This is the third and final part of my narrative about my 2022 bike trip from Tirana to Ljubljana through Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia.
Sunday 1st May: Mostar – Gradac: 84 km (continued)
The first thing that I noticed on entering Croatia from Bosnia was the relative normality. Everything that little tidier, more spruce, more modern. The clothes, the state of the buildings, the shops, the sudden profusion of lycra-clad road bikers…
The second thing I noticed was the traffic. Tons of it, rumbling away every few seconds along a rather dreary stretch of main road, flat, mostly straight as a bullet, and tedious.
Across the mighty Neretva for the final time, now broad and quiet, and up into the hills to the Bacinska lakes and a wonderful overlook before descending to the simple but pretty harbour of Gradac, bathed in a gentle evening sunlight.
And the third thing I noticed was that on the first Sunday in May, nearly all the restaurants were closed. So I stopped pondering the modernity and traffic, and plonked myself down at a waterside pizzeria. It was not the most Croatian of meals, but it was as good as I was going to get.
Monday 2nd May: Gradac – Omiš: 79 km
I set off relatively early in moody skies with the threat of rain. It suited the landscape: limestone cliffs shoving their way down to turquoise waters with only a thin strip of habitable land and beach in between, towns clinging to the water’s edge with sharp names like the wonderful Zaostrog, conjuring up some triple-horned warrior springing from rock to rock with vengeance on his mind. The entrancing sight of beautiful purple irises and scarlet poppies springing from rocks here and there.
I had re-joined the Eurovelo 8 (EV8), a long-distance route going from Cadiz to Athens, and a favourite with bike tourers.
The road was largely quiet and I rumbled up and down all day following the coastline all day: long slow but moderate climbs, followed by wonderful swishing descents. Only the ugliness and traffic of Makarska intervened. With the temperature hovering at a chilly 12-15C and the constant threat of rain, it was not a day for stopping, though I occasionally took a moment to admire the savage beauty of it all and the stunning islands out to sea.
After Makarska, two stubborn climbs, the last one going up and up and up, but rewarded by the grey magnificence of it all. It was the Croatia that I had dreamed of. The sheer immensity of it all was quite stunning.
Then to Omiš, the home town of one of my team, a small but pleasant place, with much more of a feeling than the rather deserted Gradac. The rain finally arrived, so I did not linger.
Tuesday 3rd May: Omiš – Split: 27km
I woke up to sunny skies, the true nature of Omiš revealed on a gentle stroll along the harbour and through the narrow streets. My hotel, the Villa Dvor, faced out to the coast, but also up a twisting gorge. I had it all to myself over a wonderful breakfast.
Then out along the corniche: more beautiful roads and more or less flat, but this time, passed constantly by traffic. I would have been better heading up the gorge and re-joining the EV8, even if it meant tackling stiff hills and ignoring the islands. More and more built up and ugly as I got closer to Split. A short ride but not a pleasant one.
Finally, I turned off to the village of Stobreč and after a bit of up and down along thin coastal tracks, passing olive groves and nurseries, down to a pleasant beach with bike path – you can see it in the video – where I lingered until I could check into my nice apartment.
Split was very nice: an immensely old town within the walls of Diocletian’s palace dating back to 295AD and backing onto a big harbour. A lot of tourists, but also a town where you could sense people getting on with their lives. A town to gently amble without a clear plan.
Wednesday 4th May: Split
But I had business to attend to. I was not the first member of my family to visit Split.
In November 1944, my grandfather had entered it in rather different conditions than a care-free bike ride.
As the captain in charge of HMS Delhi, he had sailed into the heavily fortified harbour, which the Germans had recently retreated from but were keen to retake.
His problem was twofold: to establish a British naval presence in Yugoslavia in the face of local resistance from the communist partisans who had taken over whilst repelling any counter-attacks from German forces. He spent a tense four months with the threat of imminent attack from both sides, with the Delhi finally suffering limited damage from a German motorboat attack.
He spent the time trying to defuse tensions with the partisans, and build good relations with the local population. Without knowing it, the Cold War was beginning. He recorded his story – and the rest of his tough war – in the late 1960s in a rather cold naval style which hinted at the amazing stress that he had been under throughout.
(For a fascinating account of the wider relationship between the British and the Partizans, see the third part of Fitzroy Maclean’s excellent “Eastern Approaches”).
