Table of contents

• Balkans tour by motorcycle Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia
• Pindus Mountains in northwestern Greece
• Near-death experiences in Albanian traffic
• Wild switchbacks in Montenegro
• Heading home at a fast pace
• Conclusion

Johannes Muller

32 pictures

Johannes Muller

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There: From the highest peak of Corfu, the Pantocrator, you can see the Greek-Albanian border.

Johannes Muller

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Off to Corfu!

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The passport always at the top of the tank bag: 14 border crossings in 22 days.

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The ferry from Venice to Igoumenitsa takes almost exactly 24 hours.

Johannes Muller

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Our companions: Aprilia Shiver 750 and Triumph Street Triple RS.

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Who needs a side stand pad from the accessories when there are discarded flip-flops on the beach?

Johannes Muller

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We find new friends on Corfu, some of them animal ones.

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The Pindos National Park is a paradise for motorcyclists.

Johannes Muller

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We find the north-west of Greece almost deserted during the holiday season.

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This is not a travel story, but a trip.

Johannes Muller

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From here it is around 2,000 kilometers to Germany as the crow flies.

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There on the left is Flip, whom we picked up in Albania and took with us.

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Feelings of elation!

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A herd of cows, often individual critters get lost on the street.

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Yes, we got lost on gravel. Sometimes it went without any problems, sometimes not.

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The SH8 in Albania offers panoramas like this for hours.

Johannes Muller

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The roads are not always in the best condition.

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Brake overheated on downhill, pads glazed?

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Culinary delights.

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A beautiful town.

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Mostar, Sarajevo: two places that many should still be familiar with from the “Topics of the Day”.

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Durmitor as a driving highlight: good asphalt, better corners, also little going on.

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Turkish coffee in Bosnia.

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New acquaintances are also part of a trip.

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Sarajevo is more than worth a visit.

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Two motorcycles at the gas station are no special thing.

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A replacement old school navigation system.

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After an eventful day.

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The bikes really deserve the shower.

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Kotor, behind us a wild serpentine winding.

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We definitely have an adventure ahead of us.

Johannes Muller

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Our route through the Balkans.

to travel

Balkans tour by motorcycle

Balkans tour by motorcycle
Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia

We had two motorbikes, 22 days and a lot of plans: by ferry to Greece, then Corfu and then overland back to Stuttgart. A Balkan pig gallop in excerpts.

Johannes Muller

01/29/2021

Northwest Greece. Not a soul for hours. No cars, no gas stations, no shops or cafes. Nothing. Just a few villages here and there that have been trickled into the mountains. Inhabited, apparently, only by whom? Between these loose collections of stone huts, each one tells a family story, strange flora grows on the asphalt. Or what’s left of him. Again and again small herds of goats, cows, and now and then wild dogs. You have to be careful of the latter. It’s an unknown, ghostly feeling. It’s great because we have motorcycles. And with the best will in the world, we don’t see a better way to travel here.

Pindus Mountains in northwestern Greece

We pierce the Pindos Mountains in north-western Greece, it is still a long way to an evening retreat. The streets are small and extremely curvy, rarely more than 50 meters straight. It is as if all of this was created just for us all by ourselves. When we take a break, we do it on the street. There is no one to give way to. Should one be on the lookout for bears and wildcats? Quite as we shall read later. When we drive, it’s carefree, no coach, no mobile home. Where the hell are the tourists (there are also many here)? Where are all the adventure people with their adventure bikes? Incredible that there is a place in Europe that remains completely untouched in summer. In the late evening we will arrive in Konitsa, until there we will spend ten hard hours in the saddle for 300 kilometers of the emptyest, most demanding, most beautiful roads. In the tank of the Aprilia only gasoline vapor. We are standing k. o. fall into a hostel that deserves its own story. Probably the first clientele of this decade, maybe the last. The Balkans adventure has begun.

First off-road, then militarily secured border

Offroad. Either the GPS was wrong or I was wrong. If in doubt, the GPS is to blame. People wanted to travel small and small, never drive highways (which hardly exist here anyway) – but life also means learning. At first you think, “behind this curve the tar will certainly start again”. It goes on for a while. Over the intercom I can hear my friend Raja, who is piloting her Aprilia Shiver, chewing gum. It does that under stress, it gets louder and louder. Because the gravel road was okay for the first five kilometers, but now it’s getting hairy. “Behind this curve there is bound to be tar …” already takes 15 kilometers. I smell brake lining. I’ve been singing the trick with the rear brake to stabilize her for a long time. It’s good that it works now, it wouldn’t be possible any other way.

Johannes Muller

Turning around is no longer an option at this point. The path forks, the GPS sends us to the left, steeply uphill. Rubble mixes into the gravel. You should have turned around here. But before that is my ego and: “Tar, up there, sure.” Three minutes later I have to give up on the slope, at the same time I hear a short scream, stone meets plastic. I run back to find a Shiver 750 lying next to it, luckily my girlfriend is standing next to it. She looks at me with that look that I neither can nor need to describe. Another two and a half hours, 15 kilometers and a glazed Aprilia rear brake later, we stand in front of the officer, dusty like Dakar pilots. He looks at us as if we came from the moon. But has no sense of humor. The border is strictly militarily secured, Schengen is far away, the spirit of bygone times blows here with us. “Vous quittez l’UE – You are leaving the EU – You are leaving the EU.”

