trip to the balkans
 

We are planning a trip to the Balkans from early oct to mid november this year lasting around 5 to 6 weeks. Have not yet booked flights. We are in our late 60's and are looking at train travel and car rental. Our current plan is to fly into Sofia and spend around 10 days touring bulgaria with rental car , then take train to Nis followed by train or bus to belgrade rent a car and tour Serbia for a week or so The overnite train from sofia doesn't sound great and only has cars with 6 couchettes which is not acceptable for my husband. Next we would take train to zagreb, rent a car and tour croatia and possibly go into montenegro, and bosnia returning car to zagreb and flying home from zagreb. I have checked car rentals and they are very reasonably priced and some allow cross border rentals. My husband has driven in italy, portugal, spain, france, romania. Would driving be more difficult due to cyrillic alphabet. We do have a GPS for those countries .We don't drive in big cities picking up car before or after our city stays. We usually stay 2 to 3 nites in each place Any suggestions re routing and itinerary would help. I have done some research and find this forum to be very helpful for trip planning

I haven't been to Bulgaria yet, but the alphabet used in the other places you are planning to visit is not Cyrillic, it is the "Roman" alphabet we are both using for these messages.

Your options for Croatia will be limited somewhat by the season, but you should still be able to find plenty of interest. Major cities and those with universities (e.g., Zagreb, Varazdin, Zadar, and Split) should offer lots of options for restaurants and things to do. And, barring disastrous weather, the magnificent Plitvice Lakes should be open; definitely plan on at least one night (if not two) there. Many of Croatia's islands, though, will be largely "shut down," so be sure you plan accordingly.

I found the Rough Guide by far the most useful of the half-dozen or so guidebooks I used while in the area.

Hope that helps!

thank you. I will look at rough guide. I have lonely planet for bulgaria. Are there any safety issues for these countries

"Are there any safety issues for these countries"

I'm a solo female traveler, and although I haven't been to Bulgaria or Serbia yet, I felt NO concerns about safety in Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, or Bosnia & Herzegovina (though, of course, I avoided any areas that had warnings about mines -- which were still around when I visited in 2009).

As often happens while driving, I would have preferred a few less aggressive fellow drivers: Especially on back roads, there were more than a few people who took blind turns in the middle of the road, came up too close behind me, or passed with too little clear space ahead. BUT that isn't unique to this part of the world, and a bit of defensive driving can, IME, go a long way toward ensuring safety. While some of the drivers may have been a bit crazy, the roads themselves were, IME, well banked, well maintained, and well signed.

I always check the CDC and State Department web-sites when planning a trip, just to see if they provide advisories of any safety issues.

Enjoy!

Cyrillic alphabet in Serbia is the norm ( been there).
Probably in Montenegro...as well.
The weather that time of the year can be pretty miserable...rainy and cool.
Driving on roads in Bosnia and Montenegro could be a challenge.

I drove from Dubrovnik to Montenegro (Kotor) and back in 2009, using different rouds to and from. There was signage in Roman along all of those roads. I don't remember any Cyrillic signage along those routes. Doesn't mean there wasn't or isn't any or that there wouldn't be elsewhere in Montenegro!

I think they use both alphabets in Montengro.
Serbian alphabet is easy to learn( simpler than Russian) .

I recently drove from Dubrovnik to Kotor, up to Cetinje, then north all the way across Bosnia. Almost everywhere - albeit, mostly main roads - the signs were in the Latin alphabet - or in both Latin and Cyrillic. Sometimes in Republic of Srpska in Bosnia, some local town signs were only in Cyrillic, but for major towns they were in both.

I was a little wary about driving there at first but it was no trouble at all. I did have a GPS with me as well, just in case. The roads in Bosnia were better than I had imagined.

I've driven quite extensively in BiH since 2007. (Solo female, never felt unsafe). I've posted here on several occasions; there's a fair bit of info about the roads, towns, sights, hotels, etc. I;ve always picked up the rental car in Croatia. Bear in mind GPS in BiH is main routes only. You'll need a paper map as well.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...t-explores.cfm

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...t-explores.cfm

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...eturn-trip.cfm

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...llet-holes.cfm

Post back with any questions!

great trip reports. Just booked the flights so serious planning ahead

I didn't have a paper map for my long drive, Julia, and don't feel I would have needed one. In May, my Garmin GPS was far from perfect, but I never really got lost and did go off the main roads numerous times. In the future, I think I'll skip the GPS and get a better Android phone (mine worked in Bosnia but was probably too slow for navigation). SIM cards in Bosnia are only about $3 USD for a lot of data, and I used my phone with one all over the country and had great reception (but didn't use it for navigation).

One thing I did do ahead of time was plot out Google Maps routes from place to place - the places I planned to drive in Bosnia - and print them out. I don't think I really needed those, either, but it was nice to have them - and the process of creating them helped me get familiar with the basic roads I'd want to take, as sometimes there are multiple different routes you can take from place to place.