Come and vist

Come and visit

Today, I will be answering your question: Why should you visit the Balkans?

The Balkans are full of beautiful countries, they have beaches and mountains. Looking for healthy forms of entertainment? You can find them here. Every country is beautiful in its own way. There are countless places to visit and history to explore.

 I have and seen lots of comments and stories about people who visited western Balkans and they were always very satisfied. Maybe 4 to 5 people experienced something unpleasant but that was just some bad luck. People who experience something bad usually spread hate on the internet and than other people get the wrong picture. 

For example, about a month ago my father went to Spain. His bag got stolen; phones, documents, money all that was gone. Stuff happens and you can't change it now. That said you can see that even in big and developed countries like Spain those kinds of unpleasant things happen.

I can confidently say that if you need help. Most younger people will know how to explain you things on English and that they will be glad to do so. Also it would be good to rent yourself a car unless you are going with a tourist agency. 

If you are a fan of good food, you just need to find a good looking restaurant, it would be good to ask some locals (that Is, if they know English). Prices on are not high and the food is usually great. In my previous blog about food I mentioned some foods that I love. Just know that in the Balkan countries meat is always the main dish always followed by bread or potatoes. 

Hotels:

Well, you can pretty easily find a good hotel at a reasonable price, but if you really want to go all out you will also be able to find some luxurious 5 star hotels. When ever I went somewhere on the Balkans I had a place to stay, usually at my relatives house.

 I did go on some trips with my school in Montenegro but just around Montenegro. Since schools didn't want to organize a trip for a lot of money, nor did they want that their students get poisoned. We always stayed at some 2 to 3 star hotels for about 150€ for 7 days plus we had buses to transport us, 3 meals every day and some other things. So the price of the hotel was probably even lower. The rooms were always spacious with everything that you need. We had no inconveniences what so ever. 

 That is it for today, stay tuned. :-)

PICTURES;

1. Croatia - Plitvicka jezera (plitvicka lakes)
2. Croatia - Plitvicka jezera (plitvicka lakes)
3. Tara canyon - Montenegro
4. Zlatibor - Serbia
5. Bled - Slovenia 

6. Ohridsko jezero (ohrid lake) Macedonia
7. Jahorina - Bosnia and Herzegovina (one of the mountains where the winter olympic games were held in 1984)
8. Kotor bay - Montenegro

Beautiful caves of Serbia

Beautiful caves of Serbia

Today I will be writing a short story about my visit to Serbia and “Resavska
Pećina” (Resavska cave).

 I went with my family: mother, father, brother. I personally was very tired after the tour, but it was worth it. We were visiting Belgrade for 2 weeks and we decided to see a cave. I didn't want to go but in the end I was convinced. We didn't know anything, only what the internet told us. The trip was about 2 to 3h long, we went by car. We managed somehow and we reached our destination. It was super cool, there were all kinds of crystals and different stone patterns. It was amazing.

Some facts about the cave:

It was discovered by shepherds in 1962. It was being worked on for 10 years and was open for visit in 22.4.1972. The length of the cave is 4500m. Around 2850m is explored and 800m is open for tourists. The tour usually takes about 40min. Bring extra clothes because the temperature is constant 7*C with air humidity of 80%-100%. The cave is open from 1. April to 31. October

After we visited the cave we went to a restaurant that is about 1h away. The food was delicious but what is really beautiful is the scenery. The restaurant is stationed near a river and about 50m from the restaurant there is a beautiful waterfall. My FB profile picture is “me in front of that waterfall”.

Balkan writers

Balkan writers

Today I will be talking about balkan writers. It is always good to know something about works of art of the country where you are going. You will be able to find out more about our culture, history and mentality of the people. I'm not very educated on this theme but I will give my best. 

There are lots of writers, like: Ivo Andrić, Branko Ćopić, Petar II Petrović Njegoš, Jovan Jovanović Zmaj, Desanka Maksimović, Jovan Dučić, Branislav Nušić, Aleksa Šantić, Meša Selimović, Eugène Ionesco (Creator of anti-drama)

All of them are famous in the balkan countries and they are very good writers. I read some of their works, mostly because we needed to read them in school. But even if I was forced to read those books I really enjoyed.

Of course there are Greek writers that are known all around the world like: Homer (Hómēros), Sophocles (Σοφοκλῆς), Aeschylus (Αἰσχύλος), Euripides (Εὐριπίδης).
These greek writers are creators of Drama and they made the building blocks of European culture.

