Vranje, Serbia

We spent the night in Skopje and then headed out suuuuper early to hopefully beat the line at the Macedonian border with Serbia. We were successful and only had a few minute wait before we were in. Serbia!

Google maps had an alternate route to drive between Skopje and Sofia, Bulgaria that went through Serbia so we jumped at the chance. The only real city of any size on that route in Serbia was Vranje, so that was our destination. There were red hot chilis strung across many houses. I wonder the reason?

We drove through the city looking for the historic sights listed in the guidebook we had and wound up walking around this nice Orthodox church.

We found this pretty vine-covered walkway which I'm pretty sure lead up to someone's house, hopefully they didn't mind!

About 55,000 people call this area home and the city serves as the administrative center for this southern region of Serbia.

A mini Mostar bridge! The Beli Most, or White Bridge, spans the little Vranje river. It was built in the early nineteenth century under Ottoman rule and is featured on the city's coat of arms.

The river.

Checking out the back streets. 

Chris was really excited every time he saw a Yugo in the former Yugoslavia. I humored him and took a picture of this sweet orange one.

Are we glad we went to Vranje, Serbia? Yes. Will we ever go back? Probably not. It definitely wasn't the most tourist friendly of cities... But like I said, we're glad we went!

Then we continued on our drive back to Bulgaria and enjoyed the scenic Serbian countryside. 

For some reason in my mind's eye I pictured Serbia as a desert, but it was far from it! The beautiful fall-colored leaves reminded me a lot of Utah.

Back to Bulgaria, збогом, Serbia!

Our family in Vranje, Serbia on Sunday October 9th 2016.

And that concludes our trip to Bulgaria / Macedonia / Serbia! Two days later we packed up again and headed to France for a week - all those recaps coming next.