South-East Europe cycling tour, 05. – 27.07.2022

While my fourth university semester was extremely busy with studies, it was also the best time I’ve had at university so far. My courses were in person, which made the study environment much more interactive and motivating, and I spent a lot of time with my friends, from studying together to going out at night and going camping in the Ardennes, Belgium. Additionally, I enjoyed spending time with Sami, one of my three housemates who all study at Maastricht University. We spent many winter evenings sipping tea and discussing everything from astronomy to evolution to skydiving. During one of these evenings, we got the idea of doing a cycling tour, like I did two years ago in Sri Lanka. After ambitious ideas of where we could cycle to, we decided to do a trip in Southeast Europe, starting from Budapest and ending the trip along the Croatian coast. The planned route, which was largely the actual route we ended up taking, took us through five countries: Hungary, Serbia (admittedly just 30km), Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro. Lucas, a friend from my volleyball team, joined us as well. He joined Sami and me in Sarajevo and then three of us continued through Bosnia, Montenegro, and Croatia. For much of the route planning we used Komoot (free version), of which has a lot of valuable information such as locations of public drinking fountains. Apart from Budapest and Sarajevo where we booked accommodation before the trip, we always found places to sleep in the evenings (more details throughout the post).

We also thought it would be nice to combine the tour with a fundraiser, with the idea being that people could donate a set amount, which would translate into a specific amount per km we cycle (with our goal being 1500km). UNICEF was chosen as the receiving organization. This is of course a very large organization and it may have been nicer to find a smaller one, but since we wanted to donate to an organization that supports children’s wellbeing and education, we ended up with UNICEF. We set up a Facebook fundraising page as well as an Instagram page, where Sami posted updates of our travels. Our families and friends were very supportive – in total we collected over 600 euros. We were very satisfied with this result and greatly appreciate the support of all those who donated.

While this was not a dedicated birding trip, I was very eager to see some of the birds in the region. Despite their weight, my bird guide, birding journal, and binoculars were thus essential items on my packing list. I watched out for birds whenever we were cycling, and also managed to go on a few morning walks. While I ended up missing some species I really wanted to see, most importantly Rock Partridge, I was very happy with the birds I saw on the trip (which included 17 lifers). I did not take a camera, which is also why the photos in this post aren’t of the best quality, bear with me 🙂

Two days before the trip, Sami came to my parents’ apartment in Bonn, where we packed all of our stuff together. Fortunately, my parents had accumulated quite a large amount of camping equipment over the years, meaning that we didn’t need to buy any new gear. We packed all the essential items needed for camping and cycling (plus Sami’s equivalent of my birding gear: his ukulele), and as it turned out during the trip, we took all the things we needed. On the morning of July 5th, we cycled to Bonn central station and took an ICE to Vienna, and then anther train to Budapest. We got the necessary bicycle tickets months ahead of the trip, which was fortunate since otherwise it would not have been possible to take them, given the high demand. In Budapest, we stayed at The Garden House, which we chose based on their rates (90 Euros for the two of us for two nights), the location, and the possibility to leave our bikes inside the property. We spent one day exploring this interesting city, which was a lot of fun since I had wanted to visit Budapest for a long time.

On the morning of July 7th, we left Budapest, and after getting lost South of the city on tracks along railroad tracks and rubbish dumps, found the Danube cycling trail. This track mainly went either directly along a canal parallel to the Danube, or along the dykes of the river. Given that this was our first day of cycling we had a great time, and tailwinds and no climbing allowed us to cycle around 130km the first two days, but retrospectively the track itself was rather monotonous. I saw some nice birds on the first day however, including Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Common Cuckoo, European Bee-eater, European Roller, and European Golden Oriole. We slept in a container-like bungalow in Szelid, where we ended up after a misunderstanding while asking where we could pitch our tent.

The following day we were invited to pick some apricots by a farmer who harvested a tree heavy with fruit, a great snack before leaving the vicinity of the Danube. We continued through agricultural areas of maize and vast sunflower fields that looked like huge carpets of yellow stretching to the horizon. Large numbers of Western Marsh-Harriers were present here. In the afternoon we already made our first border crossing, into Serbia, but soon left that country again as we crossed into Croatia, where we crossed the Danube one last time. Soon after the Croatian border, we stopped at Suza Baranje campsite. The price, given the location, was rather steep at 23 euros for the night, but we did appreciate the bathroom and kitchen facilities. On cycling day #3 we cycled along a vegetated canal for a while, where I was very happy to see Black-crowned Night-Heron and Little Bittern. This evening we did what we had in mind for most of the tour, which was simply asking locals whether they know of a place to sleep. This was for me one of the best aspects of the trip, largely because we had unique interactions with the local people. Just before the border into Bosnia, we asked at a house and the couple let us pitch our tent on their lawn. They even invited us for a coffee and home-grown watermelon, and the husband spoke German and told us a bit about his past when he lived in Stuttgart and worked as a taxi driver.

