To the Black Sea

On Sunday evening, August 6, I sat on the tiny fourth-floor deck of the guesthouse to watch the full moon rise over the Black Sea in Ravda, Bulgaria, right down the beach from Nessebar. Jerzy spent a few days in Nessebar and further up the coast in Varna.

I left lovely Crikvenica on the Croatian coast road that Jerzy took.  He wrote that “the scariest route was from Rijeka to Starigrad. This cannot be described, it must be seen. But it is safer to go in the direction of Austria, because there are rocks on the right, not a chasm.” (I did see some spaced stone cones with rounded-off tops, but mostly there are now metal guardrails.)

Gorgeous views.  Just as I got to Karlobag for a gas stop, a police roadblock turned everyone back. We had to take a detour via Gospic and get on the A1 (fast) highway.  That meant fourty kilometers up into the mountains, with lots of switchbacks. I saw signs for the famous Plitvice Lakes, but July and August are the worse times to visit due to huge crowds (and low water levels).  I reached my final coastal destination, Sibenik, and, after a lot of effort, the Hostel Splendido.  Ms. Lucy, the GPS queen, led me through several circuitous tries to a well-hidden location on a narrow street downtown.  The temps were reaching 40 degrees Celsius (that’s 104 degrees Fahrenheit!).

Auto Camping

Jerzy wrote, “At the campsites, they are always surprised that I am on my own. In Sibenik I slept in the car by sunny motels and I paid 79 dinars. The fruits are fresh and I see that I have week-old bread, and frankly, other than fruit have had almost nothing to eat.”

The next day, I intended stay somewhere outside of Dubrovnik.  I got off the main road at Slano in search of the tourist info center, and ended up on a narrow, blocked-off street. 

The car has Krakow license plates, and some friendly Polish boys helped me get turned around. I asked about camping places, and they pointed me further around the inlet and I stopped at the first one I saw.  The moment I shut off the engine, a man appeared and greeted me like a long-lost friend.  As traditional Polish men do, he kissed my hand:  Jan, from Krakow, at my service.  We chatted in Polish a bit, and he promoted me to the Croatian manager.  This kind man moved his car from a shady spot under some olive trees so I could park right by the shower/rest room building. Though it was very, very hot, I knew that Jerzy had slept in his car many times during his road trip, and I thought I should try it at least once.

The Mini-Cooper is a great little vehicle, with a fold-down back seat storage area, but it’s really not comfortable for sleeping. I tried the back seat, and had to keep the windows open.  The mosquitos were thrilled.  I asked two families on either side of me if they had any mosquito repellant. Neither did, as apparently, they had no problem with mosquitos. I did get to sleep for a short time, but soon after midnight Jan arrived at the driver’s side window. The Mini-Cooper must sense motion, as the lighting system goes on and off.  Jan said that if I didn’t turn all the lights off completely, the battery would be dead in the morning.  All this transpired in Polish in the middle of the night.  Jan left, but a short while later, he returned, now with a Polish friend and they both started fiddling with switches, and chatting away, testing everything. They were looking on the steering wheel column and were asking about the clutch, and I kept saying, “Nie, nie, to automatycznie!”  Finally, the friend found the pesky switch underneath the dashboard on the lower left side.

These Polish White Knights went off, pleased with themselves, but I could not sleep the rest of the night, laughing at the absurdity of the situation, and tormented by ferocious mosquitos.  As I was packing up at 6 am, Jan came by with a cheery “Dzien dobry!”  and asked where I intended to go that day:  Podgorica, Montenegro.  

Shortly after crossing the Montenegro border, I got pulled over by a policeman.  My headlights were off!  It is a rule in most of these countries to keep the headlights on, even in broad daylight.  If traveling in the mountains, going through tunnels, you need high beams to see anything.

Tunnels and Apologies

Soon after I reached Podgorica, I found the road to Kolasin, the route that Jerzy took.  I’d been at the Library of Congress Map Room several times, trying to figure out how he traveled from Podgorica to Skopje, Macedonia. 

He only mentions that he drove through 39 tunnels. I did more than 29 (all amazing) before I reached Kolasin. Who created these wonders, and when?

I intended to spend the night at a guesthouse in Kolasin.  But the whole town was booked up—all the guesthouses, at least—because of a week-long Tango Camp (Tango Camp?!).  

Seven hundred internationals with reservations were just arriving.  Whoever I asked pointed me to the Sheraton Four Points. I never expected to see such a fancy place in the middle of the beautiful mountains of Montenegro, nor did I intend to stay at a Western chain hotel, but I got a great night’s sleep (in contrast to the car camping experience). 

Before leaving, I apologized to the cheerful Sheraton manager (from Bangladesh) and his staff, as well as to the very helpful tourist office director, for the behavior of someone who muscled aside the President of Montenegro at a recent conference. 

They laughed about that rude elbow gesture, acting it out. I asked them to please pass my apology to their president. We ended up hugging goodbye.

I took a very narrow, back road to Andrijevica, something I imagine Jerzy did.  More exquisite tunnels, and some great mountain vistas.  Then came the border crossings into Serbia and to Kosovo as well. I had to buy additional car insurance for Kosovo for the couple of hours I’d been traversing their territory.  Lots of time to contemplate war and its ugly aftermath. I slogged through a very hectic Pristina, and drove on to a relatively calm Skopje, Macedonia. I found a lovely boutique hotel and kept cool while the city baked. I went on to Sofia, Bulgaria, the next day, and rested at a sweet hotel. Then on to the Black Sea, through fields and fields and fields of sunflowers, wishing someone could tell me about the harvest process.

The sunlit Black Sea —not a cloud, and temps in the mid- or high-30s—is loaded with vacationers. The owners of the hotel in Ravda have had many Polish guests over the years, and we spoke in pidgin Polish.  I decided to stay north of Varna area in a town named for Saints Helen and Constantine.  And now I’ll begin the long road back to Sofia, and eventually to Belgrade, and Budapest.