4-Xtremes – Part 14: an eventful turn of the year for Mike and Andrea

If you travel enough, there comes a time when you only count the countries that you aren't allowed to enter. At least, that’s what a friend once told us. If you look at it that way, we’re just beginners. However there is a country where we have been unlucky at its border twice now. Which one is it? We’ll tell you in a few paragraphs.

We spent several weeks in Croatia at the end of last year. Every day we only drove short distances and saw a lot of villages that had probably been abandoned during the war in the 90s. Fortunately there are even more places in Croatia that aren’t a reminder of those dark years. We were particularly impressed by the Visovac Monastery. It is located on an island in the Krka National Park not far from the coastal town of Šibenik.

Forced break in Split.

In Split it was time for a forced stop again! One of the side headlamps on the Axor died a death – and the replacement we had ordered from Switzerland was stuck in customs for several days. Due to the grey weather we couldn’t count on our solar collectors, so we drove to a camping site with an electricity supply and used the time there to plan our journey further. We also visited Split’s impressive historic centre. All the same, we were happy when the parcel with the headlamps finally arrived.

With the batteries fully charged and the water tanks full, we then set off in a south-easterly direction along the coast. Just before Dubrovnik you pass into the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina which stretches to the Adriatic Sea at this point. Usually you pass back into Croatia after a few minutes. This time we were in a traffic jam for two hours: holiday traffic. We brought a few snacks into the cab and enjoyed the warm sun from behind the windscreen.

Lost places near Dubrovnik.

After arriving in Dubrovnik we realised that Aimée wasn’t well. During the night we had to go out almost every hour because she had diarrhoea. Had the heat during the traffic jam been too much for our old lady? The next day, Aimée still wasn’t any better. So I – Andrea – set off into the historic centre of Dubrovnik on my own. Exploring this magnificent town on a Sunday morning in December without any other tourists was a super experience.

South of Dubrovnik we were able to devote ourselves to the fascination of lost places. We discovered abandoned hotels from the time when this was Yugoslavia: three concrete buildings and in the middle of them one that was once very beautiful. Despite the evidence of war on its façade it still exudes a certain charm.

Peace in the mountains.

Luckily, nowadays fireworks are the only things fired in Croatia; some of them in the days running up to New Year’s Eve. Because that is a stressful experience for Aimée, we spent several nights in the mountains further inland from Dubrovnik. Here it was quiet and our dog was able to recover.

From the south of Croatia you can get to Greece pretty quickly via Montenegro and Albania. However, the border from Albania to Greece was closed to tourists. That is why we decided to drive through Montenegro, Serbia and Bulgaria to enter Turkey. In Montenegro the weather was very bad and there was snow in the mountains. So we drove non-stop to the border crossing to Serbia, stayed overnight at a car park and then prepared to cross the border the next morning.

Material damage in Serbia.

Unfortunately, they were very picky at the border. Every compartment, every spice, every medicine: they looked at everything and even opened the covers for the subharnesses. The officials repeatedly asked us separately the same questions about drugs. That’s why they were taking all this trouble! We willingly showed and explained everything and so after a full two hours they gave up.

That left ten hours for the almost 350 kilometres to the Bulgarian border. We would have needed a negative Covid test for a longer period in transit. To the next motorway we had to cover a good distance on roads that were just wide enough for two trucks to pass each other. If a pothole then opens up in the lane, there’s a bang. Luckily, that only cost us an outside mirror. After so many kilometres without any accident damage, something like that had to happen sometime.

Photos: 4-Xtremes