Source: Cycle World
The Valbona Valley in Albania. (Seth Richards/)Looking out of my kitchen window on a cold February afternoon, I picked up the phone to tell my brother the news. “So, I’m going to the Balkans in May,” I said. “For two whole weeks. On an Edelweiss tour.”“The Balkans?” he responded, bemused. “Like Borat? Kazakhstan?”“You’re thinking of the Baltics,” I said, “and Kazakhstan isn’t in the Baltics anyway. No, the Balkans, as in the former Yugoslavia. Right across the Adriatic from Italy. I’ll be riding through seven countries.” I counted them off on my fingers, unsure if I could remember each one. “Let’s see: Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Oh, and I’ll be riding the new BMW R 1300 GS, which I’m really excited about. Edelweiss handles everything. All I have to do is show up and ride.”Silence on the other end.“Well, that sounds amazing,” he eventually mustered. He’d just spent a long shift at the hospital where he’s an anesthesiologist. Now, he was fighting traffic through the suburbs to pick up last-minute carryout for dinner, and here I was talking about taking a once-in-a-lifetime trip.“It’ll be a long time to be away from the family though,” I said, trying to retroactively dampen my enthusiasm. “And I’ve never done an organized tour before. I don’t really know what to expect. What if I’m stuck with a bunch of boorish American tourist-types for two weeks? Or what if they’re really slow? I’ll lose my mind if I’m stuck behind a bunch of slowpokes on a perfect twisty road.”“Yeah, but when are you ever going to have another chance to go to Montenegro? Or Bosnia. It’s going to be amazing.”“Definitely,” I said. “And the thing is, I’m pretty confident I could plan a great trip to Italy or something, but I know nothing about the Balkans. I’ve never done a border crossing on a bike before, let alone seven.”“I’m jealous. I wish I could go along for the ride,” he said before saying goodbye.I hung up the phone and lingered at the window, staring blankly at the winter-dark treeline and tried to imagine the other side of the Adriatic.CroatiaThe 2024 BMW R 1300 GS. (Rubin Kostov/Edelweiss/)Zagreb, Croatia’s capital city, is less than 200 miles from Venice, as the crow flies. It’s not so different from Italy, I thought to myself, as we rode into the Žumberak Mountains in northern Croatia. The hills were green with spring’s youth and the heat of the day radiated a humane 70 degrees. Here and there, stone and brick homes with terra cotta roofs slumped on the land, half hidden behind orchards in full leaf. Everywhere, the countryside bustled with the hurried work of springtime. Hunched old women wearing babushkas hoed potatoes in crisp-edged gardens, minding their steps to avoid trampling the green wisps of onions punctuating the dark, rockless soil. The hills rang with singing axes of men splitting firewood—beautiful straight-grained logs that stacked neatly—not like the twisted, knotty maple logs that made up the bulk of the three cords I stacked at home a few weeks before.I rode behind Tom, a former engineer from Germany, who was one of my group’s two tour guides. He was putting in the break-in miles on one of Edelweiss’ new F 900 GSs, while the second guide, Rubin, was behind the wheel of the chase van carrying a spare bike, parts, tools, and all of our luggage.Tom rode smoothly and with skill, but set a leisurely pace, checking his mirrors often to see if the group was staying together, on this our first morning’s ride. The speed limit was slow and the roads offered little grip—the case everywhere in the Balkans, I’d discover—but I still found a few opportunities to let a gap grow ahead of me so I could rush toward apexes and sample the 1300′s performance.Getting the chance to ride the brand-new GS was a big part of why I chose to do an Edelweiss tour in the first place. Edelweiss’ rental fleet is filled with the latest and greatest motorcycles, including some of the earliest 1300 GSs to leave the production line. From my first moments on board, I knew that if nothing else, it was going to be a privilege to spend 12 days riding BMW’s latest flagship. Straight away, the 1300 felt more nimble and faster than its predecessor—but still very much a GS.After the agrarian idyll of the morning receded in the mirrors, we stopped in the storybook village of Rastoke for lunch. Built around the convergence of two rivers, it was a prelude to Croatia’s wealth of natural wonders. Then, by midafternoon, we pulled into the parking lot of our scenic countryside hotel and Rubin handed us the keys to our rooms. We instinctively walked to the van to grab our bags.Related: Motorcycle Touring the AlpsRastoke, Croatia. (Doris Lenahan/)“What are you doing?” he asked somewhat interrogatively. “I already put your bags in your rooms.” It would have hardly felt more first-class had he greeted us with bubbling-over flutes of champagne.Nolan, a first-time Edelweiss customer from Falls Church, Virginia, put it in perspective as we strolled into the hotel: “Once, I was on a tour with another company and we ended up after a very long ride in the parking lot of the Tropicana in Las Vegas. We had to drag our own bags almost a quarter mile just to get to the front of the hotel. It was like a 20-minute schlep. In full gear. In 100-degree heat.”Plitvice Lakes National Park. (Seth Richards/)After getting settled in, and since it was the shortest ride day of the trip, Rubin booked a bus to take us a couple miles down the road to Plitvice Lakes National Park. A UNESCO World Heritage site, the area was formed over the centuries by carbon dioxide-rich water that dissolved the surrounding limestone, creating a tapestry of Caribbean-blue lakes and cascading waterfalls. Vegetation sprouted from the depths, and bare rock bluffs framed the rushing water. The place was almost too pretty to be real. Even the weathered walkways above the water looked like they could have been made for the set of Swiss Family Robinson.Return CustomersAs the sun set, our group settled down for dinner back at the hotel. While this was my first organized motorcycle tour of any kind, most of the group were seasoned veterans. Dave, from Racine, Wisconsin, was on his eighth Edelweiss tour, which meant he could have worn an Edelweiss T-shirt—the ones they hand out at the beginning of each tour—nearly everyday. Jim and Cindy, from outside Atlanta, were also on their eighth, and were doing the Unpaved Italy tour three days after our trip ended. Dieter and Birgit from Cologne, Germany, were on their third tour. Besides Nolan, Pat and Doris, a couple from Santa Ana, California, were the only participants on their first Edelweiss tour. Nolan and Pat met several years ago on a motorcycle trip and they’ve been riding together ever since, making time each year for bucket list rides to places like Japan and Peru.“When we’re hanging out on these other trips,” Nolan said, “everyone always talks about different trips they’ve been on. Edelweiss comes up every single time. Like ‘oh, those people really have it together. You should go on a trip with them.’”Plitvice is a must-see. (Seth Richards/)The first impression you have after signing up for one of the 89 currently available motorcycle tours (or 18 ebike tours) is that Edelweiss has considered every detail. You even receive a book with historical information about your region of travel and pertinent details about local currencies, traffic laws, and cultural customs. The entire Edelweiss experience—from booking to clutch-out—is expertly executed.The company knows the experience of a tour is hugely dependent on the professionalism and preparedness of its tour guides. Tom, our senior tour guide, explained that newly hired guides like Rubin are required to participate in a mock tour before leading actual customers. “There, three or four coaches simulate everything that can happen on a tour,” he said. “Difficult customers, accidents, flat tires—everything you can think of.”Rural life in Una National Park in Bosnia. (Seth Richards/)Despite the various dialects through the Balkans, Rubin, whose family’s roots are in the region, was able to communicate with locals everywhere we went—particularly helpful when ordering lunch, lest one accidentally order, say, a boiled lamb’s head instead of a tomato salad. As Rubin showed us the sights it was evident he also brushed up on local history.