Jane & Rog’s Balkans Tour

[HugoBNB]

$15 for 5gb in Croatia on Airalo. Valid for 30 days.

 

[Jane And Rog]

Looks like the weather is set for a while:

 

[MartynShaw]

Oh, send us some of that rain! We are too dry in NW England and quite hot

 

[Jane And Rog]

Too much driving today, probably mostly due to the bad weather, which makes lingering around old towns and hiking less appealing.

We drove up the Vrbas canyon, an absolutely stunning place. If only the sun had shined for us. I’d definitely recommend rafting here, in April or May - you get to parts of the canyon the road doesn’t see.

Our destination was Jajce - a medieval town with fortress ruins above and massive waterfall below.

Suddenly the tour busses were back though, and the lower levels felt a bit commercialised. You could buy whatever you wanted, as long as you wanted a day-glo crochet dress for a three-year old, a biro with a pom-pom or a cooking hat. They have them here! You can rest easy, there is no national shortage after all.

Flynn was allowed into the catacombs (where high priests and nobility were buried). The darkness and old musty smells were much to his consternation - and Rog’s was sky high too as the stairs were steep and slippery and Flynn is a strong dog who got a D- in his “walk to heel” exam.

The most sobering sight in the town was the ranks of the names of those who died in the recent conflict - columns and columns of them, one set on a monument near the mosque and the other facing them on a church. Many of them were our age.

There’s one thing that can cheer Rog up, and that’s when he gets a good sausage inside him. This one was actually a few Ćevapi - beef and lamb mince sausages, served with a pikelet-like flatbread, sour cream and onions.

The poor weather put us off exploring further and staying overnight, and we decided to keep moving towards Sarajevo, eventually stopping in Visoko at a free motorhome parking area, at encroach.organisms.announce.

I suspect we will not be visiting the local pyramids. In April 2005 a chap with the fantastic name of Semir Osmanagić, a noticed that two local hills were pyramidical in shape, and he is now convinced that these are the largest human-made pyramids on earth. He is also making a lot of money from New Age Travellers.

Tomorrow we’ll head to Sarajevo, and then look at the weather and see if we can escape it. Two humans, a big dog and wet weather do not make for a fun experience in a small van.

 

[Jane And Rog]

Last night’s map. Sarajevo is bottom right.

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[Jane And Rog]

I’m going to do today in two halves as there’s quite a lot to it.

The day started with a dog walk up the valley. We passed a lawn thronging with clucking birds, and Flynn thought his chickens had come home to roost, quite literally. But, sadly for the three of you who had money on at “evens: Flynn kills a chicken,” this time he was on a lead and chicken murder was averted.

Continuing the gambling theme, we topped to shop at a massive Bingo hypermarket which was a massive improvement on the Croatian ones, and we came away with lots of booty, including Herzegovinian red wine which I imagine isn’t ever exported, and ajvar - a yummy condiment made from red peppers and aubergines.

If you’re approaching from the west, it makes masses more sense to visit the Tunnel of Hope museum on your way to the campsite, so we didn’t, and only changed our plans after circumnavigating Sarajevo. Ho hum.

The W3W for the Tunnel of Hope is rash.divide.soldiers which seems unlikely but appropriate. The house above is the entrance to the museum, and one end of the tunnel.

Begun in January of 1993, the tunnel was built to link the Bosnian neighborhoods of Butmir and Dobrinja under the airport runway. (The runway was UN controlled, but continually attacked by the besieging Serbian forces.) The tunnel was dug from each end by hand and shovel from both sides, by workers who chiseled away at the earth in eight-hour shifts.

The two tunnels finally met in July of 1993 creating an 800-meter lifeline between the Sarajevo and the wider Bosnian forces outside it. Crucial food, gas, and weapons were finally able to be secreted into the very heart of the siege.

I’d definitely recommend visiting. Note that you need cash both for the museum (10KM each adult) and parking (5KM).

We then drove up a terrifying mountain road to Kamp Zatiste (mission.urban.umpires). The city seems to be miles below us, bit apparently is only 20 minutes walk down - but 50 back up - we’ll get a taxi. Again it’s cash only. The owner is friendly and helpful, the facilities have yet to be investigated.

