“… pick your island of choice. Better still, pick a few. Check the ferry schedule and set sail. Settle into a quaint room. Wander among whitewashed lanes. Wash down your souvlaki with a beer or a carafe of wine in a local taverna. And when all that is done you can hop to the next island and do it all over again. C’est la belle vie Greek style, one sun-drenched island at a time.”
“There are two versions of Ohrid here in this placid region of southwest Macedonia: one is a small hilly resort town with a compact walled Old Quarter of traditional houses with red-tiled roofs, medieval churches, monasteries, open-air ruins, and a centuries-old fortress towering above it all; the other is a shimmering lake straddling the mountainous border between Macedonia and Albania, one of Europe’s deepest, oldest, and most picturesque bodies of water harbouring a unique and UNESCO-protected ecosystem. Two reasons to visit when, for me at least, one would be draw enough. Fortunately, where Ohrid is concerned they come as a package.”
“Most of what bemused me about the city today wasn’t even here a decade ago. Millions have been spent in recent years turning the centre of the city into something of a bizarre theme park of garish architecture – some 130 structures (buildings, statues, bridges, water features, and even a triumphal arch) were erected between 2010 and 2014 as part of the Skopje 2014 project, one of Europe’s biggest urban renewal schemes centred around both banks of the city’s Vardar River.”
“It’s affordable, gritty, youthful, ambitious & friendly, a very new country dealing with a troubled past while looking towards a brighter future. Here and now Kosovo also has bears; UNESCO-listed monuments; and a likable capital city boasting 200,000+ hospitable locals, a not-so-old Old Quarter, a bizarre man crush on a former US president, life-size lettering…great street scenes, and some standout architecture, including what must surely be a contender for the ugliest building on earth. Yes, it’s a curious mix alright, but one that somehow works…”
“While I’m glad I stopped by, there’s really not a whole lot to see in the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica, the few hours it took me this afternoon to walk a loop of the city from the bus station and back again more than sufficient time to sample what is on offer. The city, Europe’s newest capital city and one of its smallest, doesn’t attract too many of my ilk, that much plainly obvious.”
“Budva, the Montenegrin Miami, may be the place to come for an all-night Adriatic Coast party come the summer months, but even through a hangover I suspect one will still appreciate the town’s gorgeous walled Old Town (yes, of course Budva has one of those), its beaches and its setting on Montenegro’s stunning 30-kilometre-long Riviera coast.”
“And what an approach it was, the steep, narrow hairpin-happy P1 snaking up the hills behind Kotor providing epic Bay of Kotor vistas. I lost count of the amount of times I stopped to savour the views on the so-called Kotor Serpentine, and that was even before I reached the the lofty heights of the highest mausoleum in the world.”
“The spectacular topography of the 88 km² bay… means there isn’t a whole lot of room in which to squeeze those picturesque Medieval walled Old Towns. There’s even less room for roads. But roads there are and with a shoreline of some 110 kilometers that equates to over 100 kilometres of winding, one-lane, water-hugging driving delights while skirting the feet of steep mountains. It’s a geographical setting rivalled by very few places on earth, if any.”
Forty-eight weeks, 5 continents, 38 countries & territories. Hundreds of good pictures, thousands of bad ones. The epic year that was.
”It’s historic, but about the only discernible purpose it serves today is to appease tourists, a sole function it fulfills with aplomb. Make no mistake, and regardless of the time of year you drop by, you won’t be alone sampling the so-called Pearl of The Adriatic. But sample it you must, at least once in your lifetime.”