Greece, one of the first civilisations in Europe, is one of the balkan countries and it is full of great works of art and great history that just waits to be discovered by its readers. Ancient Greek writers are recognised all around the world. :-)

Back to East Balkan:

1. Ivo Andrić won a nobel prize for his book "The Bridge on the Drina" I haven't read the entire book, but i did read some cut outs and they were really good.
2. Branko Ćopić, he was a children books and songs writer, as a kid i loved to read his poems and texts. The one I liked the most was "Hedgehog's House", my mother would read it to me every night.
3. Petar II Petrović Njegoš; was a Montenegrin bishop and a very good writer. I read one of his works called "The Mountain Wreath"
4.Jovan Jovanović Zmaj; he was a poem writer, and a really good one. I really love his poems, they are full of emotions that I can't describe. i recommend reading if you are into books.



This wasn't much, but i think that i covered most of the important books and writers.

Here is a poem that I wrote, hope you like it.

Walking down the shore,

watching the sun setting down.

Those are the things I love to do,

and you could do them. How?

Traveling and seeing all the green,

far away from cars and work.

Maybe even relaxing, in a shadow

near a stream or two.

Walk around the lake,

while looking at the swans.

Maybe even take a dip,

if you can withstand the cold.

Walking down the shore,

watching the sun setting down.

Those are the things I love to do,

and you could do them now.

Survay

Survey

I made a survey for you guys to fill. Please give serious answers, very much appreciated.

Survey: http://goo.gl/forms/Q7EaGGbZrX  

I will make a blog by using information that I gather from this survey. 

Stay tuned :-D

BALKAN FOOD

BALKAN FOOD

How to prepare delicious food and amaze your friends.

Today, I will be talking about food and how to prepare some of the food that you can find in Balkan countries.

There are lots of dishes that I love and would like other people to try. I will talk about food in general and i will recommend some foods for you to try if you come.


  In Balkans almost all of the dishes are shared and you can find them in any country that you are in (especially former Yugoslavian countries, they share lots of similar dishes, there are exceptions of course). For example, Burek, that is basically a pie and it can be with cheese, meat, potatoes and spinach, you can buy it in special shops or in any bakeries (I recommend the one with spinach but everyone has their own tastes). There is also Kačamak, a Montenegrin national dish, that I really love. Also there are other dishes that are worth mentioning, like: Cicvara, Zeljanik, Ajvar, Projice, Moussaka there is also large verity of smoked meats, simple but tasty salads. One thing that is highly used is bread, Slavs usually eat bread with almost 80% of their meals. MEAT is very popular and people eat it very much. There are lots of foods made out of meat and people really love to grill (how we say: “da roštiljamo”). Also the food differs from south to north, southern cuisine consists of mainly fish and northern mainly of meat.

Now I will give you 2 recipes for Burek and Kačamak, these were provided by my grandma and grandma’s meals are the best.

Recipe number one:

Kačamak:

Part 1:

-Put 4 liters of water in a big pot and put some salt and 500g of corn flour.

-The flour needs to stay on the surface- it mustn’t sink. The flour should be equally spread on the surface.

-In the middle of the flour, make a hole with a wooden spoon so the water can spin with ease.

-Leave it in the pot to boil for 1h.

-After that, mix everything very good so there will be no lumps being created out of the flour.

-A lot of water has been added so it will evaporate but if there is any left don’t pour it down the sink. Save it in a bowl so you will be able to put some back in case if the mixture is too thick.

Part 2:

-Know that you can jump over the following part, but i hate the kind of Kačamak that jumps over this part so I won’t recommend eating without doing this;

-Put 500g of old fat cheese in a pan.
        the cheese is kind of special and i didn’t see it anywhere in Norway, i will provide images

- Add 250g of “kajmak” in the pan.
        this i haven’t seen in any countries besides Slav countries, so you will probably need to jump over part 2, or find some kind of replacement  for this ingredient or don’t use it at all 

- Melt the cheese and the kajmak and don’t use a high temperature.

-Get the mixture that you made in part 1 and pour it in a pan using a wooden spoon to get it out of the pot.

-Mix it well while holding it on the heated plate so the cheese and kačamak can combine nicely.

 That’s it for kačamak, some people like to put it in yogurt or eat it with extra cheese.

Now Burek, recipe number two:

This one is with meat,

In Montenegro you can buy already made crusts (dough) for burek. If you can’t buy them, you can make them.
-For the dough: 500g of flour, a bit of salt (as much as you can take with your 2 fingers) 3 spoons of oil and around 250ml of water.

