I was very happy when my good friend Erik called me saying that we should take a long-weekend road trip somewhere. His idea was a tour in Bosnia and Croatia, starting from Timisoara and passing through Belgrade to pick me up.
Traveling the Balkans by car is always an adventure, honestly the roads are not super friendly in certain places, and sometimes you can face cops looking for reasons to charge you a fine. In addition, you will see beautiful landscapes, meet friendly locals and taste good food. It’s definitely an experience that I recommend to you!
Table of Contents
My 4 day road trip
- Visegrad
- Sutjeska National Park
- Dubrovnik
- Split
The plan was to be more spontaneous and see what we can do to have fun in these cities. Erik just returned from his trip to Bulgaria, so the only activity planned in advance was visiting Sutjeska for a day hike.
Visegrad
Small and nice. I feel a great energy every time I visit this city. There are places that you just feel good energy when visiting. Visegrad is one of them for me. We got there overnight after a full day of working and driving.
The owner of our accommodation was very kind, typical Balkan hospitality. She was very interested to know what a Brazilian, an Italian and a German are planning to do in Visegrad. I explained our plan to her and she was very happy to know that we were willing to explore her country.
After a good sleep, we were ready to have a nice breakfast and explore Visegrad. The famous Mehmed Pasa Sokolovic bridge was close to our accommodation. The bridge is Visegrad’s best-known feature, mainly due to the book written by Ivo Andric, The Bridge on the Drina.
Walking around the city, we found a cool zip line crossing the river. Francesco wanted to try, so we went there to feel the fresh air from above the Drina. The zip line lasted for 30-45 secs, and it was pretty cool. After that, we walked a bit more and started driving to Sutjeska.
Sutjeska hiking tour
I’m always ready to hike, it’s one of my favorite outdoor activities. Since that was my first time hiking in Bosnia, I was looking forward to go to Sutjeska, the oldest and largest national park in Bosnia. I have seen some travelers that I follow on Instagram posting their experiences. This time I would have mine 🙂
You can spend easily several days hiking in Sutjeska if you want to explore the main places in the Park properly. Maglic(2,386m) is the highest peak, Trnovacko lake and the Skakavac waterfall are the main parts of the park. I believe that a 3-5 day hiking tour is enough to cover all of these main places.
At the entrance of the park, we found a very friendly local doorman who gave us some tips about the park. We had half day to complete the hike, so we have decided to go to the Ugljesin Vrh (1859m).
A bit of bad luck
The weather at that day seemed normal, but as soon as we got close to the peak, we heard thunder. Erik was very worried about this (with a reason), the thunderstorms were more frequent as we were close on the top, so we had to come back quickly.
We spent around 2-3 minutes on the Ugljesin peak before starting running to return to our car, it was one of the fastest hiking experiences I had. Thankfully in the end , nothing happened to us.
We were ready to move to our next destination…
Dubrovnik
We arrived in Dubrovnik late in the evening. It was my first time there so I was very excited to explore the old town on the next day. Back then, Game of Thrones was still running so you could see GoT tours all over the place. Shops were selling mugs, shirts and souvenirs about the TV show.
We were walking around the old town but it was empty, so we have decided to get some drinks and hang out outside of the old town.
On the way, I met a drunk Scotsman asking for places to go, it was hard to understand him so I told him to check out the old town. If he went there, he is mad at me to this day :P.
Exploring the Old town
After sleeping well, we went to the old town. This time it was alive! Lots of people walking around, eating and buying GoT souvenirs :D. I could feel how well preserved is the history in Dubrovnik, apart from the GoT tours, you can explore the old town itself and learn more about the history of Dubrovnik.
During our walk we found this agency that was offering a kayaking tour from the old town to the island of Lokrum. Perfect way to mix a cool activity with getting to know the places around the old town.
The plan was to leave the old town, go around the island and finish the tour in the Betina cave. They gave us some snacks and kayaks for 2 people, we took plenty of water because the day was very hot.
It was a nice tour, our tour guide was telling us some local stories about how the island is cursed and nobody dares to go there. You never know if these tales are real or invented to entertain tourists :D.
After we finished our kayaking tour, we headed to a local restaurant for a nice dinner before heading off to our next destination. If you walk just a bit outside of the old town you will see easily the price difference in the restaurants. I felt the prices in the old town were too expensive so we walked a bit outside of the old town and found a reasonably priced restaurant.
Split
One of my favorite cities in Croatia. Split is everything that I would expect from a seaside town: Nice people, good food and beautiful beaches. Our host was very friendly, we were drinking rakijas as part of the Balkan hospitality, like always.
It was nice to be able to use my Serbian to communicate with people. Although there are some minor differences, I was able to have an easy communication with them.
In split we have decided to go a bit easy and relax on the beach. Ice cream, swimming and good conversations with my friends were in the menu for that day. It was the last day of our road trip. After split , we would drive back to Belgrade, and then Erik and Francesco would continue driving to Timisoara.
End of the road trip
I enjoyed every minute with my friends Erik and Francesco. We did a good mix of outdoor activities, relaxation, good food and a bit of partying. When I left Sutjeska my first thought was: “I definitely need to go back and spend 2-3 hiking around here”. I hope to achieve this soon.
This was my road trip in Bosnia and Croatia, I hope my experience can give you an idea of places to visit in the Balkans for a long-weekend road trip.
See you on the next adventure…
