Let’s talk about Balkans
There is so much about Balkans I would like to write. So many thoughts, so many moments, so… That I don’t even know where to start, coz I keep jumping in my thoughts from one memory to the other, jumping through time, jumping through places. I want to write about hitch-hiking with my future husband through Serbia, about all good people we met, about all the adventures that warm up our hearts still today. But my thoughts jump to the surprise birthday party for Dario in Belgrade and friends’ reunion after like 8 years of not seeing each other. We celebrated it with our two daughters. This Balkan trip was the first trip of our second daughter, she was like, what? almost 4 months old when we packed and headed through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, to arrive finally in Belgrade. But that wasn’t the first time we took our child for her first trip to Balkans. With our first daughter we went to Croatia and Montenegro. You see, I told you, my memories of Balkans are very chaotic. I’ve loved them through years and my love is just getting stronger.
Balkans are the most amazing patchwork of nations and countries I know. But don’t be fooled by the common name of the territory, neither by the historic union called Yugoslavia. Those nations don’t like to be treated as one and they shouldn’t. Despite the similarities in languages, all Balkan countries have different history and different religions. I think that underestimating differences between these nations was the main reason for so many violent conflicts and wars in this region.
How to travel through Balkans then, if in so many places you see memorials of victims of military conflicts? Well, no nation is just good or just bad. We can’t say it’s moral to defend crimes of one nation just because we like it. A crime is a crime no matter who does it. It’s good to remember this while traveling through Balkans. Especially that the people who remember the last war are only in their thirties (unless you are traveling through Kosovo, well the conflict is still on).
But Balkans are not just about war. They have amazing nature, climate, food, people, and culture. So if you are looking for travel inspirations, don’t forget about Balkans.
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