Zabljak

More snow last night and the real good type like in the movies where it just gently floated to the ground.  Very magical.  

Probably not a big deal to anyone who receives regular snow but this was only the 2^nd time I’ve seen it fall like that so it was quite special.

So after scoffing down breakfast the kids were out playing in it again whilst I stayed in the house and attended to some HMR work in an effort to keep the country moving back home.

After lunch we had a third crack at driving up the mountain but again there was too much snow on the road so instead we drove out to the Durmitor National Park and walked around Crno Jezero.  Literally 'Black Lake'.   (The lake is, depending on the season, one lake or two separate lakes.)

There's a small one hour hike around the lake so we did that.  It was sub-zero in the shade and with our unaclimatised Brisbane bodies and our basic cold weather gear we were freezing.

Trail around the lake.

Met an Aussie couple at the park gate and had a big chat to them. They're staying in Porto Montenegro skippering a boat for a Aussie bloke that he uses occasionally.  Seems like a pretty good gig actually as the owner only comes onto the boat occasionally.  They get free rent and board, cruise the Adriatic and, what is effectively, a paid holiday.

Winner!  (Note to self: get skippers licence when I get back home.)

Crno Jezero - Black Lake

Trail around the lake.

Crno Jezero - Circa 1912.

Zabljak

Snow!

Hooray!  Today snow fell for the first time on our trip.  

Yesterday it sort of snowed but it was the slushy type which I believe is called sleet.  

Four days ago we read on the weather websites it would snow but we weren’t getting our hopes up but today, joy of joys, it snowed.

Huge snow coverage of 1-2cm.

Admittedly it wasn’t much and probably what they’d call in countries with real snow a ‘light dusting’ but the kids didn’t care.  IT WAS SNOWING!!!

Quicker than you could say rug me up 'I’m a Tibetan mountaineer' the kids were out and about in it building a snowman, sliding on some plastic and making snowballs to throw at each other.  

I have to admit I got caught up in the excitement as well and landed a few direct hits on the kids.  Probably enjoyed hitting them a little too much but I justified it by thinking of just about every car trip we’ve taken since landing in Europe.

2nd attempt up the mountain.

After the kids thawed out we attempted a drive up the mountains again but came unstuck when we came across snow on the road.  Without chains or snow socks on the tires and zero experience of driving in the snow I pulled the pin and headed back down.

Cooked dinner at home and watched cable TV on the 50 inch plasma.  Life's tough at the top.

Stray observations:  The sound of a snowball hitting your offspring is a surprisingly satisfying SCHMAACK!!

Zabljak - Mojkovac - Zabljak

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Nicki!  What could be a better way to start the day than with a dozen roses, champagne and breakfast in bed?  

Too bad we're on holidays so Nicki had to settle for a box of Serbian chocolates and some dodgy €3.00 bottle of Montenegran red wine.    

As the weather was still bad today (but not as bad as yesterday) we bummed around the house for a while before deciding to go for a drive.  We wanted to see more of the Tara River and the canyon that we’d only seen 8km of two days ago when we were rafting so we packed our wet weather gear and away we went.

Tara Bridge

The drive from Zabljak to the river itself took about 1/2 an hour and then, after making a right hand turn, we drove alongside the Tara River to a town called Mojkovac about 70kms away. (Or halfway across Montenegro.)

Unlike the day we went rafting the river today was a muddy brown colour due to the heavy rain overnight.  Still the deep canyon walls shrouded in fog and mist were a sight to see and we were glad to get out of the house. 

We came across a tributary from a canyon perpendicular to the Tara and the weather had let up sufficiently for us to get out of the car and go for a walk up river.

This river was much smaller but pumping with crystal clear water due to the overnight rain.  We walked along that for a while trying to follow a track to what sounded like a waterfall off in the distance but with the banks broken the track upstream wasn't visible.  Nevermind it was still an impressive sight.   

Bushwalk.

Finally arrived at Mojkovac and had the cheapest lunch we have found thus far in Montenegro mainly because it was well and truly off the tourist maps. 

