30 Quotes About the Balkan Countries to Spark Your Wanderlust — Part 1
Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Albania
Did you know that the word ‘Balkan’ means ‘mountains’ in Turkish? It originated from the Ottoman Turkish, Balkan ‘a chain of wooden mountains’, which refers to the regional Balkan, Rhodope, Diarnic Alps, and the Carpathian Mountains.
The Balkans are one of the most underestimated regions in Europe. A lot of travelers have been to countries in Western Europe, such as France, Spain, and Germany, but many are unaware of this amazing region that can be a rare unexplored adventure for veteran travelers.
These are all the countries that have full or partial territory in the Balkan peninsula: Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, and Italy (less than 0,5% located in the Balkans).
Filled with stunning scenery, rich culture, and picturesque landscapes that simply beg to be seen, here are some quotes from four of the underrated countries you should think of visiting.
Be careful exploring though, you may not want to leave!
Serbia
“Belgrade is not in Belgrade, because Belgrade, in fact, is not a city, it’s a metaphor, a way of life, a way of thinking.”
— Duško Radović
“I wrote about my journey through the country of Serbia exactly as I have always written my books, my literature.”
— Peter Handke
“I am finished with cities. I spent four years in New York, ten in Paris, and I was just in Belgrade for a while. To me now they are just airports.”
— Momo Kaper
“Being from Serbia makes us tough and eager to prove that we can come from this country that has been through so much and still be successful.”
— Ana Ivanovic
“So many people talk about the Golden Gate Bridge, but I would bet they haven’t seen the new Sava River Bridge. It has long metal ropes suspending it, like a gigantic angel’s harp waiting for god’s fingers to reach down and pluck the first chords, to send a vibration of relief and love into the heart of Belgrade.”
— Ana Ivanovic
“The Serbian people are very kind. Sometimes life is ruthless, and you have to show character. But come to Serbia and see how friendly everyone is; then you’ll change your mind.”
— Aleksandar Mitrovic
“I went to Belgrade not expecting anything — the decorations, the sights, not even the joy or anything interesting — and now I am a victim of its seductive charm, and I have to leave it with utmost pain. This is a new feeling: to fall in love with a city.“
— Poppet
“At that time I needed company from people who will not treat me superficially as it happens at home; I needed company from people who sit at the table and mingle, sing songs and always have an awful lot to say. That Belgrade period just cured my soul.”
— Rian Johnson
Bosnia and Herzegovina
“This is the most beautiful city; sophisticated, complex and multicultural.”
— Bono, lead singer of the band U2
“When you go to Sarajevo what you experience… is life.”
— Mike Leigh, English writer, and director
“There are many cities called Sarajevo in this world…, but this fortified Bosnian city of Sarajevo is the most advanced, most beautiful and most lively of them all.”
— Evlija Čelebi, 17th century Ottoman traveler
“What is the oriental charm that starts here in Sarajevo and that Westerners can’t resist? Here there are no plans that stem from rational thinking; it’s all a matter of improvisation and the result of ad hoc ideas and temporary whims.”
— Juraj Neidhard, one of the most important Sarajevan architects
“If you take a look at Sarajevo at any time of day, from any surrounding hill, you will always inadvertently come to the same conclusion. It is a city that is wearing out and dying, while at the same time being reborn and transformed. Today it is the city of our most beautiful longings and endeavors and bravest desires and hopes.”
— Ivo Andrić, writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
“I know that life after the war can sometimes be even more difficult than it was during the war. The enemy is more cunning, and a man wants to relax after he has exerted so much effort to survive. But you cannot. Because the name “Sarajevo” is a symbol of light and hope. The hope that courage and tolerance can prevail.”
