First impressions!

After travelling during more than 20 hours, I finally arrived in Vranje, Southern Serbia, at 12 o’clock on 16th April 2010. This is the first time I travel in the Balkans and even if I don’t have so much to say for the moment, I already have the feeling that this region has to be visited at least once in life.

Before travelling people usually got very surprised when I told that I was going to Serbia. Some of them even were worried about the war and rude and dangerous Serbian and more generally Eastern European people.

I would be lying if I told you that I have no stereotypes or any other positive or negative expectation. Human beings have a great imaginative capacity when it comes to the unknown but I prefer experiencing reality.



The trip:



8.30: Porto – Madrid

12.15: Madrid – Sofia

Arrival: 16.20


Until then everything went normaly except the passports control at the arrival in Sofia airport.
The taxi from the airport to Sofia’s Central Bus Station was just a tourist trap! Do not ever accept taxi rides when you are not sure that these are official airport taxis. 89 Leva (45 Euros) is the price I paid for about 7 kilometres distance.

When I arrived at the station I lost like an hour to find the right place where I had to take the bus to Skopje where I was going to meet the responsible person for my European Voluntary Service. When arriving at the Macedonian border everybody stepped out of the bus so the police could check the luggage and passports.

Being so used to the EU and the freedom of movement it provides to European citizens I must confess that it took me some minutes to understand what was going on.

We lost more than one hour in the border because in just a few meters of space our luggage and passports were checked two times: one by the Bulgarian police, and the other one by the Macedonian police.

When I finally arrived in Skopje I was warmly welcomed by Gordana in her beautiful apartment and we travelled together by bus to Vranje the day after in the morning.



Vranje is a small and quite city, located in southern Serbia, at around 80 kilometres from Skopje and 260 kilometres from Sofia. Just to give you a figure if 80 kilometres would normally be more or less 45 minutes in Portugal, it is around 2 hours here, without counting the time lost in the border. There are around 100 000 inhabitants and an important Roma community among the population. Vranje is among the regions which were under the Ottoman Empire

In this hilly, mountainous and green area people are very friendly and will do everything possible to make you have a great journey. This is at least the very first impression I have. I don’t think that I will ever feel like going back home! Let’s wait and see. And if you are interested in being updated about my experience and maybe want to know how I am doing, then check this blog quite regularly; I’ll try to be assiduous enough in posting some news :-)



Ciao!