While in Split, my grandfather got to know a Dr Ćurčin, a friend of the great sculptor Ivan Meštrović. Meštrović had fled to Switzerland in 1943 to escape persecution from Croat nationalist authorities, leaving Ćurčin and other friends to look after his villa on the outskirts of the town. Another friend, the sculptor Andrija Krstulović,asked if he could do a bust of my grandfather, so my grandfather went to the villa for a number of sittings. Krstulović subsequently gave him the cast with instructions to get it cast in bronze on his return, which he did. After the death of my grandparents, the bust went to my father, who in turn passed it on to me. As I write, it sits proudly at the top of the stairs, a magnificent piece of art.
So I headed to the villa. It is a stunning museum, not just the quality but the sheer evolution and range of styles as Meštrović experimented with different approaches and materials, often within the same period: smooth to rough, stone to bronze to wood, figurative and religious to naturalistic.
And in the middle, his last piece, a self-portrait. The resemblance to my grandfather’s bust was uncanny: the ties and coats were almost identical.
On leaving, I went to one of the curators and mentioned the bust and showed a photo that I had brought with me. She immediately recognised the names Ćurčin and Krstulović and of course the style of the bust. A few weeks later, one of the other curators kindly sent me information on both of them. My grandfather had been under the impression that Krstulović had ended up in the US, where Meštrović settled at the end of the war, but no, he had remained in Yugoslavia. He stayed in touch with Meštrović and was finally given permanent use of the workshop under the gallery.
One of his works was to design the pillars of the lobby and caryatids for the monument to Njegoš at the top of Mt Lovćen in Montenegro. This was the very monument that I had passed beneath on a cold and rainy day a few weeks earlier, not daring to take on the extra climb. And he had lived to a good old age, finally dying at the age of 85 in 1997. He had seen everything: the First World War, the creation of Yugoslavia, the Second World War, the communist regime, and finally the collapse of Yugoslavia. It was a poignant thought.
If only we had known in those pre-Internet days: we could have met the great man. Again on this trip, the history felt pressingly recent.
Thursday 5th May: Split – Grebaštica: 73 km
Split had been a good choice, but the road beckoned. And not a pretty one, once I had threaded my way through the wooded headland of Marjan Park: an ugly sprawl of the usual apartment blocks and industrial estates, choked with traffic. I was able to ride on bike path for part, but for the rest had to duke it out with the cars and lorries.
I was following the EV8 again. On the outskirts, it took me off the road and through the ruins of Salona: rather pretty but totally unsuited for a touring bike: rutted rock edges. So I had to beat a painful retreat and work my way north of the main drag, more blank suburbs fused into one another. No scenery, no climbs, just drains, misshapen manhole covers and a relentless stream of vehicles for 17 boring kilometres including a spectacularly boring stretch past the boring airport. No views of the sea and even the hills flattened out. A day for distance and muttering away like a mad man. On a bicycle.
A brief interlude in the islet of Trogir, a pretty town but now seen under a return of those rain-holding grey skies. So on I went, back on the EV8, including another bit of routing stupidity as it sent me up a rough track where again I had to walk my bike.
Up into the hills in the afternoon, the sun coming out briefly, mostly, on fresh tarmac to Vrsine and Gustirna, before a monstrous climb of 7-12% up through the village. I crested the hill and thought that the punishment was over, only to meet a bearded bike tourer coming in the other direction – headed from the Netherlands to Corfu “where I meet my girlfriend and then we see” – who told me that the bit of EV8 coming up was only just passable, so I took a longer detour to avoid it… and was rewarded with another steep sweaty horror: a constant 7-10% beast, and going on and on. At last, the top and a cheery Polish biker coming the other way, before a worthy descent to Rastovac, followed by a more comfortable up and down to Mitlo and then left to Kruševo before finally re-joining the EV8.
It was pleasant but not stunning riding on that overcast day: small villages poking sheepishly out of hillsides in the distance, poppies, olive groves, fig trees and rough stone walls.
Just as I had run out of puff, a long serpentine descent in glimmering evening light: islands hovering out to sea, and then finally, my little apartment for the night with a gift of homemade cherry brandy from the owner. I’d love to say how wonderful it was, but in reality, it was wretchedly sweet…
Friday 6th May: Grebaštica – Murter: 51 km
There are days when you just have to go out there and do the distance, no matter how you are feeling. And so it was that day. Looking at the video, it almost seems quite joyful.
It wasn’t. And my mood had not been helped by a poor night’s sleep, tormented by a stealthy and vicious mosquito with a penchant for cherry brandy-infused blood. I set off in overcast but dry conditions: few decent sights and a steady up and down only interrupted by regular roadworks.
