Category Balkans

Sunday Photo – Lake Ohrid, North Macedonia
A fisherman casts his net on Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia. I visited in September 2006 on my first Balkan train tour that took me from Istanbul to Sofia via Greece, North Macedonia & Serbia. You can read about this trip and my many other journeys in the Balkan region in my book available from […]

Friday Photo – Split Croatia
I visited Split in October 2012 on a rail trip around the Balkans. We started the journey in the excellent Croatian capital Zagreb and then took an overnight train to the Dalmatian Coast to the wonderful city of Split where we were met with Autumnal blue skies and a temperature of 25 degrees. From Split […]

Travelling By Train Across The Balkans
My new book is now available from Amazon. Travelling By Train Across The Balkans chronicles my trips over the past twenty years or so in the intoxicating region. It features train travel in Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Northern Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia and European Turkey. The Balkan Peninsula conjures up images of […]

Balkan Train Travel
The need for speed has seen Europe investing for many years now in ultra-modern rail networks with state-of-the-art trains running on them. The likes of the TGVs (Train à Grande Vitesse) of France, ICE (Intercity Express) trains of Germany, Austria, Switzerland etc. and Spain’s AVEs (Alta Velocidad Española). The UK is also now catching up […]

2017 Balkan Tour Revisited – Kosovo
Kosovo is one of those places that conjures up thoughts of conflict and strife. Synonymous with the Yugoslav Conflict in the same way as Sarajevo, Mostar and Srebrenica. The Islamic enclave and particularly its embattled capital Pristina certainly bore a heavy price due to the ethnic cleansing that the Serb forces carried out in those […]

On a train from Serbia to Bulgaria (Extract from ‘Wilbur’s Travels, Travelling by Train Across the Balkans’)
Hornbill Publishing recently published ‘Wilbur’s Travels, Travelling by Train Across the Balkans’ recounting memorable travels in Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia & Slovenia as well as parts of Greece, Turkey & Romania. Here is an extract from a particularly excruciating journey – all part of the experience! A Train Journey […]

Monday Morning Blues #23 – Lake Butrint, Albania
Help us to beat those Monday morning blues by posting a ‘blue’ picture on every Monday morning over on Twitter – see @wilburstravels #mondaymorningblues This is a photo of Lake Butrint in Southern Albania. It surrounds a Roman site and really is a beautiful location. It is easily doable as a day trip from Corfu […]

Jazzy Ljubljana
When I booked for Mrs Wilbur & I to visit the Slovenian capital this June I had no idea that it would coincide with the city’s 60th jazz festival. We have both grown to love this musical genre and indeed the whole trip that saw us ending up in Vienna was predicated on us going […]