 

[Jane And Rog]

Today’s map.

 

[Jane And Rog]

Welcome to Sarajevo. In this episode I will be played by Woody Harleson and Jane by Marisa Tomei. And that’s where the jokes end for now.

We walked down the hill in a generous 20 minutes from Camp Zatiste and visited the square where in 1914 Arch Duke Ferdinand was assassinated leading to the outbreak of the First World War. We were happy then, and joked that the assassin, Gavrilo Princip, had size eight feet based on the fake footprints installed in the square.

Then we went to Gallery 11/07/95 (///inferior.helper.pining). On the 11th July 1995 the UN stepped aside in Srebrenica and let the army of the Republika Srpska execute 8000 Muslim Bosnians and displace more than 20,000 civilians. The gallery holds a permanent exhibition of photographs by Tarik Samarahwho, almost as a footnote, lived through the siege of Sarajevo. They’re stunning photographs and the accompanying audio guide is heartbreaking.

For me the worst part is that this all happened on our watch. I can remember watching the UN blue helmets on TV but I had no idea their leadership was so absent and unthinking. The gallery was obviously used to people leaving shell shocked. We silently handed our audioguides over and stepped back into the sun. In 32 years, Sarajevo has rebounded and was buzzing even on a Sunday evening.

We had a couple of drinks in some tourist traps in the old town - almost as an antidote to the gallery. Then we semi randomly selected Nanina Kuhinja (///reboot.hotel.sympathy) for dinner. I had chicken with peas and Jane pasta filled with meat. Mine was OK/interesting, Jane’s excellent.

Then home. The lovely lady who runs Camp Zatiste told us we should walk in and taxi back. The walking in was ok but steep. The taxi back was much more difficult because there weren’t any taxis. We eventually found a rank and even more eventually a taxi turned up. We showed him the address and agreed a price.

As we got near to the site he turned in the wrong direction. We shouted him to stop and then he explained:

“I can’t drive up that road with my taxi light on, it’s Republika Srpska”

 

[Poms_from_Adelaide]

Thanks! Yes, Sarajevo is on the plans. Do you have details of the dinner please?

So sorry I didn't get back to you on this and probably too late now (been a hectic weekend!) - I can't find the link now but I reckon if you google "dinner with locals Sarajevo" there will be a couple of companies offering it.

 

[Jane And Rog]

No worries - in the end I don’t think we’d have fitted it in.

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[Jane And Rog]

Tito’s nuclear bunker, facility D-0, is definitely worth two hours of your time. It’s just one of a network of bunkers built by the former Yugoslavia, but the main one in that, in the central part, 220m below ground level, it has a small apartment built for Tito himself. (And a room intended for Tito’s wife - they surmise this as it has the only mirror in the bunker. So that’s it solved after all the recent concern about the matter - what defines a woman is her need to gaze upon her own reflection. Sigh.)

You need to buy tickets in one of the agencies in Konjic (around trapdoors.remand.coagulated) and then you drive to the meeting point for the tour - there are tours at 10am, 12am and 2pm. It’s best to drive south of the river to the bridge at deceive.pink.plods before crossing the bridge and turning back to the left to the meeting point - where the gates are shut until it’s time for your tour.

You drive in to the complex, and park up, and walk to the ordinary looking garage which is the entrance to a tunnel leading into a vast underground complex - about 6,400 sq m of it.

The bunker was built between 1959 and 1979 and cost a stunning 4.6 billion US dollars, more than 10 billion in today’s money and 10 trillion shillings in yesterday’s.

It was constructed with advanced technologies for the time - air pumping, cooling and heating, for example, and a set of direct communications to the leaders in each of the other bunkers across the country. Our guide pointed out that at the time there were just 350 telephones in all of Yugoslavia, and very few television sets.

I did spot flat-screen Sony TVs in a couple of the top brass’s quarters - but it turns out this is an art installation rather than a top-secret 50s Yugo-Nippon collaboration.

Water for the bunker was supplied from the nearby Neretva river - still the purest and coldest river in Europe.

Tour done, we followed the blue Neretva in a mostly southerly direction through the most amazing craggy gorges. Bosnia really is a beautiful country, still mostly untouched.