The next morning, a ‘corvid tree’ – full of Jackdaws, Rooks, and Common Ravens – distracted me at the border into Bosnia. Like all other border crossings on the trip, entering Bosnia on our bikes was fast and easy. Later that day I saw my first lifer of the trip in the form of three European Turtle-Doves. We struggled a bit to find a place to sleep as the darkness and some rain set in, but eventually we pitched our tent in the tiny garden of Restaurant Dubrovnik, being rather relieved to have a good excuse to not cook dinner. The next day, we had a rather precarious situation when Sami and I got separated on steep rough gravel tracks. Sami was some distance ahead and,, unbeknown to me, had stopped at a junction and placed his bike amongst some roadside plants before using the ‘bathroom’. As I did not see the bike I kept going, becoming more and more certain after what felt like a very long time he would have waited for me had he been ahead of me. I turned around and to huge relief from both of us, met him at the junction. There was no connection (I didn’t have a SIM either way), no people, and a myriad of tracks, so I don’t know what we wouldv’e done if we had gotten lost completely. Earlier that same day we already had a small hiccup when Sami had a puncture and it turned out that he had tubeless tires, despite being informed otherwise at the bike shop (this was luckily easily fixed – with the help of a friendly local guy who stopped on the roadside – by simply placing a spare tube onto the rim). It was already past 9pm when we were shown a place to sleep on a field on top of a hill in the hamlet of Donji Banjevac, overlooking the glowing lights of Doboj down in the valley below.

In the morning a Eurasian Hobby flew past as I was watching European Bee-eaters, which had been quite common since the start of the trip. We took a brief break around midday when an elderly man called us over to have a chat with him. He also spoke German (he had also worked in Germany years ago), so I translated to Sami as we had a comical and odd conversation that mainly consisted of him talking about women and suggesting that we should pick wives in Bosnia since there are “so many here”. We were quite eager to keep going and fortunately got to Sarajevo in the afternoon. The annoyance of getting lost several times in the city was compensated (for me) by my first Yellow-legged Gull. We were very happy to meet Lucas at Guesthouse Hill, where we stayed for the following two nights. This was a nice accommodation with a very good price considering that we also had a place to keep our bikes safe, although Sami’s and my legs would have appreciated a place that did not require so much uphill walking to get to from the city center (60 euros for two nights and for the three of us).

Sarajevo was a very interesting city. Large parts of the capital are not very attractive as a result of the Bosnian War, with the Siege of Sarajevo having resulted in extreme destruction of the city by the time it officially ended in 1996. The old center around the Sebilj fountain however is a very different world, and we strolled around the narrow streets past shisha bars and coffee and tea places, with a rather Middle Eastern atmosphere. Sami and I gave our dirty clothes (so essentially all that we took on the trip) to a laundromat while Lucas’s bike got a quick check-up. We also strolled around the city, including an informative and shocking visit to the Genocide Museum. We bought some food as well as another gas cartridge, and ordered pizza in the evening so that we had enough time to pack up all of our stuff.

The next morning we continued Southeast towards Montenegro. The three days we spent cycling through the hills of Southeast Bosnia and West Montenegro had the most impressive scenery of the trip. Rivers were crystal clear and turquoise, and the steep hills were covered with forests and beautiful bonsai-like pines growing from protruding cliffs. The first night after Sarajevo we pitched our tent at a rafting camp a few kms before the Montenegro border. Here Sami got quite sick in the evening, so we only left in the afternoon of the following day. Since Lucas and I also got sick one and two days later, respectively, we believe that it was food poisoning from meat we ate at lunch the day we left Sarajevo. The camp owners were extremely kind, giving us food and checking in with us throughout the day. Unfortunately Sami couldn’t eat or drink anything without throwing up, so he only had a small piece of watermelon by the time we left. We crossed the border into Montenegro and cycled through the beautiful Piva river valley, where Alpine Swift and Eurasian Crag-Martin were common. This entire area also seemed like excellent Rock Nuthatch habitat, but the closest I got was a very likely bird which I could not relocate to confirm the ID.

We only spent one night in Montenegro, in a garden near Pluzine, which the owners turned into a mini camp site. Although this meant we paid 10 Euros, we didn’t mind this given the access to a toilet and shower, which had become something of a luxury on this trip. A short stroll along the village road the next morning produced Eurasian Hoopoe, Sombre Tit, and Barred Warbler, the latter two being lifers. A Great Spotted Woodpecker initially got me excited as I hoped for White-backed or Syrian Woodpeckers. After breakfast and packing up the tent, we continued South, aiming for somewhere in the vicinity of the Ilino Brdo border back into Bosnia. This was a long day and not far from the border back into Bosnia, we were so exhausted that during a break we got into a very odd mood where we laughed about everything, despite being out of food and water, having just finished a small jar of honey that Lucas and Sami bought in the morning while I was birding. Nonetheless, partly because there was no place to sleep, we kept going, crossed the border (where we were stunned by amazing views down the escarpment), had an exhilarating downhill ride into the valley, and found a campsite (Usce camp) soon afterwards.