I stopped in Šibenik, hoping to let the front pass: a pretty city with a beautiful old cathedral, but the rain started and the temperature was a rather chilly 12-14C, so I remounted, out along a busy highway before quieter roads, looking out for a café where I could have some lunch and let the rain pass, but none open in that dreary stretch of bland landscape and even blander towns.
On the road to Tisno, the rain really set in, the wind shoving it right in my face, the road a mass of puddles and the temperature dropping to 10C. A steady up and down through utterly unremarkable landscape. I think of that day and I think of that horrible hour, pushing through the rain, my face set into the wind and rain.
Finally, an open café on the outskirts of Tisno with a cheery waitress who happily welcomed me and my bike in under the awning and served up a large coffee and a piping hot beef stew: a pasticada, with dumplings on the side. I put on dry clothes over my wet lycra and for an hour felt human again before pushing back out into the rain and cold for the final stretch to the rather featureless town of Murter and my apartment a solid walk away from it, not that anything appeared open. It was all rather a shame because the lapping of the turquoise waters and the green islands in the distance gave it a charm. If it hadn’t been so sodding wet and cold.
It was still raining heavily as I headed out for dinner and most of the places seemed closed even on a Friday night. I was initially turned away by the one place that was open, before a German couple also entered and the owner changed his mind. It was smoky and rowdy with a bunch of locals holding court, but the food was decent: fried prawns with chips and a decent mixed salad all washed down with two very nice glasses of white wine. For purely medicinal purposes. The worst days on a bike can usually be remedied by a decent dinner and this did the job.
Saturday 7th May: Murter – Zadar: 68 km
A much better night’s sleep despite my freezing cold bedroom and the belting rain.
I retraced my route back along to Tisno: at least dry this time in overcast skies and then the main road left towards Zadar, and followed the D8 for most of the day, up and down, up and down, with at least light traffic.
But my goodness, what a boring road and boring scenery: flattish scrubland, trees or ribbon developments. If the best you can make of your footage of 68km is under two minutes, you can tell how boring the rest of it was. Even the odd detour along seashore was underwhelming on that underwhelming day. At least the rain held off all day.
Then a long walk into touristy Zadar, regretting choosing a hotel out of the town centre, the place again rather underwhelming and not helped by large parts of the seafront being closed off for reconstruction. Even the food was overpriced and underwhelming.
So I headed back out along that long walk to my hotel in a sour mood after three days of arse-soddingly boring riding and yes, underwhelming end destinations. This happens from time to time when you bike tour: your mood can get low with the physical effort, the weather and the monotony of the riding and the loneliness creeps in. I had picked myself up from the sadnesses in Montenegro, so I had to get myself going again.
Sunday 8th May: Zadar – Pag: 68 km
Picking yourself up from low moods is part of bike touring. The combination of physical exertion and slight loneliness with a perceived run of bad fortune or bad weather, and possibly rather boring roads. You get in a rut and start churning things round in your head, and you just have to press the mental ‘reset’ button and get back on with it.
More grey skies and spotting rain. But after cutting through the backstreets of Zadar, the weather and views started to improve: a delightful stretch of coastline around Diklo before a steep – 8-10% – climb up onto the headland and a main road, but mercifully with a separated bike path for much of it, and a lot of Sunday riders for company and reassurance.
Then a terrific descent to Zaton and the pretty town of Nin before again heading up and down through farmland and then a few more savage hills around Krneza. Savage but with the reward of beautiful views. My mood was slowly picking up, helped by the sight of the Velebit and Paklanac mountains in the far distance.
The full reward for all that wet and boring slogging from Split came as I approached the bridge to Pag island: the landscape more and more remote and rocky with every mile, lit up in the increasing sun. I stopped for a moment at an abandoned roadside shack to take it all in, the wind whipping around me: a vast forbidding landscape ahead, magical in its remoteness. This was more like it!
Crossing the bridge, I felt that I was leaving the frustrations of the previous days behind me and back in the full glorious, stupid, crazy adventure.
More greenery and wild sage by the roadside, and to spur my tired legs, the threat of a storm. I was on the main road, but mercifully not too crowded on a Sunday afternoon, so I could fully enjoy.
I entered Pag Town to black skies, but happily the storm only arrived at 9 at night, after an absolutely unbelievably beautiful sunset over the port: blues, purples, browns, oranges, the town almost deserted and boats bobbing in the harbour. A sunset for the ages.
