Geographically, The Balkan Peninsula Is Considered As Southeastern Europe – The Landmass South Of Austria And Hungary And East Of Italy, It’s Famous For Craggy And Remote Mountains, Impressive Shore And Fiercely Partisan Populations.
Stumped? It’s really a little bit of a trick question . Geographically, the Balkan Peninsula is regarded as Southeastern Europe – the landmass south of Austria and Hungary and east of Italy. It’s known for rough and remote mountains, spectacular shore and furiously partisan populations. The Adriatic is to the west, the Black Sea to the east, Greece at the southernmost tip.
But politically, the answer depends on the year. Five centuries of war, oppression and ethnic conflict have melted and created countries on the Balkan Peninsula several times over. If you answered Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania or Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH) – A-plus! All of them have coastline on the Adriatic Sea. If you assumed Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, or Kosovo – C-plus. Balkans, but not Western Balkans. Yugoslavia? No go. It collapsed over 10 years ago.
The good news for travelers? An increasingly stable array of independent states based somewhat on ethnic populations, but also on the economic imperatives of new-found independence : capitalism, development and tourism!
Dubrovnik, Croatia, is now a top destination on Eastern Mediterranean cruises, like the one Bud and I did in 2003. Our Dubrovnik guide lived through the 1991-92 Serbian siege, and bullet holes were still everywhere. But Maria’s positivism was transmissive. “Come back,” she encouraged. “After the roads are fixed and borders opened, you’ll love it.”
Seven years on we landed in Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia, on the first leg of a four-country Western Balkan road trip. Customs and immigration were smooth and efficient and our rental car, a Czech Skoda Fabia, waited just steps from the terminal.
We would drive northeast through Slovenia’s Julian Alps, south along coastal Croatia and down to Montenegro’s beaches. We would finish over Montenegro’s mythical mountains and into BiH to end in Sarajevo. Perhaps best, we were flying solo – no package tours, no booking agent. Just us!
Euro-GPS
We brought a GPS with a preloaded European chip. First stop : iconic Lake Bled. Our GPS let us select : back roads or highway. We took the tiniest roads and were straight away smitten. Each home sported lush window boxes. In the foothills of the Julian Alps, each village reached higher, with taller ancient pines, and roads narrowing to single lanes, often weaving through steep pastures. Around one corner a pristine church sat atop a brilliantly green hill.
Lake Bled’s Grand Hotel Toplice was wonderful and historical. It housed Nazi Officials during WW2, and was so prestigious the officers had to pay for rooms, although they were the occupying forces. The Toplice was full of chatty Brits and sporty Germans, and life revolved round the lake – shaded walkways along the shoreline, swans paddling about, boats with brightly colored canopies to ferry visitors around. Beautiful!
Our next stop took us even higher, to a sporthotel in Kranjska Gora. Sporthotels are clearly Western european : spare decoration, few luxuries, but huge rooms to hold skis and bikes. At the Toplice we were told that US citizens visit on occasion. In Kranjska Gora, USA citizens are rare. We were treated like celebrities and urged to visit the ski jump at nearby Planica where the world record for ski-flying was set in 2005 : 717 feet “airborne” coming off the end of the jump.
We were cautioned about the drive over Slovenia’s 9,300-foot peak, Mount Triglav, at the eastern end of the Alps. It was wet and misty. The route was really steep and narrow with 50 or more switchbacks. “Follow a bus,” they revealed. “It will lead you.”
Great guidance! We turned up at our next stop, Lipica, in fine shape and prepared to go to the famous Lipizzaner Stud Farm in its 430th year of breeding and training the enchanting white horses. We caught the dramatic “Airs Above the Ground” equestrian show and marveled at the chic facility with dressage colleges, lodging, restaurants and marriage chapel as reported tagza.com.
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