That night Lucas got very sick, followed by myself the next day. We rested here for one day, during which I observed another White-throated Dipper in the stream by the campsite. Again, the campsite owners were very caring and gave us food (which we unfortunately weren’t able to eat). I still went for a short walk in the evening, during which I saw several Hermann’s Tortoises and a group of Pygmy Cormorants. Since we didn’t have any food left, Sami decided to hitch-hike to the nearby town to do the groceries. We didn’t have any cell phone connection, so we were already quite concerned when a grinning Sami arrived in a van at 10pm, several hours after he left. It turned out that Sami immediately found someone at the store who said his uncle would drive him back, but that they first stopped at several bars until his uncle arrived, followed by visits to at a few more bars until his uncle felt it was time to go. After dinner and a good rest, we were back in the saddle the next morning and completed the short stretch through Bosnia mainly along the Ćiro railway line cycling paths. This area was interesting with nice scenery and several abandoned buildings, plus a nice Woodchat Shrike. We ended the day at Kamp Rogac (23 euros), close to 40km North of Dubrovnik.

The next few days led us along the coast. The road was often very busy with cars, but the great advantage was that we could have lunch breaks on the beach. Our lunch routine was buying two or three loaves of bread, ham, cheese, and salad or tomatoes, then jumping into the sea, eating, and finally taking a nap during the hottest hours of the day. One such lunch break near the Neretva river delta (a Ramsar site) was good for birds and I saw Black-winged Stilt, Eurasian Curlew, Little Ringed Plover, Caspian Tern, and Pygmy Cormorant.

Near Gradac we slept at a hamlet with only four inhabited houses. I saw Northern Goshawk and Subalpine Warbler, a lifer, here. We also slept further inland twice. Once, a local guy pointed us to his brother’s rafting camp, where we could camp for free. The second time we asked people inland near Prgomet whether we could camp in their garden, and they said that since this was their weekend home and they wouldn’t be home at night, we could use their bathroom and kitchen, and even sleep in their bedrooms! Of the many gestures of kindness we experienced from local people during the trip, this was this was the most amazing. They gave us some beers and we could play table tennis, so we had a really nice evening. Earlier, the very long uphill road to get there from Split airport yielded a Blue Rock-Thrush and the following morning I saw my first Cirl Bunting near the house and Subalpine Warblers and a likely Calandra Lark on a nearby hill.

Close before Pag island, I saw a Montagu’s Harrier, while we also inserted a tube into Sami’s front tire, which had also gotten punctured. In the late evening we pitched our tent in the parking lot of a restaurant. Not the best place but we didn’t mind as we had a toilet and used the hose that filled the goats’ trough for running water. I enjoyed the rugged and arid hills of Pag island a lot, reminiscent of the scenery in Namibia. A morning walk revealed Tawny Pipit, Crested Lark, Northern Wheatear, Cirl Bunting and a cute Ortolan Bunting, a lifer that I wanted to see for years.

A short ride the next day saw us arrive at the huge Camping Strasko, which is more like a separate town with its restaurants, bakeries, grocery shops, bike rentals, etc. We stayed here to go to Noa Beach club in Novalja. This was Lucas’s and Sami’s initiative and we all had a great time. We had most of the next day to rest and just took a short ride back to the mainland in the evening to get somewhere where we can sleep for free… We just missed the ferry, giving me some time to explore the arid hills while waiting for the next one. A Black-eared Wheatear sighting was a big relief since I wasn’t sure about a sighting on the previous day. Back on the mainland, I saw two female Black-headed Buntings as we struggled up the steep road to the main road – not the male but still another target bird of the trip (and the second new bunting species for me that day). This night was one of the most special of the trip since we slept under the open sky right by the water of the small bay of Stinica. This spot was popular among the local families as we learnt the next morning, but nobody minded us having slept there.

I had excellent close-up views of European Shags during a lunch break at Sveti Juraj, while I saw my first Golden Eagle soaring along the main road earlier. We arrived in Bribir in the early evening and were eventually allowed to camp in a patch of lawn (unfortunately right by the road) after asking around a bit. Hawfinch and Cirl Bunting were in the area. The last morning of the trip was a hurried affair as we wanted to take down the tent before the rain set in. The day passed smoothly and in the early afternoon we arrived at a campsite in Opatija. We planned for the trip to end here because we had the fortune that Sami’s father was on holiday in the area and was able to take us back to Brussels. This was a huge advantage as taking public transport with bikes would have been complicated and expensive.

Since we left Budapest we cycled 1530km, with daily distances varying from 40 to 130km and just two days without any cycling. It was an odd feeling to know that the next morning, we wouldn’t get up, take down the tent, and get on our bikes, something that had become a routine. In fact, every morning I was very happy to be back on the saddle and continue cycling. However, it was of course not always just fun, with some extremely hot and exhausting stretches on the road, or doing groceries and setting up the tent when all we wanted was to relax. All in all though this was an amazing trip, and doing this together with two friends made for countless memorable moments.

The following morning Sami’s parents picked us up and we drove towards Brussels. It felt very odd to sit still for a long time, but fortunately I already got out near Munich, where I stayed at my brother’s place for a day (I saw my first Black Woodpecker here!) before returning to Bonn. I was already looking forward to the upcoming months, as I have an internship at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and then my semester abroad in London coming up.