Wednesday, September 01, 2010

BACK FROM THE BALKANS


Lets start with the end of the trip and work backwards as that way I've a chance of remembering the most recent events and give my brain a shot at pondering what else occured on this fantastic adventure into some of the less well known states in the Balkans. We finished up at the bus station for interurban and indeed international services at Prestina , this decker is from Serbia. Kosovo was very interesting with K-FOR and a multitude of organisations from NATA to EU and UN etc. Although armoured and soft patrols made regular circuits this didn't reflect the relaxed and safe atmosphere where only the driving gave rise for concern, even the pavements weren't safe from drivers mounting them and dumping the vehicles anywhere. The weather on the last day took a severe tumble and our first rain of the trip which of course made Martin's ticket collecting more challenging than the sun bleaching the print.
some shots of the urban bus fleet in Kosovo, multitude of companies involved on around a dozen or more routes using second hand buses from mainly Germany and France plus Swiss etc.Afterwards we leap back a day to my final shots in Skopje in Macedonia, a real time warp country, it's been independent 20 years but many of the buses date back to Jugoslave times, a bus and a couple of trucks to whet your appitite. An interesting day out by train of which I'll bring you more in the next blog. All orders sent out today and I hope to start the next volume of NSW bus archives by Alan Mortimer and there are a few DVD covers to catch up with.

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