Near-death experiences in Albanian traffic

Albania. Corfu is still in sight, as the landscape opens up in a spectacular way. On the right a mountain range to the horizon, on the left a mountain range to the horizon and in the middle a wide, open valley. A strong wind whistles through it – and we. Albania, land of eagles, that fits anyway. We are back on real roads, with people in cars. To be more precise, Mercedes. 190 D and the like live on here, the cliche is 100 percent true. Benze, Benze, Benze, and it must obviously be the case that everyone loses resources. This is the only way to explain the dark, oily film that covers the already polished streets. So it’s like driving on raw eggs. The local customs of traffic also require the utmost caution. “Albanians are the worst drivers on the continent”, warns the internet somewhere. Maybe a little over the top, but not by much. You cut corners like wild birds, the law of the strongest applies, never that of the motorcycle. We quickly learn to stick to the right edge of the road. Which is not enough for us on the SH 8 between Sarande (the color of the sea is beautiful, otherwise little) and Vlora (worthwhile).

The Mercedes W211 is driven by a visibly overwhelmed lady, she fears the curve, ironing into the oncoming traffic. So in us: there is only the ditch left. Raja falls, but remains unharmed. I look at the berserk in shock, she doesn’t even turn around. But that and one or two other near-death experiences will not determine our image of Albania.

Incredibly hospitable people

Instead, the following: Immediately after the accident, half the country stops, asks whether we are okay, how we can be helped, what we need? Also: the spectacular SH 8, a dream road. Tirana, which we didn’t originally plan, where a MacGyver straightened our Aprilia from a backyard screwdriver. The hotelier in Shkodra, who shone like no other hotelier before. His feast for us that couldn’t have been fresher, more local and more organic. And his self-burned spirit – he insisted on drinking with us. Until we shone like I’ve never seen each other shine. Burrell and its wild alleys. We will remember Albania as adventurous, rough and with incredibly hospitable people. For scenes on and off the road that cannot be seen anywhere else. And bunkers. Bunkers everywhere, these holes in the ground become evidence of Enver Hoxha’s paranoia. It wasn’t forever either. Also for me for the construction site ramp, over which Raja pounded with good speed while overtaking a truck. Some do not get such airtime in motocross. Albania is reinventing itself at top speed after a tough century. Anyone looking for adventure should go straight to Albania.

Wild switchbacks in Montenegro

Montenegro. Kotor is kind of like Little Dubrovnik, only much more beautiful. It is located in a bay, mountains all around. In the middle of it all, the smell of salt water, great history and old money. The historic city center is populated by beautiful people and cats – the famous cats of Kotor. Perhaps more interesting for motorcyclists are the serpentines of Kotor, another road that can hardly be described. One attempt: 16 hairpin bends over eight kilometers, an incline of over five percent, the lane full of holes like my personal knowledge of the history of Yugoslavia. Flimsy concrete blocks facing the sea, more like a memorial than life insurance. You should save yourself driving errors, which is precisely why it is a special experience.

Johannes Muller

We roll towards Durmitor, the old Greece feeling is back. Nothing and nobody for hours, just barren rocky landscape, traces of bauxite mining. Monte Negro, black mountains. That is also true. Only a Dutchman with his family carriage has the same unreal experience, you alternate with stopping and amazement, throwing incredulous, knowing glances at each other. Suddenly he is there, the provincial gendarme, in the middle of nowhere. We roll right into his arms. The question of how business is going is something I try to avoid. Where is our bandage? Ha, we have it with us! He didn’t expect that. He, boiled, ignites the next level of escalation. D stickers and warning triangles! He cannot say where the former should be attached – but that it would be 200 euros. Our baksheesh cash register doesn’t provide that. While I calm my nerves with a cigarette, picture the night in a detention cell and long for decent law enforcement officers, Raja takes care of things. I didn’t notice how she did it, only that he looks intimidated when he says goodbye to us and wishes us a good trip. We’ve seen a hell of a lot so far – and we’re not even in Bosnia yet.

Heading home at a fast pace

Fragments from the remaining 2,000 kilometers. What else was: In the Durmitor you can finally ride a motorcycle properly, with grip and cornering speed and so on. I fall in love with her again Endurance test Street Triple RS. The Republic of Srpska. Rafting on the Drina. A trip over a Bosnian high plateau in a doomsday thunderstorm, deep red in the tank reserve. I thought we were dying. Mostar Bridge and how to carry on after a war. Kunafah. Sarajevo, definitely Sarajevo, melting pot of East and West. Jajce, when you’re around. Una-Park and Kulen Vakuf, the most beautiful place of all. A grill plate that should have been left out, Sister Elvira and the hospital. Past the Plitvice Lakes and how suddenly everything is full of vacationers again. Slovenia as Switzerland of ex-Yugoslavia. A bat in Bled. A coupling defect in Triglav, instead of Stilfserjoch and Reschen, return to rail with 110.

Johannes Muller

Conclusion

What a trip! It is completely a mystery to me why no one else was down there.

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