Best road maps eastern europe

[Pug-Nose]

I am in need of a detailed road map (with trails?) for Croatia, Bosnia and perhaps also Montenegro.

The map(s) will be used to plan a route together with satellite images for a trip (7 days or so) in the mountain areas, predominantly in Bosnia.

Does anybody here have recommendations?

[dooby]

Are you searching for topo maps, like old military maps or write-able maps in larger scale, that you can buy from companies like:

Willkommen bei freytag & berndt

Let me know if you need more info,

Cheers
Dooby

[Warin]

You will need to say what form you want the maps in too... paper, pdf, vector, raster ....

Take a look at OSM in web form ... https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=7/43.297/20.402 ... you will need to zoom in to see trails.

[Pug-Nose]

Sorry for being so vague. I was thinking of the old school maps, something like the foldable Michelin maps. Topogrophy would be very nice to see as well.

My plan is to prepare a route before departure, by using digital maps (like google earth) to find tracks and mark these tracks/paths on my physical map. I guess no map out there lists the smaller tracks and paths, so a pencil will have to do

I will then use my old and trusted map pouch when I am on my bike.

[go_modem_go]

Do you have a preference for real off road, tolerance of macadam (gravel and older Yugo ashalt) sections, or do you want to keep it firmly on EU-spec fresh Autobahn tarmac / asphalt only?

The freytag & berndt map of BiH (1:500000) is sadly a bit large compared to their Macedonia 1:200000 or Montenegro 1:150000 versions (which have even the tiniest little donkey path on them), well, just because BiH is such a large country.

This 1:500k is still your best choice, the maps available locally aren't always as good.

Some areas of Bosnia are an adventure paradise to be explored off the beaten path into almost utterly inhabited areas, whilst still staying on tarmac by very large percentage. For me, these are the most rewarding rides!

For example following the mountainous border area to Croatia from the North of Livno Polje (100km long and very scenic valley on 700m elevation in Hercegovina, down & across the Neum corridor (via Hutovo and Hum), all the way to Trebinje and Montenegro, keeping on the small roads at the Southern side of the valley. Wild West feel to the area!

These roads are all barely mapped out in F&B map as "white" roads, but can still be travelled at a "leisurely" 80-110km/h (or max. 60-70km/h if you get to one of the rare compacted macadam sections).

All on small, but asphalted single lane roads (maybe just 15km macadam gravel out of 200km)! More dirt is always possible, of course... And you can always lign up in the heavy traffic of the former Yugoslav autoputs and magistral roads (no fun for me though, too much traffic like buses, trucks etc, for example main road south via Mostar)

But beware, for the BiH novice this "off the beaten path" suggestion can easily turn into an eerily gloomy ride with sometimes absolutely breathtaking nature scenery, but very rare signs of human inhabitation almost for an entire day. All across a major former war fighting zones, meaning that you'll see lots of bombed & burned down villages, ruins and even some leftover tanks shredded to pieces by the roadside... Meanwhile entirely cleared of mines though, except when signposted (very rare, I saw 3 or 4 danger signs in several years of riding there).

Also, there is a brand new, very large and E-spec top-notch race track standard mountain pass going up near the hamlet / village of Prolog BiH towards Sinj - Otok / Croatia (road opened recently).

With very fast +140km/h serpentine curves all the way up the mountain, at aprox. 1200m elevation (beware of the occasionally roaming cow or horse, though).

This "race track" is utterly without ANY traffic whatsoever, because the border is still officially closed, and blocked off - hence, whilst formally open for traffic, it's still a dead end. Some complicated diplomatic Balkan issue apparently means the Bosnians haven't yet built an EU-standard monster border post with all the electronic surveillance, truck scanning & biometric bells and whistles, like the Croatians have (it's still a leaky 3x3m corrugated iron shack for the Bosnian guards, and a bunch of small rocks used as road block on the BiH side)...

Well, dead end or not, the BiH border militia guards still let us through the roadblock coming in from Sinj - Otok Croatia into Bosnia. But only after 15 minutes of whining and apologizing, by us telling them some hearth-sobbing story about how great their country is - which is true! We zipped past when they looked away... So, with some flexibility it may possible to ride the entire pass in both countries (not legally possible though, as the guards have firmly told us - so this actually never happened!...)

I guess we must have been the first ever bikers on that race track road ever, going about a month ago. Worth a second try by you?!

Another tip:

A got a regional map of the Mostar area, that showed us the most amazing offroad serpentine path into the mountains, leading to a small lake (Jezero) near Dolovi - road N° 435a. It is even signposted! This starts out as single lane asphalt, turns into gravel, and partly very rocky macadam sections up on the mountain peak, descending through a logging area (had to make way to a logging truck once, in a tigh tsection).

Yet it was still ok with my KTM Duke 690 road bike with sports tyres.

On the other hand, my travel mate on a BMW GS 1150 "offroad bike" had to struggle very hard downhill on the pebble sections (heavy POS bike, in my opinion - exploring Bosnia & Montengro off the beaten path is best done on small lightweight bikes, and not heavy behemoth bearing the "Adventure", "Dakar" or other "Desert Tiger" marketing tags... ).

As to planning you roads down there:

We usually plan ahead via MotoPlaner Online beforehand (often at the hotel / guest house one night before the ride), and export the file to our old TomTom Go Navigation systems for the day.

Some of the paths found this way are a cross-country rider's dream (and won't always show up on the F&B 1:500k).

It's a very versatile tool, working with waypoints, but it can be time consuming (we only use it every 2nd or 3rd day). Hence, we usually allow random riding towards general directions, with spontaneous flexibility on most other days.

This website has Topography, you have the choice to diaplay several maps from OSM, OpenTopo as well as Google Satellite view (good to zoom in see if its tarmac, gravel or rock)

Of course, always backed up by the BiH F&B paper map.

Have you been to Bosnia and Montenegro before?

If not:

Sometimes its best to just forget about maps - just ride towards a general direction, and DO take a turn into smaller paths!

7 days is NOT nearly enough to even comprehend the possibilities (and sometimes political / historical complexities) there.

We usually take 4-5 weeks each year for each Balkans trip (but that does include either Kosovo or Southern Serbia, Albania, Macedonia and a short round into the Greek mountains as well).

You'll be back!

Make more time!

Btw, I consider Montenegro to be an absolute dream land for spirited mountain riding, mostly the northern part, but also the South by the Seaside and Lake Shkodra is top of the tops for scenery. It's the best ex-Yugo country by far for pure biking thrills!

However, imho, the seaside, Kotor bay and especially Budva are to be avoided in summer season though, tourists & buses clog up all the best passes, even small ones. I usually reserve the coast for spring and autumn rides (and I always avoid coastal or main road Croatia like the ebola plague during summer months, doing all riding south via BiH...)

Have fun!

[JustMe]

My favourite maps are all from https://www.reise-know-how.de/de/sho...-english-43322
Waterproof and indestructible

Gesendet von meinem Nexus 5 mit Tapatalk

[dooby]

Totally agree here with Keks, for waterproofness Reis know how is remarkable !!!

Cheers
Dooby

[Pug-Nose]

Thank you so much for your awesome replies. I really appreciate it and the tips will definitely come in handy in the preparations for the trip!

I've ordered two maps in the scale 1:200000, Croatia north and BiH from Freytag & Berndt (go_modem_go: there was a map in this scale from BiH). Hopefully it is detailed enough for our trip.

I am really looking forward to exploring this area of Europe, as I've never been there before.