From 22 July to 24 July 2019
Croatia /River Drau - Bosnia i Herzegovina / Gradiska - Jajce - Blagaj - Kravica - River Nevretna - Stolac
The name of the country is Bosnia i Herzegovina. In reallity, as we see and understand, it is separated into Srbreska-Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The wounds of the war in the 90s are still obvious, present in the people and buildings. Houses with bullet holes, abondend, devasteted between new and refurbished houses.
22 July 2019
Orux map screenshot:
BLUE line is the planned route
RED line is the actual route we drove
The bridge at the border leading into Bosnia I Herzegovina
is a "little" rusty.
The 1.mosque, from many to come on our trip
From Banja Luka we drive through the canyon of the river Vrbas towards Jajce. Wonderful nature and great for canyoning.
The street is a good start for us to train driving on steep serpentine streets and passing through dark narrow tunnels.
Bullet holes
In Jajce we try to find a nice place to camp over night and so we drive around the lake of Plivsko Jezero through a really really dark narrow tunnel.
Finally we find a place in a camping. Andre a young midaged Dutch traveller who has many interesting stories to tell, since he travelled more than 150 countries, either by car or autostop, joins us for dinner. Sometimes it's also good to stay in a camping, so you meet people with whom to share stories, destinations and experience.
Next day we visit Jajce, famous for the 28m high waterfall
It is great to get some cool water breeze at the bottom of the waterfall
It is a bit stressy to navigate Tara (our dog) through all the tourists, many from Saudi Arabia, who are afraid or not used to dogs.
Jajce is a nice town with an old history. Walking up to the ruins of the castle and to the ruins of St Mary 's church dated to the 12/13th century, is a little challenge under the hot sun.
Entrance to the castle
23 July 2019
Time to drive to the next interesting destination, Blagaj
Blagaj, famous for its Derwish Monastery founded in the 15th/16th century located beside the spring "Velo Bune" with ice cold water coming out of the mountain. The Derwish Monastery 's location is beautiful. I wonder how the Derwishes coming a long way from the far and middle east found this mystic place
Men and women have to cover their "important " parts before entering the monastery
Nice colourful Kelims
The spring
Sadly nowadays the mystery is gone due to tourism.
Underneath the monastery beside the river are many restaurants, shops and of course many tourists, manly from arab countries. Interesting to see that Saudi Arabian tourists visit a Derwish Monastery
We find a nice place in a small camping "River Camp Bara" next to the river Bune.
Tara finds a friend tof play wit ... as usual
Hosain barbecuing. .. as usual, but this time with a lot of smoke
24 July 2019
We have a very good dinner at a local restaurant about 90min away, but then we walk back and arrive in the dark at our camp. I don't feel well arriving in the dark in a completely unknown area in a foreign country. Although secured by Hosain and Tara I don't sleep well.
In the morning with the sun shining everything looks different., with a lonely melone passing by. Hosain and Tara jump in the river to grab this gift.
On our way to Montenegro we stop by Stolac to visit the gravestones dated from the middle age and walk up the hill to the ruins of the castle of Stolac
This friendly gentleman gives me a bracelet as a present to keep us safe in our journey, because he likes my outfit and enjoyed our nice chat.
Someone had the idea to build a castle in the 21st century
Good bye Bosnia i Herzegovina
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