Other people's journeys: Balkan travelogues 2009

Apart from a short trip to Romania I haven't had the chance to visit the Balkans this year, so I've been travelling vicariously by reading other people's online travelogues. In this post I list a selection of trip reports that may prove useful or interesting to readers planning a trip to the region. All of them date from 2009 or the second half of 2008 so the information should be up to date.

Most of the travelogues I've come across are about multi-country trips through Southeast Europe. A good example is "Traveling the Balkans", an account of a trip through Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, and Greece in May 2009. The site features detailed descriptions of some of the trickier cross-border transport connections in the region, including a bus from Venice to Ljubljana and a taxi-plus-minibus combination from Bar to Tirana. The author's overall conclusion: "I recommend this trip to anyone who has not spent time in this seriously awesome region".

The author of "Balkans2009's Great Adventure" reaches a similar conclusion: "All in all our trip to the Balkans was tremendously fun. We saw amazing sites, ate great food, and met some wonderful people. We'd strongly urge anyone who has a lust for off-the-beaten-path travel to consider visiting this part of the world". Craig and Efren also travelled by public transport, starting in Sarajevo and taking in the Croatian and Montenegrin coasts. They then headed further off the beaten path, flying from Tivat to Pristina in a plane with a total of just four passengers, exploring Pristina, Gjakova, and Prizren, before heading to Macedonia and finally Athens.

If you're thinking of taking a car to the Western Balkans, check out "Chokk's Road Trip", which describes a drive from Belgium to Albania and back again, with stops in Bosnia, Croatia, and Montenegro along the way. As well as descriptions of the sights and sounds of the journey, the blog includes descriptions of driving conditions on the E65 (Adriatic Highway), the Mostar-Metkovic road, and two border crossings between Albania and Montenegro.

"Travelvice" blogger Craig Heimburger chose a much slower approach to travelling in Southeast Europe in late 2008, spending about two months in Romania and a month in Bulgaria. If you are interested in the possibilities of CouchSurfing in the region this blog should be of interest, as Craig managed to rack up more than 100 consecutive nights staying in this form of accommodation (at the cost of what sounds like a frightening amount of time spent at a computer chasing up invitations). This method of travel brought him to a variety of places rarely visited by foreign tourists. To be honest, I suspect some of these place are rarely visited for a very good reason. Much as I love both countries, I can see how a tour of grey, run-down provincial towns in the depths of winter might not leave a very good impression, so I wasn't too suprised that Craig seemed generally underwhelmed by both countries.

Also travelling through Southeast Europe on a low budget was Wade at "Vagabond Journey", who visited Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia. He seems to have had less luck than Travelvice in finding Couchsurfing hosts, and concludes that "Europe is expensive to travel in winter". In line with the site's overall theme of Budget Travel, several posts list the costs of basics such as bread, water, and cheese.

After all those multi-country itineraries, I'd like to mention two blogs that stick (mainly) to one country:

"Nothing Against Serbia" is the blog of a Swiss architect married to a Serbian. As well as many travel tips drawn from the writer's travels around Serbia, the blog features photos and descriptions of many aspects of Serbian architecture and design.

Finally, ""Ellis and Jodie's Bulgarian Adventure is a blog by a couple who moved to Sofia from Israel in January 2009, covering the highs and lows of adapting to life in a new country - including the challenges of learning Bulgarian and the unpredictable results of using GPS to navigate Bulgaria's road network.

What's new in Lonely Planet's "Western Balkans"?

Judging by the clicks through to Amazon from the links on this site, Lonely Planet's "Western Balkans" is the single most popular guidebook among readers of Balkanology. I mentioned the imminent publication of a second edition back in March, but I had few details at that stage. Now that I have my own copy, I thought some readers might be interested in a comparison with the first edition.

The most obvious change is that the chapter on Slovenia has been quietly dropped, presumably for not being Balkan enough. Along with an increase of 44 pages in the total size of the book, this has allowed quite a lot of extra material to be included in the individual country chapters, which have been completely rewritten. The following countries are now covered: Albania (53 pages), Bosnia (68), Croatia (92), Kosovo (12), Macedonia (52), Montenegro (40), and Serbia (51). There are also more than 100 pages of general material about the region as a whole.

