First Trip Abroad: Balkans 🌍

I had never traveled by plane before. That's why I experienced many firsts with this trip abroad. The sudden acceleration of the plane and feeling it... was really impressive.

We arrived in Albania at around 01.30 on May 10. We went to the agency that was approximately 5 minutes away from the airport to pick up our car that we had booked in advance. After picking up the car, we set off towards our first stop, 🇲🇰 Ohrid, Macedonia. Here, we toured the coastline and entered some more backstreets. We knew where we were going, but we found our own way without much need for navigation. It became one of the cities that I liked with its nature, greenery and lake. You can literally feel the peace there. Especially since we went in the morning, coming across people's morning routines makes you feel like you are living there

Our next stop was 🇲🇰 Skopje, Macedonia. The first thing we did was go to our accommodation and drop off our luggage. This was also my first Airbnb experience. It was a really nice system and we had great hosts. Since our house was in a central location, we walked to the center and saw all the historical buildings this way. Since we were there towards evening, we had dinner at Destan Restaurant in the Turkish Bazaar. The meatballs were really good and we couldn't get enough.

I don't know why, but in every country we went to, the answer was "I'd live here." Except for Bosnia and Herzegovina, every place we went to was calm and peaceful. I think I would live and go as I please. Except for the people, because they were very cold and there was no conversation.

We spent almost a day in every country except Montenegro and tried to visit every place we could. Actually, our aim here was to see other Balkan countries, spend the last day in Montenegro, have a vacation there, and hang out a bit. So it was very productive and nice. Anyway, after Skopje, we went to 🇽🇰 Pristina, Kosovo. Since we decided to have our breakfast here, I set off early in the morning. I wanted to have a breakfast I hadn't tried before. So I tried Shakshuka for the first time here and I loved it. It was really delicious.

After breakfast, we visited the Sultan 1. Murat, Yaşar Paşa, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Mosques, which are next to each other in the center. When we entered the Yaşar Paşa Mosque, we had the chance to chat with the imam on duty there. He gave us very valuable information about the place. If you go there, definitely stop by and say hello :) You can say Berat from Sakarya. On his advice, we went to Prizrine, which was on the way, and visited the Sinan Pasha Mosque. Frankly, we had high expectations about the city before coming, but it did not meet our expectations. I can say that it would be okay if you did not go.

Our destination is actually Bosnia and Herzegovina, but since the journey takes 8 hours, we were thinking of sleeping in Montenegro on the way and setting off again in the morning, which is what we did. In this way, we continued our journey without tiring ourselves. Therefore, we passed Kosovo and started driving to 🇲🇪 Podgorica, Montenegro. We passed so many beautiful places along the way that we couldn't help but stop. We immediately pulled over and enjoyed the view. I'm just putting a photo. I'm looking up its name on Google now. It was Piva Canyon. It really is the combination of mountains and river... it was magnificent.

Since we were staying overnight, we immediately went into the house we rented in Airbnb and left our belongings. We learned about local places from the host and ate our pizza. Our host was so warm and had a great conversation. Moreover, since we were going to leave early in the morning, he got up early and offered us Turkish coffee - she didn't accept that it was Turkish coffee, but whatever :) - and dessert. He didn't know English, he spoke his own language on Google Translate and translated it into Turkish, while we spoke Turkish and translated it into his language. We understood each other this way. But his conversation and treats were really nice, it was an unforgettable memory for us. On the day we stayed, we saw a concert in the center while going to the restaurant and we went to the concert, even if it was for 10 minutes. It was a really beautiful night.

We got up early in the morning and went to 🇧🇦 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. I didn't expect it to be such a big and developed city, and I was surprised when I went there. It was really crowded and a big city. We walked around the city center and visited the martyrs' cemeteries. We ate their famous pastries and drank their coffee. Afterwards, we went straight to Mostor.

We really liked Mostar. Especially the parts where the bridge is located were very good. The city was small and the people were a bit cold. But it seemed like you could live peacefully alone. In addition, we saw an office that did web design work and we were in a dilemma whether to go in and meet or not 😁. Since we arrived very late (11 at night), we had a hard time finding a place to eat. As a last resort, we decided to eat döner. We woke up early in the morning and had a nice breakfast at one of the places with the best view of the Mostar bridge. We even witnessed someone jumping off the bridge while having breakfast. After wandering around the bridge for a while, we crossed to 🇲🇪 Kotor, Montenegro to experience the holiday part of our trip.

We realized that we had booked the wrong house in Kotor when we got inside. We immediately talked to the owner and talked about how we could do it and he helped and made the entire refund. Normally, he wouldn't have done this. Then, we rented a house in the same place as we wanted and we got through it without any problems. As always, we took our belongings home and went to a restaurant by the sea for dinner. This time, we chose a Turkish restaurant so that we could eat our fill. Because we either couldn't find anything that suited our taste or we were uncomfortable because of the pork. One of us ordered octopus, one ordered pizza, I ordered lahmacun and the other ordered chicken with curry sauce. Since the guy who was taking care of us was Turkish, we felt like we were in Turkey and had a great time. We heard a lot of Turkish in Montenegro and we felt like we were not in a foreign region.

We stopped on the road and bought strawberries and bananas. When we got home, we enjoyed the view. In the morning, we bought some pastries and croissants and had breakfast on our balcony. Afterwards we swam in the pool for a bit, went to the city center for a boat tour, pizza (the best pizza I've ever had), and ice cream. The weather wasn't exactly sunny when we went there and it was a bit cold. So we got a bit cold while walking around.

Our return point to Türkiye Since 🇦🇱 Tirana was Albania, we went there towards evening. Since there wasn't much going on there while making plans, we set aside a few hours and toured the center and had dinner. Then we returned the car and went to the airport. In this way, we ended a nice holiday.

I think the beauty of traveling and seeing a different country is to live that experience, see different cultures, and learn something from them. Feeling it with its atmosphere, food, people and everything satisfies and makes you enjoy it.

Hoping to see you in new trips, technical articles and experiences.