holiday...or a bit of it

I went on a long awaited holiday. The morning after my birthday, after a sleepless night, the plane took us over to Belgrade. When you look at the first photo of the whole trip (out of the 904 photos taken altogether) you see me with a map.

And we all know what will follow from that.

After a week or so of travelling we had ended up in Thessaloniki.  We had, originally, thought that Athens would be a good continuation to Sofia, the Black Sea, Istanbul, but unfortunately this would have required us to spend 23hours on a bus, non-stop and the same again in return so we gave up the original plan.

Instead, we went to Kosovo.

I have a friend, working in this new nation to the world map and he, after a minute of hesitation, said that we could come and stay with him. It was not that he was worried about us going to Kosovo, he might have been slightly worried about his own sanity, but more so, he wanted to me on the safe side, so that we would not miss our return flight home.

At the boarder, between Macedonia and Kosovo the boarder official kindly asked us if we were working in Kosovo. “No Sir, just going to visit.” He looked at us all. He looked at us all individually. He looked us all together again. “Visiting?” Yes Sir. He took our passports and returned a moment later, with a “Republica Kosova” stamp in them. Excellent.

Our presence in the country caused a lot of abashment and puzzlement. “So which mission are you in?” Was the usual question. And the response: ”Oh, we are just visiting here, not on any mission.” And from the facial expressions we gathered that the other party found us slightly mad.

A conclusion that I do not understand.

The country was and is amazing. We were taken, by our host, on a long drive down the Rugova valley and up in the mountains. The direction I took during my morning runs. The peace. The quiet. The beauty.

Drinking coffee in a mountain top restaurant, looking down the valley, free of advertisement signs, endless resorts and numerous tourists made me feel like I had ended up in paradise. This is what holiday should feel like. No telephone reception. No radio coverage.

In the mountains it is possible to rent a cabin, for a weekend for example. Quel bonheur? Though I, personally would rather pack my back bag, add a tent to the top of the load and go hiking for few days, a week, or longer.

Just before we had to hop on a bus that would take us over the boarder once again, this time to Montenegro, my friend took me on a bike ride. A perfect end to an excellent holiday.

Well fed and happy we started our return home. Thinking…when can we go back?