Hi everyone, here are my thoughts on this most enjoyable and informative tour to the Balkan Peninsula with Travelsphere. I stayed overnight at the Ibis once again and found it to be perfectly adequate, with a good breakfast. It was nice to meet up with Cindy again over dinner and a couple of drinks. The next day I headed off to Heathrow and once again, there was no sign of an airport representative! The check-in booths for Croatian Airlines were a bit tricky but there was a member of staff on hand to help out. I bumped into Roger whom I had also met on two previous JY holidays (he uses the name Roger The Red on the forum) and we headed through security. Unfortunately the flight to Zagreb (Croatia) was delayed by two hours due to fog and consequently we missed our connecting flight to Sarajevo (Bosnia). At this point I met Kristina Jelcic our tour manager and to her great credit, she already had everything sorted for us - after arriving in Zagreb, we would be on the next flight to Sarajevo, which would get us to the hotel just before midnight. At Zagreb airport, we had time for a wander around (some of us went outside for a walk in the park) and we were given vouchers to use in the airport restaurants for a meal.
The next day we had a tour of Sarajevo and it is a small, but very interesting city and quite picturesque. We visited the olympic museum, but to be honest it wasn't up to much and should be omitted from the itinerary! After the city tour, Kristina gave us the option of free time to explore at our own pace or go to visit the war tunnel, to give us an understanding of the siege of Sarajevo during the Balkan War of the 1990s. Most of us did the latter and I'm very glad I did - it was fascinating and our guide was excellent at bringing the difficulties of that period to life. I think Kristina is going to suggest to TS that it be included instead of the olympic museum in future. Unfortunately I didn't have time to visit the Franz Ferdinand museum or the national museum but you can't do everything! The history and politics of Bosnia are fascinating - to keep the peace there is a revolving presidency every eight months between the three ethnic groupings in the country, but even with that ethnic Serbs are attempting to establish their own homeland within the country. That night Kristina organised the welcome dinner, which had been postponed from the previous night, due to our late arrival, and it was very good!
The next day we headed to Montenegro and the scenery was stunning - dramatic mountain ranges and vibrant shades of green. This type of scenery continued until we reached Serbia, where it started to flatten out. In Montenegro we visited the towns of Budva and Kotor which have stunning walled old towns with lovely cobbled streets. The scenery at Kotor Bay was beautiful and we enjoyed a boat trip to the island. The following day we travelled on to Albania, where I was expecting a culture shock but didn't get one, apart from the crazy driving! Albania is much more affluent than I had been expecting and there was little difference between it and the other countries we travelled through - the exception being Croatia, which was definitely more comfortably off than the other five countries we visited. We visited the castle at Kruje and had free time to have a late lunch and wander around the markets - too much free time, so I led a revolt and Kristina agreed that we would leave earlier than scheduled and consequently arrive at our hotel earlier. Again, I understand that she is going to suggest this tweak to the powers that be in TS. The next day we had a city tour of the capital Tirana and then crossed the border into Macedonia and Lake Ohrid.
I really enjoyed the time in Macedonia - two days at Ohrid and then a day in the capital Skopje. Lake Ohrid is beautiful and we had plenty of time to enjoy our surroundings and Skopje is a city with amazing statues and sculptures. Next it was on into Serbia, the bad guy of Balkan history. First impressions were not favourable - although the countryside was pretty, we stopped off in Despotovac for a bite of lunch and a wander - it was described in the itinerary as "pretty" - it certainly is not! A depressing place with suspicious locals who are obviously not used to seeing tourists! We then arrived in Belgrade, the capital and also former capital of Yugoslavia and the largest city we stayed in. Dinner was not included on the two nights of the tour, but Kristina offered to organise a dinner reservation for those who wanted to go as a group, rather than wander around trying to find somewhere decent to eat. Almost everyone in the group were delighted to do this and Kristina brought us to two contrasting restaurants - one in the old town, the other modern and we had two excellent meals - many thanks Kristina!
The next day we visited Novi Sad, which has a nice town centre and then it was finally on to Croatia, stopping first at Osijek before arriving at Zagreb. I really liked Zagreb; it has a lot of beautiful buildings and is easy to navigate. I think it would make a great base for a city break. Despite the rain, I really enjoyed the city tour and in the free time I went to the Museum of Broken Relationships, a fascinating place with tales of love and loss - well worth a visit!
So all in all, this was a great tour visiting six countries I had never been to before. I will certainly return to Croatia again as I really want to see Dubrovnik and the coast. However it is not suitable for anyone with limited mobility, as we had to frequently walk on rough surfaces, cobbles and climb lots of steps and slopes. On a tour with eight different hotels, we obviously compared one with another and the hotels in Sarajevo, Tirana, Skopje, Novi Sad and Zagreb were excellent. The rooms in Budva were poorly laid out and very small in Belgrade. The rooms in Ohrid were a bit on the shabby side, but on the plus side the hotel was right by the lake and a short walk from the atmospheric old town. The food was excellent throughout, although the breakfast in Ohrid was poor. Unfortunately a number of us came down with "holiday tummy" - a very common condition when travelling anywhere away from home! Mine lasted longer than most, but thankfully I was still able to take part in all the sightseeing. The weather was generally sunny and hot - it reached 41C in Albania! It was generally in the high 20s, with it being rainy and cooler in Skopje and again in Zagreb.
The team at TS have obviously worked hard to provide a tour that is interesting and varied - most of the hotels are centrally located and the amount of sightseeing and free time was just about right, as far as I was concerned. A couple of tweaks could be made to make it even better - Kristina is making a number of suggestions, but these are only minor fine tuning and there were no major problems. I've mentioned our hard working tour manager numerous times at this stage and no doubt you'll have gathered that she was excellent - extremely conscientious, hard-working, friendly and professional. This is her first year working for TS (she hasn't done a JY tour as yet) and she is a tremendous asset to the company. Being Croatian, she has an in-depth knowledge of the whole region and her language skills and local knowledge proved invaluable time and again and she really added to our holiday experience. She even gave us all two small gifts at the farewell dinner - a piece of parchment with our name written in Cyrillic and a small souvenir of Zagreb! Our driver Sidic was also outstanding; he drove safely on the winding roads and knew exactly where he was going on this long and complex itinerary. He also had to deal with much crazy overtaking and we all felt completely safe at all times.
Finally (this review is much longer than I had anticipated!) what was it like doing a Travelsphere tour as a single traveller? I know a few other forum users have done TS tours in recent times, so I'll be brief. I had a much better experience than I thought I would, to be honest. The group was very friendly and the couples very welcoming. My view is that I would be very happy to travel on my own with Travelsphere again - provided evening meals were included. I imagine when dinners are not included, the group splinters off and most couples go off by themselves to find somewhere to eat (this happened on the previous TS tour I did to South America, but as I was travelling with a friend, this was not a problem). I really don't want to eat dinner by myself and so I reckon any TS tour that would be half board would be fine for any single traveller who has concerns about this. Surprisingly the other single travellers on the tour did not mix that much with each other and most of them have done a number of TS tours, with a couple of them saying they actually preferred TS to JY!
So in conclusion, a great tour that has given me a terrific glimpse into the history and life of the Balkans as they are today. I am very glad I went. If you have "done" most of Europe and are looking for something interesting and different, I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Best wishes,
Bob