“We are well prepared,” Tom reiterated.Scars of WarAfter an idyllic first day, it was Rubin’s turn as ride leader. “I want to show you something,” he said.“What is it?” I asked.“I will show you,” he said, leaving it at that, somewhat cryptically. Never one to give up a surprise, this guy. The group was nevertheless happy to follow his lead.Past narrow roads a few kilometers out of Plitvice, Rubin led us to Željava Air Base, a decaying remnant constructed during the Cold War. Its 2 miles of tunnels, built beneath Mount Plješivica to withstand the blast of a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb, were once home to entire fighter and reconnaissance squadrons, and its geographic position made it ideal for the NORAD-like radar surveillance system built on the mountain’s summit. Once one of the largest and most expensive military installations in all of Europe, I learned after consulting Wikipedia on my phone, now it’s nothing but a waste of concrete and human effort. I rode the GS along the runway and felt I’d imposed on the place: ignorant of its history, unable to comprehend its utter strangeness. Only later did I learn the area is still riddled with land mines.Like grass growing through the cracks of the runway’s concrete expanse, Željava was the first evidence of the violence of life that lays inert just beneath the surface here, waiting for the precise mix of conditions to germinate, grow, and once again spread the seeds of turmoil across the land.Related: BMW Motorrad presents the R 1300 GS Trophy Competition and F 900 GS Trophy Marshal BikesŽeljava Air Base. The entrance to the tunnels is roughly airplane-shaped. (Doris Lenahan/)A few kilometers further, we crossed the border into Bosnia-Herzegovina. All I knew about Bosnia was what I saw on the nightly news as a kid growing up in the ‘90s. But that was three decades ago. Times have changed. Surely, times have changed. But there are wounds that never heal. Others merely turn to scars. At the first town we entered after the border, we could see it. All of us swiveled our heads to look in chilling disbelief at the damage of war left unrepaired for lack of means. There were bullet holes everywhere. Apartment buildings with children playing out front and laundry hanging from the balconies were missing huge chrysanthemum-shaped chunks of stucco from mortar shelling. What must this place have been like at the height of the wars?A bombed-out building. The evidence of war was evident throughout much of the region. (Seth Richards/)That afternoon, we rode into Sarajevo, the capital city and the epicenter of the war. We stayed in the old part of town, steps from Latin Bridge, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated: the shot that started World War I. The streets were alive with tourists who’d come to see this city where East meets West. On one bustling avenue, if you look to the left, the architecture is predominantly Western, built during the days of Austro-Hungarian rule; look right and it’s Eastern, from the days of Ottoman rule. Today, Sarajevo is wild, radiant, a dancing mourner at a decades-long wake.Sarajevo City Hall, which underwent a complete restoration after the Bosnian War. (Rubin Kostov/Edelweiss/)I was overwhelmed to be in a place I never thought I’d visit. I was riding a 145 hp motorcycle that filled me with joy. But we were riding slowly. Like, really slowly.Rubin nobly tried to keep the group together, but cars we’d passed minutes earlier started to pass us back while we slowed to wait for riders in the back to catch up. Pretty soon I was gesturing impatiently for no other reason than to let the cars behind me know that I wasn’t happy either.On the morning of our fourth day, our streak of beautiful weather broke. Just beyond the tiny border station leaving Bosnia, we crossed a wooden deck bridge high above the Piva river. A truck and trailer coming from the opposite direction left no more than a tire’s width of space for us to pass. I sidled the GS as close to the side of the bridge as I could so the truck could inch by. As its side mirror brushed past my top box with millimeters to spare, I exchanged a relieved smile with the driver.“I don’t know if he was on the bridge first and we should have waited our turn, or the other way around,” I yelled over my shoulder to Nolan who pulled over briefly to wipe the mist from his glasses.“I don’t know, but can you believe this?” he shouted back, gesturing toward the mountains rearing up ahead of us.We continued up the hill to Montenegro’s border control. I wrung out my soggy gloves and laid them across the handlebar and grabbed my passport out of its temporary stowage in the GS’s tank-top cubby. Passport stamped, I accelerated away from the border and onto what is surely one of the Great Motorcycle Roads of the World.Montenegro’s Riding TreasuresHigh above the aquamarine Piva river, the cliffside road bounded through tunnel after tunnel, from one curve to the next. The views were beyond comparison. As we gathered for a group photo, I could sense everyone’s shared elation. What would the road beyond have in store?We turned into a dark tunnel and started a steady ascent. In that moment before the GS automatically switched its running light over to its headlight, I held my breath and squinted for sight. The road was slick from moisture dripping from the carved-out ceilings. We kept climbing from switchback to switchback. Through the forest, through the clouds. Then, suddenly, as though we’d crossed some invisible boundary line, we were transported to an entirely different world.Durmitor National Park in Montenegro. (Doris Lenahan/)In the moody mist, it was like we’d been transported to rural Ireland in the 1950s. Humble stone cottages and farms sprouted from an undulating landscape of grassy hillocks guarded from time by a range of rugged snowcapped mountains. This was Durmitor National Park. Its primordial beauty, compressed inside only 150 square miles, gave the same feeling of when you open a book and look at the detailed map of its setting: Like all the world’s adventures are contained inside an area no bigger than the palm of your hand.The road was no more than a paved goat path winding its way into the clouds. The temperature dropped as elevation increased. I raised the GS’s electric screen to keep some wind off me, and pressed the “Function List” button to pull up the heated grips and seat menu. So astounded by the beauty, I didn’t want the road to ever end. I put the bike in second gear and lugged around at 20 mph to prolong the journey as much as I could and to allow the other riders to vanish from my sight.Riding slowly to enjoy the view. (Rubin Kostov/Edelweiss/)Group Travel Doesn’t StopMy mind was working overtime to process and file away everything I saw. I wanted to dog-ear the images in my memory. For all its ruggedness and majesty, I felt an intimate connection with the place, awed that it existed and that I was there to see it. That cabin in the glen: There’s my Innisfree, I thought to myself. All I wanted to do was stop and take it in.I’d have stopped by the side of the road to buy the jars of honey and bottles of whatever-they-were from