Sarajevo to Skopje

      The choice to choose a hotel near to the city but not at the centre worked out ok ,even though we never used the facilities like the bowling alley pool etc  parking was easy and the taxi into town and back was around a fiver each way .we could have taken the ancient looking tram in but we had no change for our 100 Bosnian note ( About £40) it's hard to work out how much money to get for each country , I've now left Bosnia with about £30 of there cash by lifting more at the cashline later , A great amount of the  buildings around  the streets of sarajevo are still riddled with bullet holes ! and it reminded me of jerusalem in a way with its distinct islamic area around the mosque and the christian area filled with bars and restaurants , so no prizes for guessing where we spent the night ! the bars were good and we got a nice dinner in a pleasant restaurant called cheers bar aimed at American customers , it was roughly £2 a pint and it was good cold beer ,there was even a grouse bar and a celtic football club bar we only went into one of those bars , but we enjoyed our night out in sarajevo . we did stroll through the islamic section and it was busy with well lit streets and small shops and cafes open late selling shishas (hubbabubas with flavoured tobacco ), this place is well known for its wars and battles its even the place franz ferdinand was assassinated .heres hoping the don't start any wars soon

      we had a good nights sleep and breakfast was included in the price although it wasn't that great .the receptionist sought us out at the breakfast table , his colleague had made a terrible mistake and accepted a £20 Scottish note from a previous client which the banks would not accept ! would we be prepared to buy it from them ? of course we did i had plenty Bosnian money left i had to get shot of it so it worked out ok I bought some diesel with some more 

      on leaving sarajevo we thought we were heading the wrong way as this steep winding road into the mountains could not be the main road ! could it ? the answer is yes it is the main road between bosnia and serbia is seriously narrow winding mountain passes and its like that all the way through Serbia also , but it easily by a country mile ( pun intended ) the most awesomely scenic road i have ever driven, i would have loved to have done it on my big Africa twin motorbike amazing scenery , 

Yes that is sheep in the boot of his car !! 

      we were cruising up and down hairpins and ancient mountain tunnels loving the scenery the drive and the weather ,and  i said to cammy maybe i should separator all my different cash out of my wallet just in case we get stopped by a crooked cop . no more than ten minuets later cammy hit a police speed trap ! And yes we were definately speeding !!  the coppers couldn't speak any english they asked for all our documents and checked in our car boot , they were trying to say something about me going back to a bank for a stamp i thought it was an on the spot fine and pulled my wallet out ready for a euros bribe ! he looked offended then smiled gave cammy the waggy finger saying in Serbian take your time young man and waved us off !!

     they stamped our passports into serbia our first passport stamps and we crossed a wooden bridge just before the border to Bosnia ,and got our passports stamped out of Serbia, then pulled to the side of the road in Kosovo and boot checked papers checked we now knew to bring out the insurance document and ownership papers its my bros car in his name and our insurance is Bulgarian ! I can't read the cerylic writing it's multi country insurance , my brother Bryan had researched it and said it would be ok for the countries we were heading , but apparently not Kosovo they made me buy an official piece of car insurance from a fancy wee office for 15 euros ,even though we had told them we were only driving through kosovo en route to skopje ,so our drive through Kosovo cost us 15 euros but it was worth every penny the scenery was awesome from where we had come, 

The tunnels where ancient and shitty but also exhilarating 

     we left Kosovo and entered Macedonia . the birth place of alexander the great at 19:50 and it was a short drive into skopje where as we had no hotel booked i told cammy to punch in the best western in the sat nav and we would go into the best western see what they had and try to cut a deal ! we got a deal 85 euros for the night parking and breakfast included ideal location and thats where we are happy as larry . its been a long hard days drive but awesome and cammy has a drivers tan well a burnt arm !  We have been sitting for about ten hours ! The mighty merc got a certificate from the best western to drive up Skopje pedestrian zone and park , what a day it's beer o'clock and Cammy needs his footy fix 😉