Our autumn adventure is taking us through several Balkan countries this year. Our second stop along route was in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was a beautiful city We saw several pet shops as well as many people with their dogs on the street. We had a slight travel snafu, so unexpectedly made a visit to the Sofia airport where we spotted a statue of Orpheus and his dog. They also had several large signs up informing people of the problem the country has with stray dog and trying to get people to donate.
So our “travel snafu” took us on a side quest to Vienna for a day. We visited before, many years ago, and it was a nice to see it again and compare reality to our memories. Of course, the city is very dog friendly and we saw several dogs even in the tourist area.
We then headed back to the Balkans and resumed our original itinerary in Kosovo. Our morning in Pristina did not have many dogs for us, but once we got to Prizren, there were many. Too many. Stray dogs were everywhere. They have a program to alter and release, so you see many dogs with tagged ears. Our tour guide in the city did not like dogs at all. According to him, they are very aggressive. To me they seemed like aggressive panhandlers.
On the second day , we did a day trip to the city of Gjakova. More strays and also aggressively begging. The shaggy one in the pictures below tried to jump up onto our table to grab a snack. We ended up with two that followed us through our tour of the old town and across the city to our bus stop. We also spotted a pet store/grooming salon that must be run by ex-pats as it seemed geared toward English speakers.
Back in Prizren, Heather had fallen in love with a stray we nicknamed Smokey. It could have been 3 or 4 strays because so many looked alike. Alas, we had more adventures and no way to get him home, despite her internet research.
Next up, we visit the hub of political protest at the time of our trip, Tirana, Albania.