I was pleased to find that much of the extra space has been used to write about less well-known regions. Eastern Bosnia, for example, was ignored in the first guide but now gets four pages, including details of accommodation and transport (details notably lacking in the rather confused coverage of this region in the Bradt guide to Bosnia). Theth (Albania), Biogradska Gora (Montenegro), and Krushevo (Macedonia) are similar examples of destinations that have been added in the new edition.

It's impossible to thoroughly judge a guidebook without using it on the ground, which I haven't yet had the chance to do. But leafing through the new edition of Western Balkans certainly prompted me to daydream about another visit to the region, taking in places I haven't yet seen - which has to be a good thing.

Escape from British tourists in the Balkans

The Independent recently published a list of the "Ten best destinations to escape the British crowds this summer". Not necessarily free of tourist crowds in general, it seems - just British crowds. Destinations in Southeast Europe make up half the list: Sarajevo, Montenegro, Slovenia, the Romanian Black Sea coast, and (rather surprisingly) Croatia. Nice to see Balkanology.com getting a mention on the Sarajevo page, even if they didn't quite get the spelling right.

Balkan destinations have also popped up in several of the Independent's other "Ten best" features. Dubrovnik gets a mention as one of the "Ten best city beach breaks". Croatian's Motovun Film Festival features as one of the "Best alternative festivals" (Motovun is in Istria, not Central Croatia as stated in the article). And Romania is one of the "Best Harry Potter landmarks". Something to do with dragons, apparently.

New and updated guidebooks: Montenegro, Albania, and more

Despite recurring reports of the death of the print guidebook, spring 2009 has seen plenty of activity among publishers of guides to the Balkan Region. Some of the books listed below are already in the shops, others are due to be published in the next few months and are available for pre-order. I haven't yet got my hands on any of them, so the following listings are not necessarily recommendations.

Montenegro

Travellers to Montenegro will soon be spoilt for choice as the Adriatic country moves further towards mainstream destination status. Two brand new guidebooks make their debuts in April 2009, Rough Guides and Lonely Planet shadowing each other as closely as ever: their guides have identical official publication dates. In keeping with the usual pattern, the Rough Guide has more pages than its LP competitor. Rough Guide author Norm Longley has also been responsible for the excellent Romania and Slovenia guides. There are now at least five English language guidebooks dedicated entirely to this small country (for the full list see the Montenegro Books page).




Albania

Albania trails some distance behind Montenegro when it comes to being perceived as a "normal" tourist destination, but it is certainly moving in that direction. Until recently the successive and ever-improving editions of the Bradt guide had the field to themselves (in the absence of an update to the 2001 Blue Guide, still worth referring to for its incomparable level of detail). Now Thomas Cook is publishing "Travellers Albania". The same publisher's CitySpots series already covers Tirana, and the new guide extends to the whole country. See the Albania Books page for the full list of guidebooks.



Western Balkans

The new guides to Albania and Montenegro will be of interest to travellers concentrating on a single country, but are probably too bulky for the many people who visit these countries as part of a longer trip. Those travellers will no doubt be interested in the second edition of Lonely Planet's Western Balkans guide, which will hopefully take account of the many changes in the region since the first edition appeared three years ago. Details are still sparse - all I know right now is that it is just 12 pages longer than the first edition. Presumably the same countries are covered - I wonder if Kosovo, barely touched on in the original edition, will get its own section?

Please see this later post for an update on the Western Balkans guide.



Other updates

The roster is completed by two other updates from Lonely Planet: their guide to Croatia has moved on to its fifth edition in a relatively short space of time, while the venerable Turkey guide is on edition number eleven.

Train timetable changes in the Balkans - December 2008

Once again we have reached the time of year when railway operators across Europe introduce new timetables. The next round of changes will take effect on 14 December 2008.