Massive palacinke (crepes) for desert loaded and folded over with Nutella and some cinnamon sugar thing that the kids couldn’t get enough off.  Total price per crepe €0.50 or €2.00 for the four of us.  (Nicki not being a big palacinke fan.) 

We drove back down the canyon after that marvelling at the canyon walls again and went out for dinner to celebrate Nicki’s birthday.

Dinner was great and came in at a massive €40.00 including drinks and local specialities. (I say local specialities but what I mean is what we were allowed to pick from the menu.)

Birthday dinner.

After spending 10 minutes deciphering the broken English on the menu and settling on a few meals the waiter came over and said not everything is available.  When we asked what wasn't available he pointed out about 90% of the menu.

So we asked him what was available and got that instead.

Stray observation:  Just because it's on the menu doesn't mean it's ON the menu.

Zabljak

Not much happening today as the weather was awful.  Pelting down rain and what felt like a cyclone buffeting the chalet.  (We can't complain though as this is only about the 4th day we've had ordinary weather on our trip.)

Get me out of here....

Stayed indoors most of the day before a tiny break in the weather (and cabin fever) lured us outdoors.  Grabbed the map and headed up into the Durmitor mountains to see what we could see. 

No sooner had we left than the rain and winds came back with a vengeance.  Throwing common sense out the window we drove up a narrow winding road high up into the mountains thinking that it possibly couldn't get any worse.  

We were wrong.  

As we ascended the winding road in the ever agile Grand Kangoo the wind and horizontal rain made for an interesting time as the distinct lack of guard rails or road shoulders guaranteed certain death a mere two or 300 metres below in the event of a miscalculation.

We finally reached the saddle in the mountains and were prepared to go on when the wind and rain got even worse and visibility plunged from a brilliant 100m or so to a myopic 20m.

We did get out of the car though at the turnaround point to see what the wind was like and without a word of a lie the kids could barely stand up in it.

Given the Kangoo is the size of a bus and likley to be blown clean off the face of the mountain we pulled the pin and headed back home.

Still, indoors with a beer and a roaring fire in the chalet is not a bad consolation prize.

Stray observation:  Montenegro uses the Euro.  Don't let not being part of the E.U. or meeting any of the economic requirements set down by the European central bank stop you.  (Not that that worried Greece.)  Just adopt it anyway.

Great stuff.

Zabljak

I have no idea what to say here.

It's well on the way to winter here but that didn't deter us from white-rafting down the River Tara about half an hours drive from Zabljak where we are staying. 

We were lucky with the tourist lady teeing it up because all through Europe the summer activities such as rafting have well and truly wound up and we've been left, more than a few times, saying to the kids 'it's a shame we weren't here earlier'.

Tara River

Team Tara

The rafting trip was to take us down the Tara river which runs through the deepest canyon in Europe and is said to be second deepest only to the Grand Canyon in the US.

We were picked up by a bloke in a dodgey blue minivan that was remiss of seat belts and working suspension.  (Personally I was hoping we weren't going to be driven straight over the border and sold to Albanian people smugglers.  Blondes fetch a good price apparently.)

Bridge over the Tara

Our fears were unfounded however and we arrived at the rafting centre and spent an hour sitting about waiting for something to happen while the fellas in charge dithered about here and there.  

We've worked out that things move fairly slowly in Montenegro so we just went with the flow and enjoyed a cup of local tea.

Lunch after

Finally we hit the river and it was very spectacular.  Not a high adrenalin rafting run by any stretch but enough white water to keep the kids amused and what we lacked in thrills we made up in fantastic scenery and crystal clear water.

View from the bridge

After we finished our 8km sojourn down the river we had a big lunch of fish straight from the river cooked by the Dad of the rafting guide.  We think.

A fun day out and although it cost us €195.00 sometimes you just have to lash out.  

Mostar, Bosnia - Zabljak, Montenegro

Mostar to Zabljak

Bosnian countryside.

We left Mostar and Bosnia this morning to head to our next destination of Zabljak which is a town bordering the Durmitor National Park in the North West of Montenegro.

220kms through the backroads of Bosnia and Montenegro and approximately 4 & 1/2 hours of driving which is always a fun way to start the day.



