Not sure if I want to be cold and wet.  Lael certainly doesn’t.  Weather predictions in the Balkans are promising– 30C and sunny everyday.  Przemek and Saška are coming from Slovenia.  He asks, “Can you be in Podgorica on the 5th”?

Sure!

Lael and I hurry to figure out where Podgorica is.  Ah, Montenegro.  Sounds nice.

We ride into Romania at sunset, and seek an inexpensive hotel in the center of town.  The first night in a new country is exciting.  Which currency do they use?  How much will we pay for a beer, and a loaf of bread?  It surely isn’t as cheap as Ukraine, although the facilities are nicer.  Immediately, we notice the roads are much nicer (smoother, but more traffic).  The roads in Ukraine are laughably bad.  Once-paved roads are actually worse than many dirt roads, in this country or elsewhere.  Low-traffic volumes are the reward.

Romania is welcoming.  The language is different, like Italian or French spoken through a 30% filter of Ukrainian, to my ears.  Espresso is omnipresent, and very good.  The Italians have left their mark on this part of Europe.  We will find more of this further south, and west.  Romanians use the Leu as currency.  Slovakia uses the Euro.   Both Czech and Poland have been EU members as long as Slovakia, yet they do not use the Euro.  Turns out, Montenegro uses the Euro as well, and they aren’t even part of the EU yet.  Previously they had used the Deutsche Mark in place of the unstable Serbian Dinar.  Montenegro only recently declared independence from Serbia in 2006.  There is a lot of history to learn for this part of the world.  We habitually load gargantuan Wikipedia articles about each country (Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia), or past country (Yugoslavia), or soon-to-be independent country (Kosovo), and read them offline in the tent.   

Romania

Romania, as seen from across the border in Ukraine. To some, the grass is a little greener over there.

The next day, we purchase train tickets.  The afternoon allows me to service my bottom bracket, which has begun to creak.  Shimano warns, “Do Not Disassemble”.  I recommend to anyone wishing to prepare their bottom bracket for lots of muck and rain to do this before it makes noise.   Carefully remove the plastic cover, and the rubberized bearing seal.  Flush with lightweight lube, and pack with as much grease as possible.  

The Shimano crank design is almost free of specialty crank tools.  Unfortunately, the non-drive side utilizes a bearing preload which demands a special star-shaped tool.  In this case, a light tap with a hammer and a Ukrainian coin set the bearing preload just right.

The Romanian train promises to be comfortable, as the air is cool and the cabin is only at quarter capacity leaving the station.  We’re sad not to spend the time that Romania requires, but this train ride will serve as a small consolation, and a basic reconnaissance mission.  We’ll be back someday, armed with more summer.

The bikes cost us about $15 each on the train.  There isn’t an official policy or place for the bikes, although the train attendants are very kind and flexible, much unlike the Soviet-era attitudes aboard the Ukrainian railways.  Someone is transporting a large sack of flour on the train.

The 14 hour train costs about $15 per seat, plus the bikes.  Not a bad way to get across the country.  All is well until a woman enters our cabin of eight seats.  Each cabin is only ticketed for a maximum of about four passengers, as the train is quite empty.  She argues that I am in her seat.  I show her our tickets, the attendant ensures that yes, I am in her seat, although he has moved us to this cabin to be near our bikes.  She’s not happy, and the remaining twelve hours are miserable.  I’ll almost never say it, but is was really uncomfortable.  First, she closes the only window and the door to the cabin.  Then, she eats some fragrant fried food.  Finally she inspects us uncomfortably for a while, trying to figure out who or what we were.  She argues with her husband.  Lastly, she lays down across three seats, stomach hanging out of her shirt, shoes off, looking at us.  Eventually, she is asleep and snoring.  At intervals, she stretches and rolls over and puts her feet up on the window.  There are some cookies, and more fried foods.  Then, two older Romanian men enter the cabin past midnight to claim their seats.  Now, there are six of us.  Five of us sit upright; she still claims three seats.  She snaps at the two men, who maintain conversational tone in the dark.  Their voices are calm, yet earnest, and it doesn’t bother me.  Incidentally, about an hour later, she begins texting on her cell phone.  The phone is set to full volume, beeping with each key stroke.  That bothers me.  Lael holds back a laugh.  Then I laugh, and she laughs, and the woman looks at us, realizing her mistake.  She lays down again, and falls asleep.

