The Balkans overland: Ljubljana to Tirana
Five countries and four alphabets in a fortnight, from the Julian Alps down the Dalmatian coast and through the mountains to the Albanian riviera — the whole thing doable by bus and ferry.
Ljubljana
A capital small enough to cross on foot in twenty minutes, with the river running through the middle of it and Plečnik's bridges over it. Start here rather than at an airport hub: it sets the pace for everything that follows, and the bus station next to the railway is where the whole route begins.
Lake Bled and the Vintgar gorge
An hour north by bus. Bled is busy and photogenic and worth an early start; the Vintgar gorge, four kilometres away, is a boardwalk pinned to the rock above green water and is the better walk. Row yourself to the island rather than taking the pletna if the queue is long.
Down to the Adriatic at Zagreb or Zadar
A long transfer day. The direct bus to Zagreb takes about two and a half hours and the onward run to the coast another four; taking it in one go gets you to Zadar for the sea organ at sunset, which is a genuinely strange and good thing — waves push air through pipes under the promenade and the town sits and listens.
Krka or Plitvice
Two waterfall parks, and doing both is a mistake. Plitvice is bigger, further inland and much busier; Krka is closer to Zadar, smaller and easier to fit in a day. Book the timed entry ahead in summer for either. Swimming is no longer permitted at Skradinski Buk, whatever an older guidebook says.
Split
Diocletian built a retirement palace here in the fourth century and a town grew up inside its walls and never left — the cellars, the peristyle and the mausoleum-turned-cathedral are all still load-bearing parts of a working city. Stay two nights; the ferry terminal is a short walk from the palace gate.
Hvar or Brač by ferry
A day on the islands. Jadrolinija and Krilo run frequently; Brač is closer and has Zlatni Rat, the shifting spit at Bol, while Hvar has the town, the fortress and the Pakleni islets offshore. Take the first boat out and the last one back, or stay the night and pick the route up the next morning.
Inland to Mostar
Cross into Bosnia and Herzegovina — passports out, and the bus waits at the border. Mostar's bridge was destroyed in 1993 and rebuilt with the original technique and stone from the same quarry; the divers who jump from it belong to a club four centuries old. Walk up to the Koski Mehmed Pasha minaret for the view everyone photographs.
Blagaj, Počitelj and the Neretva
A short day out of Mostar. Blagaj's dervish house sits at the foot of a cliff where the Buna river comes out of the rock fully formed, and Počitelj is an Ottoman hill village stepping down to the Neretva. Both are half an hour away and both are quieter before ten and after four.
Sarajevo
Two and a half hours north through the mountains. Sarajevo puts a mosque, a synagogue, a Catholic cathedral and an Orthodox one within a few hundred metres, and the line in the pavement at the top of Ferhadija marks where the Ottoman city meets the Austro-Hungarian one. The Tunnel of Hope museum and the 1984 Olympic bobsled track are the two things to make time for.
Sarajevo, second day
The Gallery 11/07/95 exhibition on Srebrenica and the War Childhood Museum are both small, both hard and both essential to understanding what you are walking around in. Then coffee in Baščaršija, which is served in a džezva and is not to be rushed.
South to the Bay of Kotor
A long bus day into Montenegro, ending at a flooded river canyon that everyone calls a fjord and which is not one. Kotor's walls climb 1,200 steps up the cliff behind the old town; go at seven in the morning, before the cruise passengers and before the heat.
Perast and the Lovćen road
Perast is twenty minutes up the bay, with two islets offshore, one of them artificial and built up over centuries by fishermen dropping rocks. In the afternoon take the old serpentine road up to Lovćen — twenty-five hairpins with the whole bay opening up behind you — to Njegoš's mausoleum at the top.
Into Albania: Shkodër
Cross at Hani i Hotit. Shkodër is a bicycle town under Rozafa castle, with a lake behind it that Albania shares with Montenegro. This is also the jumping-off point for the Koman ferry and the Valbona–Theth trek if you want to add three days to the route in the north.
Berat
The town of a thousand windows — Ottoman houses stacked up both banks of the Osum with a castle on top that people still live inside. UNESCO-listed alongside Gjirokastër. The Onufri museum in the castle church holds sixteenth-century icons in a red the painter mixed himself and never wrote down.
The riviera at Himarë or Dhërmi
Over the Llogara pass and down to the Ionian, where the water is properly clear and the beaches run from developed to empty within a few kilometres. Gjipe, reached on foot or by boat, is the one worth the effort. This coast is changing fast; it is not the secret it was ten years ago but it is still cheaper than anywhere comparable further north.
Tirana
Back north to finish. Tirana has spent twenty years painting its communist-era blocks and building a pyramid-turned-cultural-centre you can walk up the outside of. Bunk'Art 2 is in a nuclear bunker under the interior ministry and covers the Sigurimi years directly. The Blloku district, closed to ordinary Albanians until 1991, is now where everyone goes out.
Dobré vedieť
All five countries are crossed by bus and none of the borders needs anything more than a passport for EU, UK, US, Canadian and Australian travellers — but Slovenia and Croatia are in Schengen while Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania are not, so a single-entry Schengen visa is used up when you leave Croatia. Buses are the backbone: FlixBus covers the northern legs, and local operators the rest, with tickets bought at the station the day before rather than online. Currencies change four times — euro in Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro, convertible mark in Bosnia, lek in Albania — so draw small amounts and spend them before each border. Albanian roads are better than their reputation but the Llogara pass is a serious mountain descent; do not drive it at night. The whole route runs in reverse equally well, and Tirana has become the cheaper end to fly into.
Kratšie či dlhšie?
Three extra days from Shkodër: the Koman ferry up a flooded canyon, a night in Valbona, and the pass across to Theth on foot. Guesthouses are booked directly and the trail is straightforward in summer but genuinely alpine in shoulder season.
Between Mostar and Kotor, Dubrovnik fits as an overnight. It is expensive, crowded from mid-morning and worth it if you walk the walls at opening time. Note the Neum corridor puts a short stretch of Bosnian coast in the middle of the drive.
The route is tight at sixteen days. Adding five spreads the long transfer legs, allows two nights on an island and a proper stop in Ohrid, which the standard line misses entirely.