According to an announcement on the Serbian Railways website, a second daily train is being introduced on the Belgrade-Skopje-Thessaloniki route. Or rather reintroduced, as this restores the situation prior to December 2007. Any improvement to the poor public transport connections between the Republic of Macedonia and Greece is very welcome.

The IC "Avala", which currently runs from Vienna via Budapest to Belgrade, will now operate on the route Prague-Bratislava-Budapest-Belgrade. There will thus be no direct daytime Vienna-Belgrade service, although it will still be possible to travel between these cities by day with a change in Budapest, and the direct overnight "Beograd" service is retained.

The overnight train from Niš (Serbia) to Podgorica and Bar (Montenegro) will now leave Niš in the morning, at least during the winter - it is not clear what will happen in summer.

These are the only major developments in Southeast Europe that I have noticed so far. There are also numerous minor timing alterations.

Sadly there is no sign of any improvement in the rail links between Italy and Slovenia. Since TrenItalia withdrew their leg of the "Casanova" service earlier this year, the only direct train has been the "Venezia Express" from Venice to Budapest, which passes through Ljubljana at an inconvenient hour of the night. This seems a very strange state of affairs between neighbouring countries within the Schengen zone.

As happens every year, the various online train timetables are struggling to deal with the changeover - apparently this is too great a challenge for the current state of computing technology. So for the next few weeks, care will be required when using online timetables to plan journeys in advance.

It's a long way from Split to Dubrovnik ... if you believe Google Maps

Fellow blogger Stuart Pinfold has drawn my attention to the eccentricities of Google Maps in giving driving directions between certain points in Southeast Europe. In his post on the topic he points out that Google Maps comes up with a slightly overcomplicated route between Dubrovnik and Mostar. Instead of the conventional 150-kilometre drive that less creative mapping software might recommend, Google suggests a more adventurous approach: a ferry to Italy, some driving, another ferry to Greece, and more driving through Greece, the entire length of Albania, Montenegro, and finally Bosnia. At 1541 kilometres it's a mere 10 times longer than the usual route - and so much more interesting. I've always encouraged travellers to venture away from the beaten path and explore less well-known parts of the Balkans, so it's nice to see Google doing the same. Not only that, but it adds a sense of history by persistently referring to Dubrovnik as Ragusa - admittedly not a name that appears very often on Croatian road signs.

I tried a few test routes of my own in Google Maps to see if this was just an aberration. Surely the straightforward coastal drive from Split to Dubrovnik wouldn't cause any problems? Sure enough, Google's answer does involve a drive along the Adriatic Coast - unfortunately it is on the other side of the Adriatic, between Bari and Pescara.



I guessed that the small strip of Bosnian territory between Split and Dubrovnik (the "Neum Corridor") might be causing a problem, so I tried an even simpler request: directions from Split to Zagreb, a route that lies entirely within Croatia. The result was even more surprising: "We could not calculate directions between split, croatia and zagreb, croatia."

So the problem runs deeper than the Neum corridor; there seems to be a more fundamental problem with Google's Croatia database. But maybe it's just Croatia that is flawed and everywhere else in the Balkans is OK? I asked for directions between two neighbouring capitals, Belgrade and Podgorica. At first everything looked fine: as I expected, the results show a blue line heading southwest from Belgrade and continuing along major roads to Podgorica. But wait a minute - what is that thick blue line southeast of Belgrade? Closer inspection of the driving directions reveals the problem: Google wants us to head southeast for 150km, turn around, and drive back to the outskirts of Belgrade on the same road before finally taking the correct road towards Montenegro.



At this point I gave up.

As far as I know ViaMichelin is more reliable in providing driving directions in the Balkans. Certainly it acquitted itself well on the examples above. However it's possible that similar horrors lurk within the databases of ViaMichelin and other non-Google mapping websites - if you know of any, let me know.