Only two things of any real note happened today that were interesting / funny.

About half an hour from the border a car coming in the opposite direction flashed his lights at us so I slowed down to about 60km/hr.  As we crested the hill and saw the policeman with his speed camera Nicki says to me 'you know I think the speed limit is 40 here.' 

What!?  Nothing like a stitch in time and all that.

Resigned to the fact we were nicked I watched as the policeman slowly walked onto the road with his little stop sign to flag us over.  As we got closer to him I slowed down and started to pull over.  The policeman took one look at the magnificent Grand Kangoo, the French number plates, the 3 kids in the middle, the crazed look on the driver's face and the crap packed to the rafters in the back of the car and waved us on through.

Sometimes it pays to be mental cases.   

The next funny thing to happen was when we got to the border post.  Aficionados of the blog would remember that we got pinged by a stationary speed camera as we entered Bosnia 10 days before.  All through Bosnia I was wondering whether that might appear on our 'record' as we left the country as they checked our car registration papers on the way in.

Bosnian border crossing.

Anyway we stopped at the border post and the guard comes over and grabs our passports and our car registration papers and heads inside his little hut.  A minute or 2 later here comes another bloke to tell us we have a 'problem'. 

Bloody hell we've been done for our speeding but no, apparently there's a 'problem' as we are crossing at a 'non-international local' border crossing?!  A what?  

In broken English the guard tells us there are 2 solutions to our 'problem'.  We can either back-track about 2 hours and cross at a bigger border crossing or pay 'cafe money' and they would be able to sort it out.

'Cafe money', what the bloody hell is that?  Anyway I quickly worked out that he only wanted a smallish payment and I offered him €5.00.  A bit too low on the tourist 'problem' payment scale so he came back with a counter-offer of €20.00.  I knocked that back and offered him €10.00 which seemed to be an acceptable amount.  

I knew I had a €50 and a €10 in my wallet so I didn't want to pull that out in case he saw it so I asked the kids if they had any half expecting one of them to yell out "yes dad, we've got heaps".  Fortunately Max answered that he had €10 and after that the passports were returned and we were through.

Montenegro.

To the Montenegran border post!

Out comes old mate and I was already thinking here we go again, both of these crossings will be in on the act but to our delight our mate the Montenegran stamped our passports, wished us 'sretan put' (happy travels) and away we went.

On the road to Zabljak.

Drove through some more of the endless beautiful mountain scenery.  Nearly all of the way there was thick forest and now that we are deep into autumn the trees are showing off the greens, oranges, and reds of their leaves.

Arrived at our little chalet in Zabljak which is probably our best accommodation to date for the princely sum of €50.00 / night.

Zabljak is primarily a winter ski resort but the mountains are supposed to be a site to see, on the UNESCO world heritage list and have hundreds of kilometres of walking tracks.
  

Zabljak accommodation.

The weather forecast is not promising but we have our fingers crossed. 

Stray observations:  Don't be scared to haggle with a border guard.

Not an observation but exactly what is a "non-international local' border crossing?

Mostar - Medjugorje - Kravice - Pocitelj - Blagaj - Mostar

After speaking to our professor friend the day before he suggested a loop of the local area that would take in a few towns and show us some of the highlights of the region so off we went.

Medjugorje - that's a statue not an apparition.

In 1981 some children in the town of Medjugorje, probably because they were late home for dinner, reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary up a hill on the outskirts of town.  

In a severe case of a story spiralling waaaaay out of control Medjugorje has become one of the largest Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world.

Of course it's not my go but seeing as it was only 25kms from Mostar, and to me at least, just like visiting a big church we decided to have a look.  
Of course I'm a paid up member of the Australian Skeptics so rather than letting me sway your opinion here's what the Catholic church itself has to say about the matter.  

The phenomenon is not officially approved by the Catholic Church.  Bishop Ratko Perić of the diocese of Mostar-Duvno, responsible for Medjugorje, has stated, "The numerous absurd messages, lies, falsehoods and disobedience associated from the beginning with the events and "apparitions" of Medjugorje, all refute every claim of authenticity."

