Really, at the border of Albania, the tarmac stopped and made place for ... a lot more gravel, big stones and deep potholes.  And, as in the whole Balkan, a lot of cattle on the road.  Just in Albania, there were also pigs wandering the streets (if you can call it streets).  We entered via the Vermosh valley, crossed the Albanian Alps and entered Theth valley.  Again UNESCO world herritance.  And a huge spectacle!

 With some detour, after we were sent away at a border crossing 'not intended for international traffic' (What? It's f*cking EU, no?), we arrive near the border with Montenegro.  The nature gets greener and wilder.  And the stress and missery of Herzgovina slowly fades away and makes place for peace, forest, deep gorges and higher mountains.

 Herzegovina… Mostar… A place which suffered severely during the Balkan war in the early 90’s….  
Systematic shot to pieces by people who didn’t allow to let each other see the light, sort of speak.  For the outside word this was a religious war, but as always, politics did a ‘great’ job to start it, so we were told.  Religion was brought in as a reason to ‘make sense’. 

 We entered Croatia around midday, with the idea to drive through as fast as possible (in time) and head towards Bosnia.  
Midday also means lunchtime.  Around 2 o’clock in the afternoon we stopped at a roadside restaurant to fill our stomachs.  If only we knew what would happen in the next hours we could have stayed longer or skipped lunch at all…

Ready for takeoff

About 100 horses, 250kg including luggage and fuel for about 300km, 4 times…

First of all, I want to thank Ad (ATAK) for the tremendous amount of time he had put in preparing this trip, although it ended for him a little bit premature in Croatia.

This trip started in Villach in Austria, crossed Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania, to end up in the north of Greece

 As the 5th EAR in the Dolomites wasn't as we expected, Tom and I decided to head out to the other side of Italy: the area with the French border. 

 As the 4th EAR in 2008 was such an intense experience, I had to go to the 5th one also.

This year the location was in the Dolomites (Italy) for the first half of the week and towards and in Slovenia for the second half.  

The original idea/plan for Easter this year was to ride a TransPirinaica.  A track from East to West (or the other way around) through the Pyrenees.  Mostly on the Spanish side.

Heavy snowfall decided we should do something else...

 As it was time to ride again, and I needed to make some arrangements with the Nufenens for our Easter trip, I decided to fly to Spain again.  But what would we be doing all weekend?  Yes… Riding!