Through the Balkans by motorcycle - a trip report

Not MY trip report, I hasten to add - I haven't suddenly taken up motorcycling. But I thought that readers of this site might be interested in a new travelog by Jayne Cravens about her journey through Eastern Europe, including several Balkan countries, in September 2008. The descriptions of road conditions and campsites should be particularly useful to anyone planning a similar journey, while motorcyclists and non-motorcyclists alike should enjoy the many stories of the random acts of kindness that add so much to the experience of visiting the region.

Southeast Europe is a low-crime region, says the UN

A recent report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) refutes the persistent stereotype of the Balkans as a region of where all kinds of criminals and gangsters run riot. The report says that levels of crime against people and property are lower than in Western Europe, and murder rates have fallen significantly in the last ten years.

Of course it's not all perfect: organised crime and corruption continue to pose significant problems: "victim surveys indicate that, on average, South East Europeans are more likely to face demands for bribes than people in other regions of the world". But even in this area the UNODC believes that progress has been made, and is optimistic about further improvements.

Of course none of this is directly related to travel, but it does tend to confirm the anecdotal evidence of most travellers that Southeast Europe is certainly no more dangerous, and possibly safer than Western Europe.

Read more: UNODC Report

The Balkans in the travel pages - Spring 2008

If you are searching for inspiration for a trip in summer 2008, perhaps one of the articles about the Balkans published recently in the English-language press will help you make a decision.

Albania made one of its rare appearances in the travel pages in March. In an article called "Once and future glories" in the Telegraph, Jeremy Seal focuses on the country's archaeological attractions, from the well-known (by Albanian standards) ruins of Butrint to less visited sites such as Byliss and Hadrianapolis. Albania's infrastructural shortcomings get several mentions, but overall the tone is positive. In "The ups and downs of Albanian tourism" the Southeast European Times also notes that tourism in Albania is being held back by the undeveloped infrastructure. The authorities are making all the right noises about developing a broad range of tourism rather than simply building bigger coastal resorts.

Bosnia, like Albania, sometimes struggles to convince outsiders of its merits as a tourist destination - and especially to persuade visitors to go anywhere other than Sarajevo and Mostar. In "Peace dividend: unspoiled hiking in the Balkans", the New York Times looks at so-called adventure tourism, following a group of American hikers on a guided tour through the Bosnian
mountains. At a price of US$3,000 for a 10 day tour (airfare not included), there doesn't seem to be much danger that these organised trips will lead to the Bosnian landscape being swamped by mass tourism.

Bulgaria doesn't seem to be getting a lot of a attention at the moment, perhaps because its tourism boom has been rather too closely linked to property investments that don't look too appealing in the current economic climate. I've already mentioned the Guardian article "I am starting to love this dirty town" in an earlier post. It's worth keeping an eye on the series "Across the Map of Bulgaria" published by Radio Bulgaria, which often focuses on less well-known aspects of Bulgarian tourism. Recent topics include wine tourism and the monasteries of the Central Balkan mountains.

Croatia continues to feature in many travel articles, many of which are interchangeable and not worth specific mention. The Guardian goes a little way beyond the usual destinations in choosing the "Top 10 Croatian islands" - in fact they go almost half way to Italy in recommending Palagruza as the best island for extreme isolation. Their other choices include Murter for learning to sail, Pag for partying, and Bol for water sports.

Romania is represented by two articles about Transylvania published in different newspapers on the same day. The Times concentrates on the region's Hungarian heritage in "The perfect budget eco break?", concluding that Transylvania is an ideal location for a family holiday. Meanwhile the Guardian looks at the Saxon (German-speaking) influences to be found in "the villages
where time has stood still". In an earlier post I remarked that it is apparently compulsory for British newspapers to refer to Prince Charles when writing about Transylvania; apparently this decree is still in force, and both articles duly comply. A less rural side of Romania, which I am fairly sure would be less appealing to the Prince of Wales, is featured in the Observer's guide to an "Instant Weekend in Bucharest".