Eventually, the two men deboard the train in the early morning.  Lael stretches out on the remaining seats.  I find an empty cabin at about 4AM, and catch a few hours of sleep.  We arrive in Timisoara at 7AM, greasy and tired.  I glare one last time at the fried food text-messaging bossy lady, and take my things.  Lael suggests we could take another train further south.  I suggest we ride.    

We exit the train station in Timisoara as all the businesses open for the day, and rain begins to fall.  This is a flat, fertile corner of Romania.  We’ll be in Serbia by the end of the day.

I’d never have chosen to visit this part of the country but we make a great day or it.  We stop in a small store at lunch, to take cover from the rain.  We order two beers and sit on the ground.  The patrons are half Roma gypsies, and half Romanian, split between two tables.  Everyone, at different intervals ask us questions in Romanian, French, German, and some Russian.  The one guy that claims to speak English is wasted, and really doesn’t speak English.  Still, he buys each of us a beer.  This is a poor town stuck near the border.  For a moment, I like being here.

In fact, this border crossing is listed on the map and on my GPS, but is currently inactive.  We arrive at the abandoned post and ride into Serbia, looking for anyone who can officiate our crossing.  There is no one.  We return to Romania, to find an official border crossing.  We’d hate to be clocking time in the EU when we have in fact left the EU and are in Serbia.  Further, we’d hate to spend time talking to the police later on.

 

Serbia

We arrive in Serbia at sunset (a pattern, it seems), and spot a small mound of mountains.  

Vrŝac, at sunset.

This is one of Serbia’s premier wine growing regions.  Serbia uses the Dinar as currency, which is valued at about 90 Dinar to the Dollar. 

Vrŝac is a fantastic city.  

Lael and I have been carrying some things we’d like to send home.  I wander into the post office, which is very busy.  Instead, I leave some layers and a camera in the park.  

Sadly, the lens is scratched and the camera body has a mind of its own when the atmosphere claims more than 90% humidity.  Hopefully, someone in Serbia will appreciate it.  I can’t justify sending it home to gather dust, nor do I want to take pictures marred by a scratched lens.  After a year and over a thousand dollars of experimentation, I’m using the same camera and lens as last year.  It is simple, small, and inexpensive.

In the past year, the screen on my lightly used Olympus E-M5 died within a week, and I lost the external hardware to the EVF on a ride.  I scratched the lens of the Panasonic 12-35mm lens, probably beyond repair.  I broke the threaded plastic filter attachment in the same bike crash that killed my last E-P3 body.  The Olympus E-PM1 body which I left in the park has been a solid performer since I purchased it as my first camera just over two years ago.  This year, I’m planning to keep it simple and cheap.

I enjoy using the Olympus E-P3 body (newer one, as the last one broke), and the photographs from the Panasonic 20mm f1.7 lens are to my liking.  And when it rains or I want to put the camera away, it fits almost anywhere on the bike.  

Serbia is full of sun, for us.

We intersect the EuroVelo6 Route along the Danube River.  This route connects the Atlantic with the Black Sea.

For about 30 miles, we ride hard packed dirt and gravel along the banks of the river.

This French cyclist has ridden all the way from Dijon on the EuroVelo6.  He’ll finish through Bulgaria and Romania in the next few weeks.

Serbia is another place we’d love to come back to visit.  Fruit grows everywhere, the people are friendly, and there are mountains in large doses to the south.  So many people speak English here.  They speak naturally, and transition quickly from Serbian.  I’m not sure how to explain the phenomena.  They also play a lot of basketball. 

Everyone in this region is familiar with conflict.  Kosovo and Monenegro only recently declared independence from Serbia.  Albania has only been quiet for a short time, and bunker tourism is part of every visit to Albania, I hear.  Each of these countries was part of a failing Yugoslavia just 25 years ago.  A lot has changed in the Balkans.  A few countries are still not yet part of the EU.  

Entering the mountains is refreshing.  For the most part, we chase paved miles en route to Podgorica.

Each town posts recent death notices in public places, usually taped around a pole or a tree.

Yugoslav-era apartment building are everywhere.  As long as you don’t find them ugly, they are fascinating.