— Kénizé Mourad, writer
“When you enter a coffee house and look for a place to sit, you need to be very careful not to trip over the long pipes which smokers, who are seated on low pillows, leave in the middle of the coffee house floor. If you step on one of these long pipes or even touch it, it can cost you dearly, for you are disturbing the Sarajevans’ ‘pleasure’. Notwithstanding all of the commotion outside in Čaršija, inside there is silence. All you can hear is the bubbling of the water pipes and the sound of coffee boiling on the embers.”
— Robert Stanhopes, a traveler who visited Sarajevo in 1634
“Objectively, Paris is the most beautiful city in the world, and nothing in Sarajevo can be compared to Paris, but my heart never trembles in Paris like it does here in Sarajevo, when I wait in line at the post office.”
— Goran Bregović, musician and composer
“The people of Sarajevo: intelligent and primitive, greedy and beautiful, tired and young, very young and insane, rich and miserable, vital and ill, tall and worn out, angry and passive, dubious and geniuses, the diaspora and street punks, fans of Željo and Sarajevo, children and grownups, faithful and unfaithful, powerful and pious — all in all, almost four-hundred thousand city atoms. And to be frank, there is no end to it. You either love Sarajevo or you don’t.”
— Aleksandar Hemon, writer
“To live in Sarajevo is to live on different planes. This collision of the past and present lends the city a hyperreal texture, as if you are walking through a postcard come to life. To visit Sarajevo is to witness both our modern civilization’s greatest sorrows and greatest triumphs.”
— Reif Larsen, writer
North Macedonia
“The country — and I am determined to call it Macedonia — has a perfect right to exist. The population is overwhelmingly Macedonian, with a distinctive language, culture and history… The people are civilized, friendly and highly educated.”
— David Cameron
“North Macedonia is the only country that got independence from Yugoslavia without shedding a single drop of blood.”
— Unknown
“Macedonia has succeeded over the last 16 years to build a state architecture of equal opportunities. Every single citizen can be engaged in politics, in culture, the economy, in education, in media, and there are schools for everyone in their mother tongue, news for everyone in their mother tongue, politics for everyone in their mother tongue — sometimes too much.”
— Antonio Milososki, as quoted in “Macedonia Fights for its Name” (25 March 2008), Newsweek
Albania
“Motherhood is like Albania- you can’t trust the descriptions in the books, you have to go there.”
— Marni Jackson
“My Albanian people are always in my heart. I pray very much to our Lord that His peace may come to our hearts, in our families and in all the world. I pray for Albania, that the Lord may help its leaders to see clearly because if they want to live in peace, they should love one another.”
— Mother Teresa
“The Albanian culture is elusive to me. I think this has to do with leaving the country at such an early age, as well as the country rediscovering her roots after many decades of repression. What I can say about the Albanian culture is what runs through my limbs and what carries my philosophy in life. There’s a condensed softness about the Albanian people, and I’ve witnessed examples of their hospitality that have been famously engraved in history for centuries. Maybe I’m soaking memories of my homeland in sentimental syrup that grows thicker and sweeter with time, but there is something truly noble about the Albanian people and their culture of purity and keeping promises.”
— Masiela Lusha
“Albania is located sixty miles across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. It borders Montenegro and Kosovo to the north, Macedonia to the east, and Greece to the south. If you know nothing about ‘the Land of the Eagles,’ relax. You’re not alone.”
— Michael Paterniti
“Albanians are a nation of freedom fighters who know something about living under oppression.”
— Fatos Nano
“They are strewn with the wreckage of dead Empires — past Powers — only the Albanian “goes on forever.”
— Edith Durham
“I tried to visit Albania but I couldn’t find it on the map.”
— Oscar Wilde
“It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning.”
— John Buchan
“Unless there is a strong sense of place there is no travel writing, but it need not come from topographical description; dialogue can also convey a sense of place. Even so, I insist, the traveler invents the place. Feeling compelled to comment on my travel books, people say to me, “I went there” — -China, India, the Pacific, Albania — “and it wasn’t like that.” I say, “Because I am not you.”
— Paul Theroux
Thank you for reading.
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