To holmertz: Too many countries in too little time?

[PaulVDV]

Thank you Gert,


I suppose during that three week trip you wanted to visit different places that happened to be in four different countries. Apparently your setup was quite different from when you went to Italy in 1969 and spent a lot of time in Rome and Firenze (and possibly other places as well).

All too often during my travels I have wanted to see as many places as possible in the few free weeks available during the holidays.
As a result, I obviously missed places in every country I visited.
It was only during my journey after my retirement that I took enough time everywhere because I was convinced that time was no longer a limiting factor.
I had no idea then that a new factor could arise that would keep people at home...

Which four countries did you combine during those three weeks?

Of course I am interested in Albania.
In Laos I met a British couple who had been on quite a few adventure trips and Albania was their best experience in recent years.

Actually, on my trip to North Macedonia, I did make a mistake.
I had bought a plane ticket with an outward journey to Skopje (via a short transfer in Zagreb) and a return flight from Belgrade.
When I bought the ticket I thought I would visit North Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia in three weeks

Then I started planning my trip and found out that if I went to Kosovo from North Macedonia, I was not allowed to enter Serbia from there.
I would have to backtrack to North Macedonia to travel from there to Serbia. So I skipped Kosovo from my plans already before I left home.
Travelling in the opposite direction (from Serbia to Kosovo and to North Macedonia) could have been done. But I had already my plane ticket.

After that I found my journey in North Macedonia so pleasant that I stayed longer than planned.
In the end I only had one week left for Serbia which is far too little for what that country has to offer...

Kind regards,
Paul

[holmertz]

Hello,
I started and finished in Belgrade, travelling south through Serbia, crossing the western part of Macedonia (not yet North), spending half of the journey in Albania, and then flying back to Belgrade from Tivat in Montenegro.
Two years later I went back to Albania, visiting some of the places I didn't see before, with a short "holiday" on Corfu in between.
Regards,
Gert

[PaulVDV]

Hi Gert,


During your first three-week trip, you probably didn't intend to visit a lot of places in all four countries.
Just like you returned to Albania afterwards, you can still visit a lot of unexplored places in the three other countries.

Presumably that journey was a kind of introduction to the different countries, a kind of seasoning, with Albania being the most convincing.

If life ever goes back to normal, Albania seems like a very good idea to visit.

In 1982 I was also in Tivat (among other places in Montenegro) but at that time it was still part of Yugoslavia and nobody had any idea what would happen in the next decade.

Kind regards,
Paul

[hoyed]

The photo is really pretty it makes you want to visit the place.