The staging of the 2008 Eurovision song contest in Belgrade prompted a couple of articles about Serbia. The Independent aims for the city break tourist with "48 hours in Belgrade". The Telegraph also concentrates on Belgrade in "Serbia: a side we haven't seen", but ventures out of the city as far as the Vojvodina region. To prove that there is cultural life after
the Eurovision, the TravelConnect website lists a range of musical and theatrical events taking place in Serbia in summer 2008.

Finally, the Independent covers two of Southeast Europe's largest cities, Athens and Istanbul.

Southeast Europe, motorbiking paradise?

Travel writers listing their top 10 European destinations often overlook the Balkans. Whether the specific theme is the best hotels, favourite hikes, or top spas, the focus tends to be on Western Europe with a couple of places in Central Europe thrown in to give the appearance of balance. So it's good to see Southeast Europe being given in its due in Mike Carter's article in the Guardian, "Europe's top 10 motorbiking roads". The region account for three of his top 10 - four if you count Asian Turkey.

Mike is sufficiently enthusiastic about Romania's Transfagarasan Highway to cover it in a separate, longer article. He describes the road across the Carpathians from Sibiu to Curtea de Arges as "quite simply, one of the greatest buttock-clenching, white-knuckle biking roads in the world".

Also making the list is the route from Bar on the coast of Montenegro to Sarajevo in Bosnia. This inland route passes through Durmitor National Park, where the road becomes a "gravel track, threading its way across a vast treeless, boulder-strewn plateau".

Durmitor

The final Balkan entry is a road well worth following in a bus or car if you don't have a bike: Albania's Ionian Coast road from Saranda to Vlora. The climax comes with the Llogaraja Pass, "taking you from sea level to over 1,000 metres in just a few ear-popping minutes for the best view of the Ionian you'll ever see".

Ionian Coast

Train timetable changes: Zagreb-Thessaloniki no more

Please note that this post was originally written in December 2007. Since then there has been a further round of changes - see my later post about timetable changes in December 2008.

December 9th marked the introduction of new train timetables across Europe, with some important changes to international routes in the Balkans. After spending some time trying to reconcile conflicting sources of information, my current understanding of some of the changes in the 2007/2008 timetable is outlined here.

The "Olympus Express", which used to run from Ljubljana to Thessaloniki via Zagreb, Belgrade, and Skopje, will now run from Ljubljana to Belgrade only. This means that there is no longer any direct overland connection between Slovenia/Croatia and Macedonia/Greece. I've travelled on this train several times, and will miss it even though it always seemed to be late: I liked the idea of travelling from the Aegean to the edge of the Alps in a single journey. Of course it is still possible to do this trip by rail, but a change of trains in Belgrade is now required. The change also means that there is only a single daily train between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia - further weakening the already poor public transport links between those two countries.

Thessaloniki may now be less well connected to Croatia and Slovenia, but connections to some other parts of Central and Eastern Europe have improved. The "Hellas Express" continues to run every day from Thessaloniki to Belgrade, albeit with a slightly different schedule. This train will also carry through carriages to Budapest (23 hours from Thessaloniki), Vienna (27 hours), and Prague (32 hours). This is the first time in many years that it is possible to travel to these cities without a change of train on the direct route through Serbia, rather than looping around through Romania.

For truly hardcore train buffs, the Hellas Express will also have a through car to Kiev and Moscow - an epic journey of (gulp) 66 hours.

On the Belgrade-Bar line, the so-called "business train" has been withdrawn for the moment, and will now run during the summer season only. This leaves just one daytime train and one night train running year round on the route from Bar to Belgrade's main station. There is an additional night train from Bar to Novi Sad and Subotica which calls at Novi Beograd.

It's worth noting that at the time of writing, online information about Balkan train schedules is a bit of a mess. The Greek and Macedonia rail operators have not updated their websites to reflect the new timetables. It also appears that the European Rail Timetable on the Die Bahn and Austrian Railways sites has not been updated with complete information about trains through Greece or Montenegro. The nightly train from Bar to Nis seems to be missing from all online timetables, but I'm told that it still runs all year round.

I have updated the page about travelling from Croatia to Greece to reflect these changes.