farmers peddling them outside their cottages. I’d have stopped to take a thousand photos. I’d have stopped at the little hutlike café with the greatest view in the world. I would have left the GS to wander in the mountains, to hear the nothingness and feel the fullness of such a place. But I couldn’t stop; not as part of a group. Surreptitious discoveries, which two-wheeled travel excels at inspiring, are the enemy of keeping everyone on schedule, happy, fed, and safe.There was snow in the mountains even in May. (Doris Lenahan/)When the group finally stopped to admire the view, I found a flat spot by a rocky outcropping to sit and be still.Below me, I heard Rubin: “OK, everyone; gather around for a group picture!”I didn’t want another group picture. I wanted to contemplate this place of profound peace and not be bothered by anyone.I begrudgingly stepped off my mossy perch and said to the group: “After we take the photo, maybe we can all be quiet for a minute to listen to the, well, silence.” Everyone laughed and looked at me like I was nuts. I went back to my rock and quietly seethed.As we descended the mountain, I regretted the lack of time we’d had there. If time were all mine, I’d have stayed in Durmitor for a week, explored every road, slept under the stars, and climbed its peaks to immerse myself in solitude. If only time were all mine.Montenegro deserves a place on your bucket list. (Seth Richards/)100 Kilometers of CurvesOn the sixth day, halfway through the trip, we handed our luggage to the tour guides to safely stow in the van and gathered for a rider briefing, just like every morning. Rubin taped his hand-drawn map to the check-in desk at the hotel lobby, while we used highlighters to trace the route on the maps that came in our welcome packets.“Today’s theme of the day,” he said, “is the ‘100 Kilometers of Curves Challenge.’ Starting from here in Bajram Curri, we will continue through the Albanian Alps and then cross into Kosovo where we will spend the night in the city of Prizren.”Through mist and rain, we rode into a range of the Dinaric Alps, the so-called Accursed Mountains. The road folded around itself and the fog grew thicker and thicker. I struggled to see through the darkness, ruing my optimistic decision to keep the dark visor on my helmet. Then, high above the Fierza Reservoir, we pulled over to wait for the rest of the group. Looking down on the switchback below, we saw two bikes pulled off on the side of the road. There was a problem.A damp morning in Albania on the SH22. (Seth Richards/)The clouds parted briefly, revealing a splendid view of the mountains surrounding the reservoir. We waited. Half an hour passed. Nolan and I looked around at the natural beauty and then at the field of scattered trash beneath our feet, appalled at the contrast. I kicked some energy drink cans out of my way and sat down with my Arai in my lap to change out the dark visor. I told Nolan what was on my mind: how frustrated I’d been in Montenegro.“It was the high and low point of my trip so far,” I said. “On one hand, I would never have been there if it weren’t for this trip. On the other hand, I couldn’t enjoy it exactly the way I wanted to. I’m not sure I’ve made peace with the contradiction yet.”Nolan reflected for a moment as we kept our eyes fixed on the scene below. “There’s a level of flexibility you give up on a trip like this, for sure,” he said. “But it doesn’t take many experiences of things going wrong on a trip by yourself to start to appreciate the trade-off.”We watched Tom pull out a bin of tools from inside the van as the rest of the group looked at the GS with that universal hunched-shoulder posture of helplessness that everyone gets when they realize staring at the bike hard enough still won’t fix it.The Valbona Valley. (Seth Richards/)“When I’m traveling solo, I’m always thinking in the back of my mind, what if something goes wrong?” Nolan said. “What if we get a flat tire? Having a chase vehicle reduces my ambient stress level throughout the entire trip. I’m much more able to be present because I’m not processing in my mind the various iterations of how I might navigate fixing my motorcycle—in a foreign country in which I don’t know the language. It just gives me a completely different level of relaxation and enjoyment, enabling me to be one with the place I’m traveling through.”Eventually, we saw Tom roll the spare motorcycle, a brand-new BMW F 900 XR, out of the van.Dieter rode it up the hill to meet us. “We got a flat tire. They tried patching it but this flat shard of metal went into the tire sideways. So this is my new motorcycle today,” he said, patting the tank of the XR. “Birgit will ride in the van with Tom so I can get used to it on these crazy roads.”The cities we visited in Albania were pretty bleak; the natural beauty was stunning. (Seth Richards/)He was right about the roads. SH22 in Albania was a road unlike any I’d ever seen, with more curves than could be counted. In the absence of straight sections, I’m not even sure calling it “twisty” is even applicable. The going was slow. The pavement was broken and slimy, and halfway through blind switchbacks, it would fall away or disappear into crumbles of gravel and dirt. And whatever shiny aggregate it was composed of would have been slick when dry. In the wet, it required constant vigilance, especially because the road hung on the side of one of those don’t-look-down kinds of mountains. We hustled through: left, right, left, right. No two corners were shaped the same or had level camber. Most were blind. On a lot of motorcycles it would have been white-knuckle the whole way. On the 1300 GS, it was sublime: one of the greatest riding days of my life.On rough, uncertain roads, there’s not another motorcycle that could have made me feel so competent, so relaxed at the bars, so game for anything. The 1300′s higher performing engine, quicker handling, and more adaptable electronics make it even more versatile than the 1250. It’s a worthy successor to one of my favorite motorcycles of all time.What I love about the GS is that it strikes the right balance of getting out of your way by being easy to ride, and being ever-present thanks to the way it goes about being easy to ride: The high inertia of the boxer engine makes you a superhero at low speeds, as does the overall low CG; the Telelever front end means you can lean on the front like a roadracer; and the engine’s linear power delivery, perfect balance, and robust torque make it feel uniquely exceptional. Everyday I woke up, I couldn’t wait to throw a leg over it and spend a full day in the saddle. The vast majority of motorcycles we encountered during the trip were boxer-powered GSs.The new GS is a worthy successor to the 1250. (Seth Richards/)After several hours of negotiating the Accursed Mountains, we stopped to dry off and to get a hot cup of coffee at a stone lodge that looked like it could have come out of Turgenev’s Sketches from a Hunter’s Album. Black and white photos of fishing expeditions hung on the walls, and the low ceiling and exposed wooden beams kept the warmth close. The espresso was excellent. We sat around, soaking in the bonhomie of the place, sharing contented glances in acknowledgement of the ride we’d just experienced.PerspectiveThat night, as I did laundry in the sink of my hotel room in Kosovo, I thought about the day. I recollected Nolan’s words from the morning and it felt like an epoch ago. If we were riding unsupported, we could have lost a day or two to the flat tire (unless one of us had brought a tube and tire spoons in a checked bag). Instead, the whole ordeal was a non-ordeal. Our tour guides later found a mechanic to patch the tire, and none of us had a care in the world.Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia is one of the world’s ancient lakes, home to roughly 200 endemic species. (Seth Richards/)Edelweiss can’t predict the future, but with 44 years of experience, it has a good idea of how to prepare for the unexpected—and the locales in which encountering the unexpected could be more dire. Because of the lack of infrastructure in the Balkans, Edelweiss categorizes the tour as an “Adventure Tour.” Unlike other tours which go unsupported, the chase van followed the ride route each day in case of emergency. As my brother the doctor pointed out, most of the regions we traveled through probably didn’t have that many hospitals.Edelweiss isn’t one of those fly-by-night touring companies you come across if you’re looking for a budget bike trip. The price of the Balkan Adventure tour starts at $6,900—and can go up from there depending on the rental motorcycle you select—and includes all hotel stays, dinners, and breakfasts. Lunches, beverages, additional insurance coverage, and fuel are up to the customer.Last year, the Tyrol, Austria-based company ran 230 tours for 2,100 customers. It currently offers tours on every continent and in around 75 countries. No wonder my trip seemed so well conceived and thoughtfully executed.As the trip progressed and the further south we rode, the more foreign, and less Western, the Balkans became. Minarets replaced cathedral steeples in the skyline, and the Cyrillic alphabet appeared on road signs.The Church of St. John the Theologian overlooking Lake Ohrid. Each day we visited historic sights like this. (Seth Richards/)Finding FocusOn the eighth day, after another phenomenal day of riding, we arrived in Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia. North Macedonia became an independent state just 33 years ago, and according to a recent story in The New York Times, has often flaunted historical accuracy in order to create a sense of national identity. A decade ago the prime minister—who’s since fled to Hungary to escape corruption charges—lavished the city with a garish makeover, embellishing nondescript buildings with Ionic columns and sculpted pediments, and erecting statues of historical figures it dubiously claims as its own. The huge statue of Alexander the Great, who historians agree had no real tie to the region’s history, is particularly controversial. The effect is that the city feels like a scaled-up version of Las Vegas’s Caesars Palace, but without the nudge and the wink.Skopje, North Macedonia, and the controversial statue of Alexander the Great. (Seth Richards/)I was completely taken by surprise and couldn’t make sense of the mash-up of cultures and faces. Even in more exotic places I’ve traveled, like India, I had a notion of what to expect. In Skopje, confused by the artifices of nation building, and without any preconceptions with which to counterbalance its impressions, I was thrillingly disoriented. It’s not a place most Americans would likely choose to go on vacation. It’s not Rome, or Paris, or Athens. You visit Skopje if you’re traveling; not if you’re vacationing.Dancers in traditional garb performed in the city center. (Doris Lenahan/)Finally, my relationship to the trip came into focus. The Balkans had imposed itself on me, overwhelming whatever I thought I wanted with a reality greater than my imaginings. Like Plitvice’s water running through porous limestone, I was hollowed out by all that I encountered: the resplendent beauty around every corner, the turmoil of the region’s deep history, the constant surprises of traveling on two wheels. Unshackled from my own preferences, I became simply open to experience whatever came my way, content with each day’s unforeseen dramas, willing to feel whatever I would feel.I laughed in my helmet as we rode into the night in the pouring rain. I felt relief when we needed to wheel the spare bike out of the van (again) when a faulty starter relay put a dent in the morning schedule. I felt giddy when Rubin and I let loose up a twisty road through the mountains. I felt at peace the rest of the time, riding slower than I would have on my own. Maybe most of all, I felt grateful to be born an American in 1985, safe, secure, blissfully ignorant of suffering.For the duration of the trip, and through most of the countries we visited, we witnessed the toll—the physical toll, anyway—of the region’s centuries-long history of conflict. In Kosovo, we visited the remains of a 14th century monastery that had been razed by Ottoman invaders who then used its toppled stones to build a mosque. In Croatia, we visited the site of the Jasenovac concentration camp where nearly 100,000 Serbs, Jews, and Romani were killed during World War II. We looked aghast at the skeletal remains of the Vukovar water tower, which was bombarded by the Serbian-backed Yugoslav People’s Army during the ‘90s Wars of Independence. Its ghostly shell still stands in the center of town. What is a community to do with all these mementos of war? Erase them to ease the immediate pain, or immortalize them so as to never forget it?Passing through a village in Croatia. (Doris Lenahan/)Riding a motorcycle for pleasure through this part of the world made me feel like a voyeur, an abashed onlooker at the scene of a traffic accident. I closed my visor to the oncoming wind but couldn’t shut out the ashes of destruction swirling through time. The history is so convoluted I could never dream of making heads or tails of it, other than crudely and superficially: I’m this and you’re that, so I belong and you don’t. It’s like the saying in old Western movies: “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us.” Days laters, as we rode out of Belgrade, Serbia, scrawled across a highway overpass were the inflammatory words: “Remember, Kosovo is Serbia.”Unlike in the US, peoples and cultures in the Balkans did not politely slink by one another on their way through Ellis Island’s embracing gates, each hoping to find something better on the other side; here, for hundreds of years, they barged their way past one another with their elbows out. The Balkan peninsula is no melting pot, the work of a brief moment in history; it’s a bubbling cauldron whose contents have been stewing for centuries.But it was spectacular. Never had I ridden a motorcycle through a landscape so lush; where Mediterranean light filters through Alpine valleys; where pristine waters lap against cliff and shore; where the pavement bends just for you in crescendos of tire-hugging curves.The author, looking forward to the day’s ride, marks the route on the map. (Rubin Kostov/Edelweiss /)On the final leg of the trip, heading north through Serbia and back into Croatia, I realized that this trip was the first time in years where my time and actions were entirely predetermined by someone else. The more I could identify as part of a group, rather than as a solitary rider, the more freedom I found. It’s just like group-riding through a city: When everyone moves as one—riding through a stop sign as a unit, rather than stopping individually and confusing drivers—the more smoothly it goes. What could be better than to be on a motorcycle, riding with my new friends, through a beautiful part of the world?The Balkan Adventure tour wasn’t merely prepackaged “adventure” curated for easy consumption. Too fraught with its own unending history, the Balkans itself is no confectionary delight. But it is pure delight. I was hollowed out by the sheer mass of impressions it left on me, and then filled again by the same. If it weren’t for Edelweiss, I’d never have experienced any of it. The trip required me to sacrifice a measure of freedom of choice, but in return, it gifted me a different sort of freedom: the freedom of having to make no choices, the freedom to just go along for the ride.