And just to cap my transformed mood, a delightful supper in a local restaurant, the Konoba Bodulo: “Saur”: fried and marinated fish with pickled onions and sultanas, followed by a divine local lamb marinated in herbs and with soft potatoes and good bread, all topped off with some fine glasses of white and red, and with a chatty and helpful waiter.
Monday 9th May: Pag Town
I was back to good spirits, helped by good weather, agreeable scenery and decent food and wine. Pag was a pretty enough town to amble around in.
As usual, I used a day off the bike to rest up and wash clothes. Leaving the washing machine on in the bathroom, I made a call to one of my sisters, closing the bathroom door to quieten the noise of the machine.
At the end of the call, I went to check on the machine. And found that it had moved. And was now blocking the door. This was not good news. Especially as the bathroom contained the only toilet.
I could just about get my left hand through the gap between the door and frame. But no further. And the machine was sufficiently heavy that I certainly wasn’t going to be able to move it.
So I called the owner, who promised to send her husband over in half an hour.
Luckily, while waiting, the machine went into its final spin cycle and started vibrating again. I seized my moment and was able to nudge the miscreant machine away from the door and widen the crack in the door sufficiently to get myself through and then climb over the wandering washer and move it further away. And then the husband turned up.
Tuesday 10th May: Pag – Sveti Juraj: 70km
Back on the road, still in a good mood on a lovely sunny morning, but aware that I needed to get going to catch the 11.30 ferry back to the mainland.
I had a choice between taking the main road the whole way and taking a more scenic bike route – the ‘1’ – which threatened a bit of sand and gravel but would be away from the cars and cling to the coast before re-joining the main drag after about 12 or so kilometres. Setting off early, I figured that I had the time.
And initially, it worked well: lovely gentle up and down through quiet villages and along the side of the inlet. Yes, there was a bit of earth and gravel, but nothing unrideable.
But then the sand got deeper, and I had to get off and push for a bit. And then the track disappeared. With a big red ‘no through road’ sign. There must have been a landslide. So I left the bike on its side and went to check out my options and could just about see a possible route through up the hill through more thick red sand. So up I pushed, with time moving on, and then skittle-skattled my bike down the other side of the slope, before finding road again with relief and not too much time lost.
Now I was in a hurry, flying along through those villages and happily re-joining the main road, which was well paved but with a few very long steady and sweaty hills tormenting me as I raced for the ferry. Finally, the sight of the coast and a wondrous swishing descent through hard-baked rock to the ferry, with about 10-15 minutes left.
A 15-minute crossing to the grey cliffs of the mainland. I waited for the cars to pass and took my own sweet time as I pushed myself up a 200m climb, averaging 5-10%. It was tough but worth it, savage grey boulders and formations pushing down to the sea, interspersed with outcrops of sturdy trees and the odd roadside iris lighting up the way, splashes of bright purple ink on that grey landscape.
Then I was on the main road for 40 kilometres of steady up and down. A stunning ride in great weather: those tumbling rocks to my right and to my left, a succession of islands across the calm blue sea: Pag, then Rab, then Goli and Prvić. Fig trees, dandelions, gorse and of course, those lovely, lovely irises. For much of the ride, the road was mercifully quiet, though the traffic picked up in the afternoon.
A marvellous long descent – 8km in 15 minutes – to my end point in Sveti Juraj, my splendid day capped by a simple but happy dinner of grilled squid, chips and salad and a few very medicinal glasses of wine, watching the sunset across the water and the flickering lights across the bay. Magic.
Wednesday 11th May: Sveti Juraj – Kraljevica: 62km
My journey to and from Pag had revived my spirits and sense of adventure. But sometimes you pay for the exertions of one day when you get out the next, and so it was that day. My energy was not helped by a poor night’s sleep with irregular air conditioning and again the torment of mosquitoes.
The coastal road was much busier than the day before and the almost constant stream of traffic and especially motorbikes rocketing past combined with steeper hills and hotter weather, became an annoyance. Even the landscape started to bore.
I had avoided the temptations of the EV 8 for a few days, figuring to enjoy the coastal views rather than the more inland route. But with that noisy traffic and increasing boredom, after 30 kilometres, I turned off on the outskirts of Novo Vinodolski and a sluggish 200m climb in broiling heat.
I was indeed rewarded with quieter roads. But not much else: scrubby land interspersed with soulless villages, and hills growing steeper and longer, toying with my weary legs. It was a day for trundling along with my head down on those unrewarding climbs and ticking off the kilometres as the sweat trickled down my head, looking ahead only to scan for rocks. I hardly saw a soul on a bike and those that were ignored me. Even the descents were tedious.