Fr. Tomislav Vlasic, one of the main publicizers of the apparitions, was defrocked by Pope Benedict XVI in July 2009. He had been accused of sexual misconduct, "dubious doctrine, the manipulation of consciences, suspect mysticism and disobedience towards legitimately issued orders".  (source: wikipedia.)

The first thing that is apparent when you drive into Medjugorje is that "visions" of the Virgin Mary do wonders for the local economy.  

Where there are only tiny villages dotting the countryside with not much happening Medjugorje is bursting at the seams which busloads of tourists (Italians mainly), hundreds of souvenir shops, hotels, supermarkets and restaurants. 

Kravice Waterfall

To help keep our strength up in case of a "vision" we stopped at a local cafe and ordered some crepes.   After a 45 minute wait we were wondering if the bloke cooking them was waiting for the Virgin Mary herself to bless them before they were allowed to come out.

Kravice.

Parked the car near Apparition Hill and decided to walk up and see what all the fuss is about.  

Walked past about 100 souvenir shops spruiking every imaginable object with the Virgin Mary on it and started up the hill.

Basically it's a hill with a track on it.  (With people singing hymns, saying prayers and some walking barefoot.  What's that all about?)

Kravice - Harry & Ryan.

Not being so privileged to be granted an appearance by VM we went back down and drove to Kravice waterall which was about 10kms away.  

A beautiful waterfall that we'd never heard of until we got to Mostar and well worth the time to visit.  There was a small canoe there so we hired that and paddled out to the waterfall which the kids loved. 

Protlelj.

Jumped in the car and drove to a small old town called Pocitelj that was a small Turkish town from the 14th century which is now a UNESCO site.  

Tried in vain to find a restaurant serving food but unfortunately just because a building has 'restoran' on it with pictures of food at the front doesn't means it will have any food.  

As our 'need food RIGHT NOW' child Ryan said 'what sort of person would put food on a picture at the front of a restaurant when they don't even serve it?'  Fair question.

Dracevice - 5 vs 5.

Drove on after that to a town called Blagaj where we intended to have dinner but as we came through a small village called Dracevice on the way we saw a soccer field with about 4 young lads sitting about.  

Pulled the car over and Harry jumped out with the ball to see if they wanted to play.  The next thing you know about 12 kids came out of the woodwork and we played a little winner-stays-on 5 vs 5 competition.

Dinner after that at Blagaj by the river which was very good.

Stray observations:  Soccer, it really is the world game.

Mostar

Overlooking Mostar

Scoped out a few mountain bike tracks the night before and we thought we'd drive up this mountain overlooking the town and while I went for a ride the kids and Nicki would go for a walk.  

Drove up through a maze of streets before eventually finding the right road up.  Amazing views of Mostar and the surrounding hills as we ascended the mountain.  

Stopped along the way at some old Austro-Hungarian fort for a walk around and then went further on and parked the car where the road ended and the track began.

Said goodbye to the kids and headed up the rocky trail hopefully to see them again in an hour or so.  Rode up some mad rocky 4WD track and topped out on a plateau overlooking the lower hills which was good as I was feeling the pain in my unfit legs.

On the way down I said hello to a local bloke who turned out to be a professor at the University in town.  Chatted to him for a while and he invited us in and showed us around his weekender which he was very proud of.  

Me and Dr Fuad.

As we left he went upstairs and came down with a book on the destruction of Mostar that he had co-authored and gave it to us.  

In it was a picture of his apartment block which had been shot up.  (And by shot up we're talking 50-75mm crater holes in the wall not little dings from a .22 bullet.)  He seemed fairly melancholic about the whole thing which is probably fair enough.

Half way up the mountain.
Kangoo in the distance - Photo from fort.

Rode down the mountain while Nicki followed me until the road got a bit how-you-going and I mounted the bike on the car and took over the driving.




Had dinner at a Bosnian restaurant which was very nice.  Drinks and dinner for about €40.00.

Sarajevo - Mostar

A pretty unenventful day today as we left Sarajevo and made our way down to Mostar for a 3 night stay.  