All that remains is for me to wish all the readers of Balkanology a Happy Christmas and New Year - and happy travels in 2008.

The tourist industry in Southeast Europe

A recent article in the Southeast European times surveys recent developments in the tourist industry in a number of Balkan countries. In general the article presents a picture of steady growth, albeit from a very low base in the case of Macedonia, which still attracts few foreign visitors.

Of course not all the effects of increased tourism are positive. The article points out that residents of Dubrovnik struggle to find a parking space or a reasonably-priced cup of coffee during the summer crush. Meanwhile there are signs that on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, too many hotels have been built too quickly - a problem previously covered in an earlier article on the same website.

Palin's New Europe: series begins this Sunday

I've already mentioned in this blog that Michael Palin's latest travel series will visit some of my favourite places in the Balkans, and in the wider Eastern Europe. The seven-part series will air on BBC1 on Sundays at 9pm, starting this Sunday.

According to the BBC's detailed guide to the series, the first episode will be a fast-paced trip through the Western Balkans, taking in Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. The second program will also have a Balkan feel, covering Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Turkey, while Romania is included in episode 3.

With only 7 hours in total to cover 20 countries, we obviously can't expect much in-depth coverage. Even so the series will hopefully achieve the aim of introducing viewers, in Palin's words, to "the vigour and vitality of that half of Europe which has, for most of my lifetime been seen as grey, secretive and unwelcoming". On Palin's own site he comments that "I'm just sorry, that even in seven episodes, we haven't had time to do justice to every one of the twenty countries we passed through, but those that don't get much on-screen time are in the book and on the DVD".

Balkans Peace Park nominated for tourism award

The Balkans Peace Park is a project aimed at creating a transnational park in the remote mountain region where the borders of Montenegro, Kosovo, and Albania come together.

The project has recently been nominated for the British Guild of Travel Writers annual Tourism Awards, in the category "best overseas tourism project". One of the criteria for the prize is that the project should "allow for interested travellers to explores landscapes, communities and cultures which might otherwise be off limits" - which seems to be a perfect description of the Peace Park.

A shortlist of three contenders will be chosen on 12 September, with the winner to be announced on 11 November. Best wishes from Balkanology to everyone involved.

More about the nomination (PDF file)
More about the Balkan Peace Park Project

The Balkans in the travel press

There have been quite a few articles about various parts of the Balkans in the last month or so. Croatia now gets so much press coverage that I won't even bother to list the new articles here, but some newspapers have ventured a bit further.

The New York Times takes a look at the Montenegrin coast in an article entitled "An Adriatic Stretch is Awaiting its Riviera Moment". I was a little surprise to read that "hotel staff members speak perfect English", but perhaps this is explained by the list of hotels at the end of the article, most of which are in the 100 euro per night price bracket.

Even more daringly, the NYT checks out the nightlife in Bulgaria's Studenski Grad in "Partying amid Cold War ruins".

Both The Times and The Independent take advantage of direct British Airways flights from Gatwick to write about Sarajevo as a city break destination. Note that although the Times optimistically says that Sarajevo is a two hour flight from London, the scheduled journey time is almost three hours.

Two pieces in The Observer and The Guardian focus on walking holidays in Montenegro, and in particular in the Bjelasica Mountains around Kolašin. I remember Kolašin as a sleepy mountain town where, several years ago, I endured a fruitless search for a place to stay during a torrential rainstorm; apparently it is now an up-and-coming resort. Frustratingly, the Guardian recommends "a half-decent guidebook" for walking in the region, but gives no clues about where such a book might be found.

Finally, today's Sunday Times heads for Romania, specifically the Danube Delta and Transylvania.

There were no articles in the English-language press about Macedonia. Again.

An interactive map of the Balkans

European Stability Initiative (ESI) is a research institute working in Southeast Europe. There is a wealth of material on their web site for anyone looking for some in-depth analysis of issues currently facing the Balkans.

Recently they added a new feature to the site. "Return to Europe: A Balkan Journey" is an interactive map of the Balkans that aims to lead the visitor on a journey of discovery through the region. There are some fascinating quotations from past visitors - did you know that the streets of Sarajevo were once plied by double-decker London buses?