It was a relief when I entered the outskirts of Kraljevica, a town chosen not out of any touristic virtue, but simply because it was a convenient stopping point for the day, and had a single accommodation option: a pleasant enough but expensive apartment a long walk out of a very ugly town.
Thursday 12th May: Kraljevica – Rijeka – Lovran: 48 km
Better spirits and another fine sunny day, the drenching of Murter a distant memory. And the landscape picked up too, at least for a while: a rather nice inland bay and steady ride up, enough to get the heart and legs going, but not too bothersome. One cyclist passing me: a young Frenchman, fully loaded with luggage in all directions, heading from France to Turkey with all the time in the world and religiously following every line and squiggle of the EV 8, including that rock trap outside of Split.
Then a descent into the thickness of Rijeka, my first big city since Split, and a sense of a cultural border being crossed, out of the Balkans and into the former Habsburg empire. Rijeka had the bustle – and treacherous traffic – of a big city, but the architecture was different: much more ornate and studied, gently decaying. I rather regretted not spending the night there and taking time to explore.
But I had business to attend to. People tell me that disc brakes are the future of cycling. And they might be. But we are not in that future yet, at least for touring bikes. Since switching to a bike with them, I have had no end of trouble: axles getting stuck and most of all, the brake pads wearing through rapidly, under the toil of preventing a fully loaded touring bike from overcooking steep descents.
For a few days, my brakes had started to squeak and the braking was getting harder and harder. With few bike shops around, I gambled on stopping in Rijeka and was able to find a shop on my route out of town: “Far Out”… Literally.
So I bundled my bike through the doors of “Far Out” and begged for help. Which they were happy to give, making time to replace the totally worn-out pads with new ones, though warning me that my chain would need to be replaced when I got back to Brussels. “We are bike tourers ourselves” though he was unimpressed with my rather minor trip of only 1000 km. Did they get a lot of tourers? “Oh yeah, we even had a guy in this morning. French. Totally overpacked. That’s the problem with these guys. He could have done with half that stuff.”
On I went, the EV 8 sending me on a pointless detour through shipyards and warehouses before confronting me with a massive set of stairs up to the main road I should have stayed on in the first place. So back I rode and along another busy coastal road, past fading villas, with Eurovelo slightly redeeming itself by giving me a brief but beautiful glimpse of the bay by the village of Preluk.
And then the opulence of Opatija and Lovran, my last rest point before the final stretch of this amazing journey.
Friday 13th May: Lovran
A quiet day and a happy swim in the waters. Lovran was touristy but it was also charming, especially the pathway along the sea, up and down, in and out of small bays. It was charming by day and charming by night, with the distant lights of Opatija and Rijeka shimmering across the waters.
But even here, the ghosts of the past held their sway. In a small shelter off that pathway was a brilliantly executed mural of a young football fan who had died at the age of 36. Sad and yet, with runic symbols and a fascist motif mixed in, rather troubling. The past and the present.
Saturday 14th May: Lovran – Postojna: 68 km
After over 550 km of the Croatian coastline, it was time to turn inland. In the grand scheme of my longer bike trip northwards through Europe, I would not see the sea again until I hit the Baltic Sea. Quite a thought.
Back along that busy road, being buzzed by Saturday morning traffic even as I pushed my way up a moderate but long 300m climb over 8km. My route took me away from the worst of the traffic, passing through Matuji, Rupa and Jušići. Moderate climbs, moderate roads, and moderate villages, the Central European air and style more prevalent with each kilometre ridden.
It was fine but a far cry from those crumbling crags. And then my final border and fifth country for this leg of the trip: Slovenia, with hardly a glance at my passport on either side.
More and more cyclists, both tourers and road bikers, including one young man who exemplified the ludicrous nature of the cult of bikepacking.
For those who are unfamiliar, bikepacking is defined by – appropriately – bikepacking.com as “carrying only the bare necessities on a bike that’s light enough to explore the trails you’d seek out on a day ride”.
The core bikepacker will take a small handlebar bag, a small rear bag attached to the saddle, and probably a slim triangular bag fitting between the frames, with just enough space for bike bottles. They will sleep in hostels or bivouac bags, with only the clothes they come in and the rest dedicated to food and bike tools or chargers. Rear racks of any kind are frowned upon.