-You need to knead the dough as much as you can, so the dough would be smooth without any lumps. Split all the dough that you get into 4 equal balls and leave it to rest for at least 1h.

-During that 1h, stew (stew - fry it on a pan, for a short amount of time, on a low flame) some minced meat together with 5 onions and 3 potatoes that were sliced in small cubes, put some salt on the meat.

-When it cools down put some pepper on it, leave it until it’s needed.
-Before you start stretching the dough you need to coat it with oil.
-Then you start stretching it easily with your fingers until it gets very thin on every side.

-Sprinkle some oil on it, do the same thing with every ball of dough. Put the filling that you made over the length of the dough.
-Roll the dough so the filling would be in the middle of the rolled dough. Put it in a casserole and slice where needed so it could fit.
-Keep doing that until you fill the casserole up. Cover the filled casserole with oil.
-Put it in a heated oven for 40min on 250°C. When it’s baked get it out of the oven and cover it with a piece of cloth, leave it for about 20min.

That's it for food, hope you enjoyed and that you will try to make some of these dishes for your self.
If any of the instructions are unclear please say it down in the comments so i can improve my text.

Stay tuned, :-).

Montenegro

     Montenegro

1.        Some stuff about me and why did I start doing this

 

       My name is Vuk. I’m fifteen and I come from Montenegro (small country on the Balkan Peninsula) I currently live in Norway and I just got the idea that I could present my country and the countries around mine to people all around the world.

       I will mainly be concentrating on the countries of former Yugoslavia but I might talk about the surrounding countries too. The people who never came here, never experienced the Balkan culture and they created lots of stereotypes about the rumours that they have heard.

        Things you don’t need to know: Montenegro is a small country with about 700.000 people living in it. It covers an area of 13.814 km² and it is divided in 23 townships.

2.          PEOPLE

What is interesting about Montenegro is that there is a large variety of ethnic groups, but there have never been any major conflicts between them. People say that you are not a Montenegrin unless you have at least one best friend that Muslim, catholic Christian or any other faith (I’m orthodox Christian, by the way) and vice versa. Just from that one fact, you can say that the people are quite friendly. Of course, like in every other country there are all kinds of people, but when you come to visit there is a very low possibility of someone hating you just because. Generally people from Balkans try to show themselves in the best possible way, and they are always very curious about foreigners and their way of life (especially if you are from America, most people are not familiar with western countries so you will hear a lot of questions). If you manage to make some friends you will stay in touch for quite a while.

3.           NATURE

      

      There are a lot of places to visit in Montenegro. If you stay In Podgorica, since it is basically in the centre of Montenegro For example there are 5 national parks and the most you will need to drive is about 3h 30min (to the furthest national park). You would be able to see most of them in a day or two but the best way is one day = one park J. That’s how you will see most of the nature and enjoy all the park has to offer, and you won’t be spending much money either. Montenegro is a relatively cheap country. I’m getting of the theme here…. If you come to Montenegro during the summer I recommend staying away from Podgorica, it is a good place to be; because everything is close, but the heat will make you run away (the temperatures reach over 40°C). The most beautiful national park is “Biogradska gora” (this is just my personal opinion). It has a lake in the middle and you can rent a boat and snap some good photos. Also you need to buy some mosquito repellent cream or spray it will really help no matter where you are, you can find those in any pharmacies that you stumble upon.  There are also a couple adventure parks where you can test your strength and have your dose of fun and adrenaline. You can find most of those adventure parks near a national park; I have only been in one of them personally. That one is in “Ivanova Korita” near National Park “Lovcen”. 

   If you are not into hiking and mountains than you can go south and see the beautiful beaches Montenegro has to offer. There are lots of nice places; if you are a family than you should visit Ulcinj and “Velika Plaža” (Translation: Great Beach). It is a sand beach that is perfect for sunbathing and the sea level isn’t deep so relax and enjoy because your kids are safe (“Velika plaza” is 12km long). If you are a pair of two than i recommend going to Budva because that is the place where young people go to and it is very popular amongst tourists.

I hope that you will come to visit. There will be more stuff coming out so stay tuned.

Useful sites to see:

1.      http://www.visit-montenegro.com/

2.      https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g635648-Activities-c57-Montenegro.html

3.      http://www.visit-montenegro.com/top-5-places/