By the way, if you think some of the photos look familiar - yes, they're mine.

A roundup of new guidebooks

In the last couple of months Lonely Planet have published new editions of their regional guides to Eastern Europe, Mediterranean Europe, and Europe on a Shoestring. These editions mark the debut of Serbia and Montenegro as separate countries.

Other new editions appearing in recent months include Lonely Planet Croatia, Rough Guide Slovenia, and The Bradt Guide to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Rough Guide to Slovenia is excellent, but on this occasion the blurb writer has rather let the side down, describing the new edition as a guide to "one of Europe's least discovered countries". That description might apply to Belarus or Albania, but Slovenia??

Lonely Planet have also released a new version of their Eastern Europe Phrasebook. The most obvious change is that the section on Serbian has been omitted - or rather subsumed into the Croatian section. This certainly makes practical sense, and avoids duplicating large amounts of text (although I would have liked to see more examples of Serbian Cyrillic). While I'd like to think that LP have done this as a reflection of linguistic rather than political reality, I can't help suspecting that a desire to save space may have played some part - in keeping with the general trend in LP's guidebooks, this phrasebook is slimmer than its predecessor.

Apart from that, my first impression is that this edition is better organised than the previous edition, with better use of colour coding to make it easier to find the section you want. But if you have an earlier edition, I wouldn't advise rushing out to get the new one, as the content doesn't seem much different. If anything there are more omissions than additions. One that I immediately noticed is the section about how to say "I am English/Australian/whatever". The previous edition included Irish,
Scottish, and Welsh in the list of nationalities, but apparently we Celts are no longer considered part of the English-speaking world by Lonely Planet.

New and improved Balkan guidebooks

The guidebook publishers have done quite a lot of juggling of their Southeast European lineup in the last few months. I've updated the Books pages of Balkanology to reflect all the changes mentioned here. (The links below will take you to the relevant page on the Amazon UK site; within Balkanology you will also find links to the corresponding pages on amazon.com).

Perhaps the most interesting development is the release of the second edition of the Bradt Guide to Albania. Revised versions sometimes amount to little more than window dressing, but that's not the case here. The new edition is 50 pages longer and has quite a lot of new material, particularly about hiking and mountain biking opportunities. Even the maps - never a strong point with Bradt - have been improved. Bradt also plan to issue a second edition of their Bosnia and Herzegovina guide this year, but too late for the summer season - a publication date in November has been mentioned.

Over in Serbia, local publishers Komshe have issued the second edition of Serbia in Your Hands. I was pleasantly surprised to find it on sale this week in a shop here in Ireland. It's a very well-produced volume that whets the appetite for exploring the more far-flung corners of Serbia. Don't expect it to have the same level of practical details as the Bradt guide - it tells you about all the places you might want to see but is relatively silent about how to see them. That aside, it's good to see one of the less touristed Balkan countries taking positive steps to encourage travellers. A companion guide to Belgrade is planned for later this year.

Back in the world of mainstream publishers (and mainstream destinations), both Lonely Planet and Rough Guides have issued the 11th editions of their guides to Greece. Lonely Planet has also launched a seried of "Best of" city guides. These are very slim volumes indeed, aimed very much at the short break market. Belgrade, Dubrovnik, and Ljubljana are all covered.

Lonely Planet publishes Western Balkans Guide

The Western Balkans (the former Yugoslavia plus Albania) has received rather patchy coverage from guidebooks. The rapid assimiliation of Croatia and Slovenia into the tourist mainstream has been accompanied by the publication of a wide variety of guides, but the other states in the region have had to be content with brief chapters in larger guides, plus the pioneering but uneven Bradt Guides to individual countries.

Lonely Planet's new Western Balkans guide aims to fill in some of the gaps. It will be convenient for people visiting several countries in the region, but for several of those countries the material is not a huge improvement on the existing Eastern Europe guide. See the Books page for more.