Rain

The next day it rained. The day after, it rained. The day after that, it rained! Croatia was having its worst rain for 30 years! We’d had enough of rain on the third day so started driving south.

Getting to Greece from Northern Croatia was not as simple as we’d hoped. The direct route through Croatia, Montenegro and Albania consisted mainly of poor roads, so we opted for the indirect route! Our planned route would head across the top of Croatia, through Serbia and Macedonia and into Greece. This was close to 2000km and would take about two days. All was going well until we tried to cross the border into Serbia. Since Serbia is non-EU, they required us to have third party insurance for the van. We’d anticipated this, but were not pleased that the minimum insurance was for one month and would cost 120 euros. We only wanted one day, but that wasn’t an option! Driving around Serbia would’ve proved even more costly, so we paid our 120 euros and continued on.

Driving through Belgrade in the rush was not that wise, but we and the van survived. After some miles we’d crossed most of Serbia and it was time for sleep. We stayed that night parked in a Serbian truck stop!

Our planned route would head south through Macedonia, however, since it is also non-EU we were worried about more insurance costs. We opted for a slightly longer route and continued via Bulgaria (who had very friendly border staff!). Bulgarian roads were a little worse for wear, but the van survived and everything stayed in the cupboards. Sofia also provided lots of driving excitement and we avoided various vehicles, holes in the road and dogs to survive another day.