Mining and other industries appear to be healthy across Serbia.  This is a lot different than Ukraine, where almost every old industrial building is vacant and vandalized.

We first encounter walking trails in Serbia along this dirt road climb.

Further, we find signage for the walking routes and a biking route.  I do not yet have any insight into these routes, but they do exist.  While many small roads in the mountains are paved, many others are not. There are also thousands of miles of farm roads.  We only find basic road maps in our few days in Serbia.  Also, the Openmtbmap.org file that I was using on the GPS contains less detail than in other nearby countries.  In general, these maps are highly recommended as at least some map detail is available for almost every country.  A small donation to the project allows unlimited downloads.  I have downloaded the maps for Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, and Greece. 

Fruit is everywhere, especially blackberries and raspberries.  And as everywhere else in Eastern Europe, plums are in abundance.

Potatoes.

Cabbage.  Serbian fields are productive, another change from subsistence farming in Ukraine.

Roadside springs are abundant on mountain roads.

In the city, we find this awesome traffic model, scaled down for children on bicycles, rollerblades, and on foot.  This is a good use of schoolyard space.  

Hot weather and cold water is how I hope to spend my summers.  It feels like we’re getting close, finally.

We find camp for the night in a cemetery, for the first time, actually.

The next morning, we pass through Guča, home to the world famous Guča Trumpet Festival.  This festival celebrates the style of Serbian trumpet found in regional brass bands.  I’ve seen one such band escorting a wedding party; the music is riotous.

The written Serbian language is a mix of Cyrillic and Latin characters.  My Ukrainian is more valuable here than in Romania, where our French-English-Ukrainian was more confusing than anything.  In many of these countries, people try to speak to us in German.  Younger people more often defer to English.

The mountains!  With each pass, we climb higher and higher.  We climb to 2500ft.  Then 3000, 3500, 4000, and then over 4000ft.

And at last, over 4000ft, we reach the border with Montenegro, or Crna Gora in Latinized Montenegran and Serbian.

As we get close, the rain returns.  When the weather is good, I ignore the forecast.  I look for the first time in a week.  The computer calls for rain as far as we can see, in every direction of space and time.  Rain for weeks all up and down the Balkans.  At least it will be warm, as long as we are not chasing dirt roads up to 6000ft.

Montenegro

We continue our ride, intersecting lonely paved and dirt roads, and by chance, the largest canyon in Europe.  The Tara River Canyon claims to be up to 4300ft deep in places.  It makes for a spectacular descent from the rim.  A quiet paved road continues upstream in the canyon for about 20 miles.

Where did that summer weather go?  Lael is still wearing her number from the Fireweed 400.

We prepare a bounty for Przemek’s arrival.  We will meet him and Saška at the train station in a few days.  Local wormwood liquor is a good start.

A local sign near the Biogradska Gora National Park indicates a 300km cycling route, for mountain bikes!  The route is signed, mapped, and English-language brochures are offered online.  A website dedicated to the “Top Biking Trail 3-Eastern Enchantment” provides all the information.  Maximum elevation is over 6000ft, maximum grade is 35%; mostly, I think it follows rideable dirt roads.  If the rain holds, we’ll include some of this into our route with Przemek and Saška.

We descend from the mountain valleys at 3000ft, down towards Podgorica.  At 280ft elevation, the weather is much warmer and the skies are clearer.  If necessary, we’ll plan a route nearer to the coast to avoid the orographic effect of the mountains.  The tallest mountains in Montenegro and Albania are over 8000ft and 9000ft, respectively.  So close to the Adriatic and Ionian Seas (and the Mediterranean, Aegean, and Black Seas), they create their own weather.  

Just 8 miles out of Podgorica, we find a secret riverside campsite.  The water is cold and clear, and finally, it isn’t raining.  It has been a wet ride since crossing from Serbia.

We awake to some sun and blue skies, tentative as they may be.

Plums replaced by figs, we’re close to the sea.  We are, effectively, in the Mediterranean.

Saška and Przemek arrive tomorrow, for two weeks of adventure.  We don’t have a plan or an end destination.  Surely, we’re all looking for good riding, great camping, and if possible, some sun.  Lael, as a recovering Alaskan, is always looking for sun.

Anyone live in Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, or Greece?  We may be in the area over the next month.