We stopped to give Flynn a quick cool-down swim, and Rog got some drone footage.

The weather has changed, and by the time we arrived in Mostar our enemy was the sun, rather than the rain. We parked up in the expensive but probably worth it Autocamping Old Bridge (bulky.clever.flask) where we were jammed in like an orange sardine with 4 other vans in a small courtyard. The cost is 70KM but you do get a terrace with a view of the famous Stari Most. (And a loo, shower and electrons.)

It was 31 of your finest degrees Centigrade, so Flynn accompanied us on a quick explore of the old town. Note to self - flip-flops and polished marble cobbles are not the safest combo. The town was jam-packed with people - we’re hoping they’ll be exported by bus before the evening.

We couldn’t visit any of the museums because of the dog, although we did have a good look around, and had an excellent view of the bridge.

Flynn got a lovely paddle in the river. A friendly local asked us why we didn’t let the dog loose into the turbulent waters. Because he’s as mad as a box of frogs, and has no concept of personal safety, was the obvious answer.

Dinner was at “Urban Taste Of Orient” which was wrongly named in at least two nouns - “Rustic Taste Of Balkans With Slightly High Aspersions” is maybe less catchy but more accurate. Anyway, delicious, although as a common theme, far too much food and Flynn’s breakfast is more exciting than it ever is at home. We particularly loved this - described as cheese on butter, it was like a light fondue with small lumps of goat’s cheese in it.

Midway through the meal, a biblical thunderstorm happened, which was a bit worrying for poor Flynn back in the van. Luckily he is more offended by thunderstorms, with a need to see them off, than reduced to a quaking jelly. Anyway, with the rain coming down in cords, we weren’t going back to rescue him.

As the rain eased off, we had an excellent view of the bridge.

 

[Jane And Rog]

Today’s map. You may notice the hospital bottom right.

 

[dryad]

i hope you haven't needed the hospital, have you?

.

 

[Jane And Rog]

I’m in it now waiting for X-ray results. It’s not a Jane & Rog tour without something going wrong!

 

[dryad]

fingers crossed for you or is it rog, that whatever is wrong can be easily mended and doesn't mean an end to your holibobs..
were the flip flops and marble cobbles to blame?

.

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[Jane And Rog]

No - walking Flynn last thing at night. He saw a cat and shit across the street, and my left hand bashed into a lamppost. Just want it checked out as if it is broken want to make sure it heals properly.

 

[scousebird]

I hope it's not broken

 

[TOAD on Tour]

No - walking Flynn last thing at night. He saw a cat and shit across the street, and my left hand bashed into a lamppost. Just want it checked out as if it is broken want to make sure it heals properly.

Fingers crossed (if you can!) all will be ok.

 

[Jane And Rog]

All OK, not broken although still bloody painful. At least I can try to use it now without worrying about damaging it more.

 

[Jane And Rog]

A long drive for us today, all the way to Autocamp Blagaj in Blalagaj (///resolutions.advent.polished) over 12km from Mostar.

But first to Hospital. Every time we go away, Jane likes to try and break one of her digits. She tore a big toenail off in South Africa, broke a toe in Mexico, stuffed two fingers in a tram track in Northern Germany and on being told they weren’t broken, tried to slice a toe off on a broken bottle later on the same day.

Last night after we returned from the restaurant she enlisted Flynn and a local cat to help her punch a lamppost really quite hard indeed. She married me for my caring nature, bedside manner and medical knowledge and so trusted me when I said “it’ll be alright in the morning, do you want a paracetamol?”

It wasn’t alright and her fingertips were tingling which every Girl Guide/Scout knows means broken bone. So, as soon as we thought it was suitable we set off to Mostar’s clinic. The process was really efficient. Within half an hour her hand was x-rayed, declared not broken and we’d settled the 36KM (£18) bill. So one demerit for Lord Baden Powell - although to be fair, Jane and I never graduated from Brownies/Cubs.

Autocamp Blagaj achieves the seemingly impossible: 5/5 from every review (46 people) on Park4Night. It’s easy to see why: Jane was awarded a free bottle of wine on arrival, the pitch is large, there’s a river for Flynn to swim in and there’s black water emptying on every pitch. No more walk of doom in the morning.