Full Text:
The Valbona Valley in Albania. (Seth Richards/)
Looking out of my kitchen window on a cold February afternoon, I picked up the phone to tell my brother the news. “So, I’m going to the Balkans in May,” I said. “For two whole weeks. On an Edelweiss tour.”
“The Balkans?” he responded, bemused. “Like Borat? Kazakhstan?”
“You’re thinking of the Baltics,” I said, “and Kazakhstan isn’t in the Baltics anyway. No, the Balkans, as in the former Yugoslavia. Right across the Adriatic from Italy. I’ll be riding through seven countries.” I counted them off on my fingers, unsure if I could remember each one. “Let’s see: Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Oh, and I’ll be riding the new BMW R 1300 GS, which I’m really excited about. Edelweiss handles everything. All I have to do is show up and ride.”
Silence on the other end.
“Well, that sounds amazing,” he eventually mustered. He’d just spent a long shift at the hospital where he’s an anesthesiologist. Now, he was fighting traffic through the suburbs to pick up last-minute carryout for dinner, and here I was talking about taking a once-in-a-lifetime trip.
“It’ll be a long time to be away from the family though,” I said, trying to retroactively dampen my enthusiasm. “And I’ve never done an organized tour before. I don’t really know what to expect. What if I’m stuck with a bunch of boorish American tourist-types for two weeks? Or what if they’re really slow? I’ll lose my mind if I’m stuck behind a bunch of slowpokes on a perfect twisty road.”
“Yeah, but when are you ever going to have another chance to go to Montenegro? Or Bosnia. It’s going to be amazing.”
“Definitely,” I said. “And the thing is, I’m pretty confident I could plan a great trip to Italy or something, but I know nothing about the Balkans. I’ve never done a border crossing on a bike before, let alone seven.”
“I’m jealous. I wish I could go along for the ride,” he said before saying goodbye.
I hung up the phone and lingered at the window, staring blankly at the winter-dark treeline and tried to imagine the other side of the Adriatic.
Croatia
The 2024 BMW R 1300 GS. (Rubin Kostov/Edelweiss/)
Zagreb, Croatia’s capital city, is less than 200 miles from Venice, as the crow flies. It’s not so different from Italy, I thought to myself, as we rode into the Žumberak Mountains in northern Croatia. The hills were green with spring’s youth and the heat of the day radiated a humane 70 degrees. Here and there, stone and brick homes with terra cotta roofs slumped on the land, half hidden behind orchards in full leaf. Everywhere, the countryside bustled with the hurried work of springtime. Hunched old women wearing babushkas hoed potatoes in crisp-edged gardens, minding their steps to avoid trampling the green wisps of onions punctuating the dark, rockless soil. The hills rang with singing axes of men splitting firewood—beautiful straight-grained logs that stacked neatly—not like the twisted, knotty maple logs that made up the bulk of the three cords I stacked at home a few weeks before.
I rode behind Tom, a former engineer from Germany, who was one of my group’s two tour guides. He was putting in the break-in miles on one of Edelweiss’ new F 900 GSs, while the second guide, Rubin, was behind the wheel of the chase van carrying a spare bike, parts, tools, and all of our luggage.
Tom rode smoothly and with skill, but set a leisurely pace, checking his mirrors often to see if the group was staying together, on this our first morning’s ride. The speed limit was slow and the roads offered little grip—the case everywhere in the Balkans, I’d discover—but I still found a few opportunities to let a gap grow ahead of me so I could rush toward apexes and sample the 1300′s performance.
Getting the chance to ride the brand-new GS was a big part of why I chose to do an Edelweiss tour in the first place. Edelweiss’ rental fleet is filled with the latest and greatest motorcycles, including some of the earliest 1300 GSs to leave the production line. From my first moments on board, I knew that if nothing else, it was going to be a privilege to spend 12 days riding BMW’s latest flagship. Straight away, the 1300 felt more nimble and faster than its predecessor—but still very much a GS.
After the agrarian idyll of the morning receded in the mirrors, we stopped in the storybook village of Rastoke for lunch. Built around the convergence of two rivers, it was a prelude to Croatia’s wealth of natural wonders. Then, by midafternoon, we pulled into the parking lot of our scenic countryside hotel and Rubin handed us the keys to our rooms. We instinctively walked to the van to grab our bags.
Related: Motorcycle Touring the Alps
Rastoke, Croatia. (Doris Lenahan/)
“What are you doing?” he asked somewhat interrogatively. “I already put your bags in your rooms.” It would have hardly felt more first-class had he greeted us with bubbling-over flutes of champagne.
Nolan, a first-time Edelweiss customer from Falls Church, Virginia, put it in perspective as we strolled into the hotel: “Once, I was on a tour with another company and we ended up after a very long ride in the parking lot of the Tropicana in Las Vegas. We had to drag our own bags almost a quarter mile just to get to the front of the hotel. It was like a 20-minute schlep. In full gear. In 100-degree heat.”
Plitvice Lakes National Park. (Seth Richards/)
After getting settled in, and since it was the shortest ride day of the trip, Rubin booked a bus to take us a couple miles down the road to Plitvice Lakes National Park. A UNESCO World Heritage site, the area was formed over the centuries by carbon dioxide-rich water that dissolved the surrounding limestone, creating a tapestry of Caribbean-blue lakes and cascading waterfalls. Vegetation sprouted from the depths, and bare rock bluffs framed the rushing water. The place was almost too pretty to be real. Even the weathered walkways above the water looked like they could have been made for the set of Swiss Family Robinson.
Return Customers
As the sun set, our group settled down for dinner back at the hotel. While this was my first organized motorcycle tour of any kind, most of the group were seasoned veterans. Dave, from Racine, Wisconsin, was on his eighth Edelweiss tour, which meant he could have worn an Edelweiss T-shirt—the ones they hand out at the beginning of each tour—nearly everyday. Jim and Cindy, from outside Atlanta, were also on their eighth, and were doing the Unpaved Italy tour three days after our trip ended. Dieter and Birgit from Cologne, Germany, were on their third tour. Besides Nolan, Pat and Doris, a couple from Santa Ana, California, were the only participants on their first Edelweiss tour. Nolan and Pat met several years ago on a motorcycle trip and they’ve been riding together ever since, making time each year for bucket list rides to places like Japan and Peru.
“When we’re hanging out on these other trips,” Nolan said, “everyone always talks about different trips they’ve been on. Edelweiss comes up every single time. Like ‘oh, those people really have it together. You should go on a trip with them.’”
Plitvice is a must-see. (Seth Richards/)
The first impression you have after signing up for one of the 89 currently available motorcycle tours (or 18 ebike tours) is that Edelweiss has considered every detail. You even receive a book with historical information about your region of travel and pertinent details about local currencies, traffic laws, and cultural customs. The entire Edelweiss experience—from booking to clutch-out—is expertly executed.