Laudable enough and perfectly respectable as a philosophy, especially for shorter tours. But as was clear in the young man’s case, quite difficult to translate into reality if you really need that change of clothes, toiletries, your laptop, the complete works of Charles Dickens, a stuffed giraffe, and what looked suspiciously like a guitar, all flaring out at the back. But no rear bike rack.
The landscape got prettier: not exactly stunning, but wide-open valleys on all sides and a sense of Alpine space. The sense of Central Europe beginning.
Then my penultimate stop: Postojna. Hardly anything there, the main street dug up and no one around on a Saturday evening. I had set off early spooked by the weather forecast and my judgement was proved correct when barely an hour after I arrived, a storm hit, lightning and all, seen from the safety of my hotel room. And I wondered about the poor young man out in his bivvy bag, probably sheltering under that guitar with his stuffed giraffe for company…
Sunday 15th May: Postojna – Ljubljana: 61km
A trip that I had planned for nearly three years and postponed by two was nearly over, and I was sad. Tirana, Kotor, Sarajevo, even Split, all seemed a long time ago.
Postojna might have been grim but I had found a decent restaurant serving a prawn salad on pickled fennel and a decently toasted pizza, and had had decent coffee over breakfast which almost always puts me in good spirits.
And what a joyous day to be out: a fine cool sun-filtered spring morning, turning off the main road after seven uneventful kilometres and through the dirt tracked and potholed but hardened roads of the Rakov Škocjan forest, a cool nature reserve. Hikers, joggers, bikers out on that delightful morn.
Sadly the forest was over soon and out into an Alpine meadow, steady up, up and along a river, getting steeper and steeper as the road climbed through the treescape. The smell of wood, the song of birds, and the regular prick of mosquitoes gluing themselves to my sweaty skin.
More and more road bikers whipping past me, shiny in Lycra. I was in the land of Rog and Pog and it showed.
As I crested the third and final peak, my skin tattooed with a glorious intricate motif of insects, a voice called out “Lucky you. It’s all downhill from here.” An Australian couple in their sixties, touring for a month from Munich, final destination unknown. Lumbering away, but doing it, so hats off…
A spiralling whippy-whappy descent, tempted to take a racing line but watching out for rocks and other bikers. Initially trees but finally a splendid valley with distant blue mountains, green fields and red roofs. As I stopped to take it all in, a bearded, shirtless young Frenchman sweated his way up, sans guitar, stopping while his girlfriend caught up. “Where are you heading?”. “To Japan…” Ah, the wonder of youth… I could easily have turned round and joined them.
Down, down, down, to the Ljubljanica basin and the urban sprawl of Ljubljana. It was flat and boring, but I was in bike town, lanes and lycra, and then with another corner, my final hotel and the sadness of the ending.
I had a day and a half to pack before my flight and used it to catch up with an old friend, not seen since a memorable winter weekend in 2018 in which we had hiked snowy mountains together and eaten a fabulous meal in the middle of nowhere, gradually unspooling our lives, and eating some more seriously good Slovenian food. Fine food in fine company in a fine town. It was a great way to end an unforgettable trip.
Even the birds were treating me nicely…
Epilogue: riding among ghosts
I am always sad when trips end, but this one had lingered in the imagination for a long time, nursed during the crazy nights of lockdown, when the whole world seemed to fall apart, and taken during the early months of the Russian bombardment of Ukraine, when Europe threatened to tear apart. Finishing this write-up, in early January 2024, it is fresh in mind.
On the edges of Sarajevo, I had passed a museum with an exhibition titled “Ghosts of the past” or some such name. The ghosts metaphor lingered in my mind. My ride seemed dominated by echoes of the not-too-distant past. 1914 in Sarajevo but also the disrupted world of the pre-First World War capital city of Cetinje. Severe partisan memorials in Montenegro. Communism: Tito and Hoxha and their legacy, most evocatively felt in that awesome museum in Tirana. And of course, Milosevic, Karadzic and Mladic and their baleful squads, still holding back the Bosnian people.
But also my own ghosts, the impact of my grandfather and the legacy of war.
I was struck by the tensions between those who would cling on to the past or litigate old quarrels: the graffiti in Nikšić, the happy fascists in Foča, and the less happy fascists sending their tanks across the Ukrainian border, and the desperate yearnings of so many to move on, like my friends, those poor sods in the asylum camp, and the Ukrainian people.
I marvelled at the chaotic joy of Albania, sympathised with the hopes of my friends and hosts in Sarajevo, and smiled at the calm modernity of Croatia and Slovenia. That is the version of Europe that I hope for.