We’re going to stay here a couple of days and probably wont make until updates before we move on. Sitting in the sun eating peaches and drinking gin doesn’t have much narrative drive.

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[3DOM]

Loving this trip with you

 

[Leith Laddie]

After assuring that they’d be happy to let us roam to Bosnia for free, EE sent us an SMS last night saying that they’d like to charge us six quid for four mega (not giga) bytes. That would work out at £390 to stream Oasis’s 1994 meisterwork Definitely Maybe. So Definitely Not, thanks EE.

That added to the list of missing basic necessities: local pounds, diesel, lunch and now data to find out how to get the others.

We headed for Banja Luka (Bosnia’s Manchester if you will) where we thought we’d get all three. On the way we got stuck behind several logging lorries on steep hills. It pushed the diesel consumption through the roof and we had to stop enroute. Diesel costs 2.40 Convertible Marks (so called because they were pegged to the Deutschmark, and are now pegged to the euro at the same rate as when Germany converted to the Euro). Bosnia doesn’t like to make things simple for itself - they also have two different sets of currency in circulation, one for each sub country. To be fair, I guess the UK does too. Whatever, that’s just over a quid a litre.

As we drove into the mountains, we crossed over into Serb territory.

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We arrived in BL and looked for parking. Sadly it was laid out before there were so many cars in Bosnia. My advice if you want to park a PVC or van in BL is don’t bother.


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We took a hopeful second turn at the city and spotted a bank with free parking on the outskirts.

Money in hand we decided to chance six quid with EE to find a BH Telecom office and complete our mission. Jane managed to load the Google homepage before the 4mb ran out . Luckily we spotted a supermarket with parking just up the road and secured two sims from a nice lady at the information booth.

View attachment 759533

Cashed, fueled and simmed we got to the important business of touristing. The whole of the Vrbas valley from BL to Jacje is lovely. It’s about to host the world white water rafting championships (no, I didn’t know it was competitive either). We started our tour of the valley by driving up to Etno Selo Ljubačke Doline (currency.rationalism.wooed) a small collection of traditional houses and museum of olde-worlde businesses. We had a great lunch there: local meat and salted buckwheat donuts. (J edit - but best of all was probably the sour clotted cream / cheese called kajmak. Don’t miss it if you get chance!)

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Then onto our night’s stop, Camping San (expanses.intermodal.daffodils), a tiny site basically in someone’s back garden. It’s expensive for what it is but it does front onto the river and we had it to ourselves.

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We planned to eat at the restaurant next door but by the time we’d arrived (just after 6pm) they’d closed the kitchen. We hurried back to the van to set up chairs and table just in time for thunder to ripple along the valley swiftly followed by large plops of rain.

View attachment 759547

Flynn and I met Georgi, the owner of Camping San, this morning and he told me the rain caused 80cm of flooding in Banja Luka :-(

- Rog

My wife used all her£40 Tesco mobile safety buffer in a half hour when we entered Bosnia. Expensive lesson!

 

[Mikey RV]

No - walking Flynn last thing at night. He saw a cat and shit across the street, and my left hand bashed into a lamppost. Just want it checked out as if it is broken want to make sure it heals properly.

Clever dog…shitting across the street.

 

[Grianan]

Hope Jane’s fingers recover soon. Loving reading your blog - thank you.

 

[Jane And Rog]

Clever dog…shitting across the street.

If only that wasn’t just a typo.

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[Jane And Rog]

My wife used all her£40 Tesco mobile safety buffer in a half hour when we entered Bosnia. Expensive lesson!

Glerp.

 

[DBK]

Too much driving today, probably mostly due to the bad weather, which makes lingering around old towns and hiking less appealing.

We drove up the Vrbas canyon, an absolutely stunning place. If only the sun had shined for us. I’d definitely recommend rafting here, in April or May - you get to parts of the canyon the road doesn’t see.

View attachment 760415

Our destination was Jajce - a medieval town with fortress ruins above and massive waterfall below.