The company knows the experience of a tour is hugely dependent on the professionalism and preparedness of its tour guides. Tom, our senior tour guide, explained that newly hired guides like Rubin are required to participate in a mock tour before leading actual customers. “There, three or four coaches simulate everything that can happen on a tour,” he said. “Difficult customers, accidents, flat tires—everything you can think of.”
Rural life in Una National Park in Bosnia. (Seth Richards/)
Despite the various dialects through the Balkans, Rubin, whose family’s roots are in the region, was able to communicate with locals everywhere we went—particularly helpful when ordering lunch, lest one accidentally order, say, a boiled lamb’s head instead of a tomato salad. As Rubin showed us the sights it was evident he also brushed up on local history.
“We are well prepared,” Tom reiterated.
Scars of War
After an idyllic first day, it was Rubin’s turn as ride leader. “I want to show you something,” he said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I will show you,” he said, leaving it at that, somewhat cryptically. Never one to give up a surprise, this guy. The group was nevertheless happy to follow his lead.
Past narrow roads a few kilometers out of Plitvice, Rubin led us to Željava Air Base, a decaying remnant constructed during the Cold War. Its 2 miles of tunnels, built beneath Mount Plješivica to withstand the blast of a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb, were once home to entire fighter and reconnaissance squadrons, and its geographic position made it ideal for the NORAD-like radar surveillance system built on the mountain’s summit. Once one of the largest and most expensive military installations in all of Europe, I learned after consulting Wikipedia on my phone, now it’s nothing but a waste of concrete and human effort. I rode the GS along the runway and felt I’d imposed on the place: ignorant of its history, unable to comprehend its utter strangeness. Only later did I learn the area is still riddled with land mines.
Like grass growing through the cracks of the runway’s concrete expanse, Željava was the first evidence of the violence of life that lays inert just beneath the surface here, waiting for the precise mix of conditions to germinate, grow, and once again spread the seeds of turmoil across the land.
Related: BMW Motorrad presents the R 1300 GS Trophy Competition and F 900 GS Trophy Marshal Bikes
Željava Air Base. The entrance to the tunnels is roughly airplane-shaped. (Doris Lenahan/)
A few kilometers further, we crossed the border into Bosnia-Herzegovina. All I knew about Bosnia was what I saw on the nightly news as a kid growing up in the ‘90s. But that was three decades ago. Times have changed. Surely, times have changed. But there are wounds that never heal. Others merely turn to scars. At the first town we entered after the border, we could see it. All of us swiveled our heads to look in chilling disbelief at the damage of war left unrepaired for lack of means. There were bullet holes everywhere. Apartment buildings with children playing out front and laundry hanging from the balconies were missing huge chrysanthemum-shaped chunks of stucco from mortar shelling. What must this place have been like at the height of the wars?
A bombed-out building. The evidence of war was evident throughout much of the region. (Seth Richards/)
That afternoon, we rode into Sarajevo, the capital city and the epicenter of the war. We stayed in the old part of town, steps from Latin Bridge, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated: the shot that started World War I. The streets were alive with tourists who’d come to see this city where East meets West. On one bustling avenue, if you look to the left, the architecture is predominantly Western, built during the days of Austro-Hungarian rule; look right and it’s Eastern, from the days of Ottoman rule. Today, Sarajevo is wild, radiant, a dancing mourner at a decades-long wake.
Sarajevo City Hall, which underwent a complete restoration after the Bosnian War. (Rubin Kostov/Edelweiss/)
I was overwhelmed to be in a place I never thought I’d visit. I was riding a 145 hp motorcycle that filled me with joy. But we were riding slowly. Like, really slowly.
Rubin nobly tried to keep the group together, but cars we’d passed minutes earlier started to pass us back while we slowed to wait for riders in the back to catch up. Pretty soon I was gesturing impatiently for no other reason than to let the cars behind me know that I wasn’t happy either.
On the morning of our fourth day, our streak of beautiful weather broke. Just beyond the tiny border station leaving Bosnia, we crossed a wooden deck bridge high above the Piva river. A truck and trailer coming from the opposite direction left no more than a tire’s width of space for us to pass. I sidled the GS as close to the side of the bridge as I could so the truck could inch by. As its side mirror brushed past my top box with millimeters to spare, I exchanged a relieved smile with the driver.
“I don’t know if he was on the bridge first and we should have waited our turn, or the other way around,” I yelled over my shoulder to Nolan who pulled over briefly to wipe the mist from his glasses.
“I don’t know, but can you believe this?” he shouted back, gesturing toward the mountains rearing up ahead of us.
We continued up the hill to Montenegro’s border control. I wrung out my soggy gloves and laid them across the handlebar and grabbed my passport out of its temporary stowage in the GS’s tank-top cubby. Passport stamped, I accelerated away from the border and onto what is surely one of the Great Motorcycle Roads of the World.
Montenegro’s Riding Treasures
High above the aquamarine Piva river, the cliffside road bounded through tunnel after tunnel, from one curve to the next. The views were beyond comparison. As we gathered for a group photo, I could sense everyone’s shared elation. What would the road beyond have in store?
We turned into a dark tunnel and started a steady ascent. In that moment before the GS automatically switched its running light over to its headlight, I held my breath and squinted for sight. The road was slick from moisture dripping from the carved-out ceilings. We kept climbing from switchback to switchback. Through the forest, through the clouds. Then, suddenly, as though we’d crossed some invisible boundary line, we were transported to an entirely different world.
Durmitor National Park in Montenegro. (Doris Lenahan/)
In the moody mist, it was like we’d been transported to rural Ireland in the 1950s. Humble stone cottages and farms sprouted from an undulating landscape of grassy hillocks guarded from time by a range of rugged snowcapped mountains. This was Durmitor National Park. Its primordial beauty, compressed inside only 150 square miles, gave the same feeling of when you open a book and look at the detailed map of its setting: Like all the world’s adventures are contained inside an area no bigger than the palm of your hand.
The road was no more than a paved goat path winding its way into the clouds. The temperature dropped as elevation increased. I raised the GS’s electric screen to keep some wind off me, and pressed the “Function List” button to pull up the heated grips and seat menu. So astounded by the beauty, I didn’t want the road to ever end. I put the bike in second gear and lugged around at 20 mph to prolong the journey as much as I could and to allow the other riders to vanish from my sight.
Riding slowly to enjoy the view. (Rubin Kostov/Edelweiss/)
Group Travel Doesn’t Stop
My mind was working overtime to process and file away everything I saw. I wanted to dog-ear the images in my memory. For all its ruggedness and majesty, I felt an intimate connection with the place, awed that it existed and that I was there to see it. That cabin in the glen: There’s my Innisfree, I thought to myself. All I wanted to do was stop and take it in.