View attachment 760416

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Suddenly the tour busses were back though, and the lower levels felt a bit commercialised. You could buy whatever you wanted, as long as you wanted a day-glo crochet dress for a three-year old, a biro with a pom-pom or a cooking hat. They have them here! You can rest easy, there is no national shortage after all.

View attachment 760418

Flynn was allowed into the catacombs (where high priests and nobility were buried). The darkness and old musty smells were much to his consternation - and Rog’s was sky high too as the stairs were steep and slippery and Flynn is a strong dog who got a D- in his “walk to heel” exam.

View attachment 760419

The most sobering sight in the town was the ranks of the names of those who died in the recent conflict - columns and columns of them, one set on a monument near the mosque and the other facing them on a church. Many of them were our age.

View attachment 760420

There’s one thing that can cheer Rog up, and that’s when he gets a good sausage inside him. This one was actually a few Ćevapi - beef and lamb mince sausages, served with a pikelet-like flatbread, sour cream and onions.

View attachment 760421

The poor weather put us off exploring further and staying overnight, and we decided to keep moving towards Sarajevo, eventually stopping in Visoko at a free motorhome parking area, at encroach.organisms.announce.

View attachment 760422

I suspect we will not be visiting the local pyramids. In April 2005 a chap with the fantastic name of Semir Osmanagić, a noticed that two local hills were pyramidical in shape, and he is now convinced that these are the largest human-made pyramids on earth. He is also making a lot of money from New Age Travellers.

Tomorrow we’ll head to Sarajevo, and then look at the weather and see if we can escape it. Two humans, a big dog and wet weather do not make for a fun experience in a small van.

Stunning area, thanks for posting.

 

[Jane And Rog]

We left Autocamp Blagaj very happy - a lovely site, right by the river with a little restaurant and bar, super friendly owner who gave away his friend’s wine as the drop of a (cooking) hat, free washing machine (all our underthings are now sparkly and white) and all for 10€ a night.

First stop, Trenbinje. It had been hyped by our guide books as the most attractive town in Bosnia. Well, it was fine, but a little oversold. It did have a lovely central square, more Venetian than Bosnian, with a few local market stalls selling cheese, ham, herbs and honey.

The old town was pretty too, and we shared an excellent Bosnian pizza at a restaurant where the main entertainment for everyone else was Flynn’s lack of hesitation in sharing his view of cats. (He’s not terribly in favour.) The pizza was good though - “dry neck” of pork, sour cream and egg were among the less Italian ingredients.

We were left with 40 Bosnia blip-blaps to spend before we left Bosnia. What to do? Find a nearby vineyard of course. Winery Bojanić (footsteps.dependably.slouching) was a little room with stainless steel vats and a small table where the owner, Stevo Bojanić let us taste a white, a pink and a red wine - and very generously allowed us to buy two bottles of rosé and one of white wine, when we only really had enough cash for 2.87 bottles. He told us that his family set up the winery under Austro-Hungarian rule, and it has continued to this day, through two world wars, communism and the conflicts of the 90s. It’s only 2 hectares, too.

The crossing to Montenegro was pretty easy and with a great view of the start of the Bay of Kotor.

We hot-footed it to what looked like the best campsite, Autocamp Naluka on the Bay of Kotor. But at €30 with faded facilities and a push button shower, it’s not a patch on last night.

We ate indifferent pasta and risotto just down the road, but with this stunning view.

Montenegro feels as though we’re back in Croatia - expensive and busy. I expect we’ll make good time to Albania now.

 

[Leith Laddie]

I’m surprised that Montenegro is busy given that it doesn’t appear on most people’s insurance. Enjoy the trip through to Albania.

 

[Jane And Rog]

I’m surprised that Montenegro is busy given that it doesn’t appear on most people’s insurance. Enjoy the trip through to Albania.

Doesn’t it? Ours has been fairly good, only refusing us Kosovo, which is probably fair enough. I think the meal was the biggest disappointment - we’ve gone from rover-fresh trout and chips at €20 for two to pasta and risotto (the latter actually tasted bad) at €45. And the campsite is three times the price and not nearly as good. Perhaps it’s the coast rather than the country though - I keep dreaming of a little, cheap campsite next to a fishing village, but I suspect our only chance of that is Albania (or Greece, if ae went that far.)

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