I’d have stopped by the side of the road to buy the jars of honey and bottles of whatever-they-were from farmers peddling them outside their cottages. I’d have stopped to take a thousand photos. I’d have stopped at the little hutlike café with the greatest view in the world. I would have left the GS to wander in the mountains, to hear the nothingness and feel the fullness of such a place. But I couldn’t stop; not as part of a group. Surreptitious discoveries, which two-wheeled travel excels at inspiring, are the enemy of keeping everyone on schedule, happy, fed, and safe.
There was snow in the mountains even in May. (Doris Lenahan/)
When the group finally stopped to admire the view, I found a flat spot by a rocky outcropping to sit and be still.
Below me, I heard Rubin: “OK, everyone; gather around for a group picture!”
I didn’t want another group picture. I wanted to contemplate this place of profound peace and not be bothered by anyone.
I begrudgingly stepped off my mossy perch and said to the group: “After we take the photo, maybe we can all be quiet for a minute to listen to the, well, silence.” Everyone laughed and looked at me like I was nuts. I went back to my rock and quietly seethed.
As we descended the mountain, I regretted the lack of time we’d had there. If time were all mine, I’d have stayed in Durmitor for a week, explored every road, slept under the stars, and climbed its peaks to immerse myself in solitude. If only time were all mine.
Montenegro deserves a place on your bucket list. (Seth Richards/)
100 Kilometers of Curves
On the sixth day, halfway through the trip, we handed our luggage to the tour guides to safely stow in the van and gathered for a rider briefing, just like every morning. Rubin taped his hand-drawn map to the check-in desk at the hotel lobby, while we used highlighters to trace the route on the maps that came in our welcome packets.
“Today’s theme of the day,” he said, “is the ‘100 Kilometers of Curves Challenge.’ Starting from here in Bajram Curri, we will continue through the Albanian Alps and then cross into Kosovo where we will spend the night in the city of Prizren.”
Through mist and rain, we rode into a range of the Dinaric Alps, the so-called Accursed Mountains. The road folded around itself and the fog grew thicker and thicker. I struggled to see through the darkness, ruing my optimistic decision to keep the dark visor on my helmet. Then, high above the Fierza Reservoir, we pulled over to wait for the rest of the group. Looking down on the switchback below, we saw two bikes pulled off on the side of the road. There was a problem.
A damp morning in Albania on the SH22. (Seth Richards/)
The clouds parted briefly, revealing a splendid view of the mountains surrounding the reservoir. We waited. Half an hour passed. Nolan and I looked around at the natural beauty and then at the field of scattered trash beneath our feet, appalled at the contrast. I kicked some energy drink cans out of my way and sat down with my Arai in my lap to change out the dark visor. I told Nolan what was on my mind: how frustrated I’d been in Montenegro.
“It was the high and low point of my trip so far,” I said. “On one hand, I would never have been there if it weren’t for this trip. On the other hand, I couldn’t enjoy it exactly the way I wanted to. I’m not sure I’ve made peace with the contradiction yet.”
Nolan reflected for a moment as we kept our eyes fixed on the scene below. “There’s a level of flexibility you give up on a trip like this, for sure,” he said. “But it doesn’t take many experiences of things going wrong on a trip by yourself to start to appreciate the trade-off.”
We watched Tom pull out a bin of tools from inside the van as the rest of the group looked at the GS with that universal hunched-shoulder posture of helplessness that everyone gets when they realize staring at the bike hard enough still won’t fix it.
The Valbona Valley. (Seth Richards/)
“When I’m traveling solo, I’m always thinking in the back of my mind, what if something goes wrong?” Nolan said. “What if we get a flat tire? Having a chase vehicle reduces my ambient stress level throughout the entire trip. I’m much more able to be present because I’m not processing in my mind the various iterations of how I might navigate fixing my motorcycle—in a foreign country in which I don’t know the language. It just gives me a completely different level of relaxation and enjoyment, enabling me to be one with the place I’m traveling through.”
Eventually, we saw Tom roll the spare motorcycle, a brand-new BMW F 900 XR, out of the van.
Dieter rode it up the hill to meet us. “We got a flat tire. They tried patching it but this flat shard of metal went into the tire sideways. So this is my new motorcycle today,” he said, patting the tank of the XR. “Birgit will ride in the van with Tom so I can get used to it on these crazy roads.”
The cities we visited in Albania were pretty bleak; the natural beauty was stunning. (Seth Richards/)
He was right about the roads. SH22 in Albania was a road unlike any I’d ever seen, with more curves than could be counted. In the absence of straight sections, I’m not even sure calling it “twisty” is even applicable. The going was slow. The pavement was broken and slimy, and halfway through blind switchbacks, it would fall away or disappear into crumbles of gravel and dirt. And whatever shiny aggregate it was composed of would have been slick when dry. In the wet, it required constant vigilance, especially because the road hung on the side of one of those don’t-look-down kinds of mountains. We hustled through: left, right, left, right. No two corners were shaped the same or had level camber. Most were blind. On a lot of motorcycles it would have been white-knuckle the whole way. On the 1300 GS, it was sublime: one of the greatest riding days of my life.
On rough, uncertain roads, there’s not another motorcycle that could have made me feel so competent, so relaxed at the bars, so game for anything. The 1300′s higher performing engine, quicker handling, and more adaptable electronics make it even more versatile than the 1250. It’s a worthy successor to one of my favorite motorcycles of all time.
What I love about the GS is that it strikes the right balance of getting out of your way by being easy to ride, and being ever-present thanks to the way it goes about being easy to ride: The high inertia of the boxer engine makes you a superhero at low speeds, as does the overall low CG; the Telelever front end means you can lean on the front like a roadracer; and the engine’s linear power delivery, perfect balance, and robust torque make it feel uniquely exceptional. Everyday I woke up, I couldn’t wait to throw a leg over it and spend a full day in the saddle. The vast majority of motorcycles we encountered during the trip were boxer-powered GSs.
The new GS is a worthy successor to the 1250. (Seth Richards/)
After several hours of negotiating the Accursed Mountains, we stopped to dry off and to get a hot cup of coffee at a stone lodge that looked like it could have come out of Turgenev’s Sketches from a Hunter’s Album. Black and white photos of fishing expeditions hung on the walls, and the low ceiling and exposed wooden beams kept the warmth close. The espresso was excellent. We sat around, soaking in the bonhomie of the place, sharing contented glances in acknowledgement of the ride we’d just experienced.
Perspective
That night, as I did laundry in the sink of my hotel room in Kosovo, I thought about the day. I recollected Nolan’s words from the morning and it felt like an epoch ago. If we were riding unsupported, we could have lost a day or two to the flat tire (unless one of us had brought a tube and tire spoons in a checked bag). Instead, the whole ordeal was a non-ordeal. Our tour guides later found a mechanic to patch the tire, and none of us had a care in the world.
Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia is one of the world’s ancient lakes, home to roughly 200 endemic species. (Seth Richards/)
Edelweiss can’t predict the future, but with 44 years of experience, it has a good idea of how to prepare for the unexpected—and the locales in which encountering the unexpected could be more dire. Because of the lack of infrastructure in the Balkans, Edelweiss categorizes the tour as an “Adventure Tour.” Unlike other tours which go unsupported, the chase van followed the ride route each day in case of emergency. As my brother the doctor pointed out, most of the regions we traveled through probably didn’t have that many hospitals.
Edelweiss isn’t one of those fly-by-night touring companies you come across if you’re looking for a budget bike trip. The price of the Balkan Adventure tour starts at $6,900—and can go up from there depending on the rental motorcycle you select—and includes all hotel stays, dinners, and breakfasts. Lunches, beverages, additional insurance coverage, and fuel are up to the customer.
Last year, the Tyrol, Austria-based company ran 230 tours for 2,100 customers. It currently offers tours on every continent and in around 75 countries. No wonder my trip seemed so well conceived and thoughtfully executed.
As the trip progressed and the further south we rode, the more foreign, and less Western, the Balkans became. Minarets replaced cathedral steeples in the skyline, and the Cyrillic alphabet appeared on road signs.
The Church of St. John the Theologian overlooking Lake Ohrid. Each day we visited historic sights like this. (Seth Richards/)
Finding Focus
On the eighth day, after another phenomenal day of riding, we arrived in Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia. North Macedonia became an independent state just 33 years ago, and according to a recent story in The New York Times, has often flaunted historical accuracy in order to create a sense of national identity. A decade ago the prime minister—who’s since fled to Hungary to escape corruption charges—lavished the city with a garish makeover, embellishing nondescript buildings with Ionic columns and sculpted pediments, and erecting statues of historical figures it dubiously claims as its own. The huge statue of Alexander the Great, who historians agree had no real tie to the region’s history, is particularly controversial. The effect is that the city feels like a scaled-up version of Las Vegas’s Caesars Palace, but without the nudge and the wink.
Skopje, North Macedonia, and the controversial statue of Alexander the Great. (Seth Richards/)
I was completely taken by surprise and couldn’t make sense of the mash-up of cultures and faces. Even in more exotic places I’ve traveled, like India, I had a notion of what to expect. In Skopje, confused by the artifices of nation building, and without any preconceptions with which to counterbalance its impressions, I was thrillingly disoriented. It’s not a place most Americans would likely choose to go on vacation. It’s not Rome, or Paris, or Athens. You visit Skopje if you’re traveling; not if you’re vacationing.
Dancers in traditional garb performed in the city center. (Doris Lenahan/)
Finally, my relationship to the trip came into focus. The Balkans had imposed itself on me, overwhelming whatever I thought I wanted with a reality greater than my imaginings. Like Plitvice’s water running through porous limestone, I was hollowed out by all that I encountered: the resplendent beauty around every corner, the turmoil of the region’s deep history, the constant surprises of traveling on two wheels. Unshackled from my own preferences, I became simply open to experience whatever came my way, content with each day’s unforeseen dramas, willing to feel whatever I would feel.
I laughed in my helmet as we rode into the night in the pouring rain. I felt relief when we needed to wheel the spare bike out of the van (again) when a faulty starter relay put a dent in the morning schedule. I felt giddy when Rubin and I let loose up a twisty road through the mountains. I felt at peace the rest of the time, riding slower than I would have on my own. Maybe most of all, I felt grateful to be born an American in 1985, safe, secure, blissfully ignorant of suffering.
For the duration of the trip, and through most of the countries we visited, we witnessed the toll—the physical toll, anyway—of the region’s centuries-long history of conflict. In Kosovo, we visited the remains of a 14th century monastery that had been razed by Ottoman invaders who then used its toppled stones to build a mosque. In Croatia, we visited the site of the Jasenovac concentration camp where nearly 100,000 Serbs, Jews, and Romani were killed during World War II. We looked aghast at the skeletal remains of the Vukovar water tower, which was bombarded by the Serbian-backed Yugoslav People’s Army during the ‘90s Wars of Independence. Its ghostly shell still stands in the center of town. What is a community to do with all these mementos of war? Erase them to ease the immediate pain, or immortalize them so as to never forget it?
Passing through a village in Croatia. (Doris Lenahan/)
Riding a motorcycle for pleasure through this part of the world made me feel like a voyeur, an abashed onlooker at the scene of a traffic accident. I closed my visor to the oncoming wind but couldn’t shut out the ashes of destruction swirling through time. The history is so convoluted I could never dream of making heads or tails of it, other than crudely and superficially: I’m this and you’re that, so I belong and you don’t. It’s like the saying in old Western movies: “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us.” Days laters, as we rode out of Belgrade, Serbia, scrawled across a highway overpass were the inflammatory words: “Remember, Kosovo is Serbia.”
Unlike in the US, peoples and cultures in the Balkans did not politely slink by one another on their way through Ellis Island’s embracing gates, each hoping to find something better on the other side; here, for hundreds of years, they barged their way past one another with their elbows out. The Balkan peninsula is no melting pot, the work of a brief moment in history; it’s a bubbling cauldron whose contents have been stewing for centuries.
But it was spectacular. Never had I ridden a motorcycle through a landscape so lush; where Mediterranean light filters through Alpine valleys; where pristine waters lap against cliff and shore; where the pavement bends just for you in crescendos of tire-hugging curves.
The author, looking forward to the day’s ride, marks the route on the map. (Rubin Kostov/Edelweiss /)
On the final leg of the trip, heading north through Serbia and back into Croatia, I realized that this trip was the first time in years where my time and actions were entirely predetermined by someone else. The more I could identify as part of a group, rather than as a solitary rider, the more freedom I found. It’s just like group-riding through a city: When everyone moves as one—riding through a stop sign as a unit, rather than stopping individually and confusing drivers—the more smoothly it goes. What could be better than to be on a motorcycle, riding with my new friends, through a beautiful part of the world?
The Balkan Adventure tour wasn’t merely prepackaged “adventure” curated for easy consumption. Too fraught with its own unending history, the Balkans itself is no confectionary delight. But it is pure delight. I was hollowed out by the sheer mass of impressions it left on me, and then filled again by the same. If it weren’t for Edelweiss, I’d never have experienced any of it. The trip required me to sacrifice a measure of freedom of choice, but in return, it gifted me a different sort of freedom: the freedom of having to make no choices, the freedom to just go along for the ride.