Still spun out a bit by the time quoted by the GPS vs the distance in kilometres.  In Australia if its 250km, its 2 and a half hours.  Here if its 250km, its anywhere between 3 and 4 and a half hours depending on how many villages you go through and how many mountains you have to cross.

Anyway 129km today took over 2 and a half hours driving time.  Put in a stop to clear your head of the inanities, screaming and the "stop touching me" cacophony going on behind the driver and you've got yourself a 3 hour road trip.  (The first bloke to invent a "cone of silence" for the car will be a billionaire.)

Old and the new.

Drove along some more stunning roadside scenery and arrived in Mostar and met our host Emina, a Bosnian lass, for the apartment.

Unpacked a bit of gear and walked into the old town passing heaps of shot up buildings still showing signs of the war and through a pretty average neighbourhood unfortunately.  

Graffiti and litter are the 2 most visual problems we see since we've come into the Balkans though compared to some of the other dramas they've had (and are still having) maybe reigning that in isn't a high priority. 

Artillery hit.

The old town itself was very nice and the bridge spans both the river Neretva.  Following the blowup from 1992-1995 the town is split into a Croatian side and a Bosnian side.  Mental really as the town was mixed prior to the conflict.  Football matches here between former combatants attract a measly 500 riot police to make sure everyone toes the line.  (And Queenslanders reckon they have a mortgage on passion.)

You can read more about the situation here and here.  Both fascinating articles.  (Harry was advised by our host that it may be wise to leave his Bosnian national team soccer shirt in his bag whilst we were there.)

Stari Most = Old bridge

The bridge itself, blown up in 1993, is quite a special site.  Some 24m above the river it is very impressive with just the single arch spanning the 2 sides.  As it's the end of the tourist season and late in the day there were no local lads jumping from the bridge so Nicki and I had to contend with a beer and wine on a terrace overlooking it.

I spoke to the waiter and asked about jumping off the bridge and he said you pay the diving club €25 for the privilege which helps with the upkeep of the bridge.  Here they give you instructions on how not to kill yourself (always important), a wetsuit and before you go they splash you down with buckets of water to acclimatise you as the shock of hitting the cold water has induced heart attacks in the past.

Stari Most = Old bridge

Seeing it was late October and late in the day (and I'm not 25 any more) I gave that a miss.

A bit of takeaway again for dinner and we made our way home.

Sarajevo

Copper Street

Arose from our slumber this morning and walked down into the old city from our apartment.  Stopped when we got to the city and Nicki and I had coffee and cake and the lads had gelatis.   


(10am may be early for ice cream but we've worked out if we give it to them early they won't pester all day after that so it's win-win.)

Lunch

After that we walked around the old Turkish quarter which was really funky and a lot of fun.  Apparently the Turks set up each street to manufacturer or sell a certain type of craft.  So there was a copper street, leather street, gold street, spice street etc etc.  Whilst there were originally dozens of these streets there are now only a few remaining dedicated to it's own speciality. 

Spot of the assassination starting WW I

Had lunch in the Turkish quarter and then found the Latin Bridge and the spot where World War I started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian empire.  

At 4:30pm we went on a walking tour of Sarajevo with a local lass which was terrific.  She didn't speak much about the siege except to say that they didn't want anyone's sympathy and that she wanted to talk about how wonderful Sarajevo was.  Good for her.

The tour took us about the old parts of the city and explained the Turkish history of the place and how the buildings, infrastructure and commerce was funded by the Turks.  It was very interesting stuff and well worthwhile doing.

Walking tour.

We also saw some big churches that were of the Orthodox and Christian flavours and walked to a spot which marked where a person(s) had died during the siege.  These spots dot the city and are called Sarajevo Roses and are where a mortar crater has been filled in with a red resin to mark the spot where some poor bugger died during the siege. 

our guide.

We also saw a building that has been left as it was after the siege ended as a reminder of what it was like.

Grabbed some takeaway after that and walked back to the apartment.

National library - 1st target in the siege.

Stray observations:  Bosnian coffee is as good as Croatian and Republic of Srpska coffee.

Muslims are people too.

Bullet ridden buildings might look 'cool' in the movies but in real life they are just depressing.

Orthodox church.

Banja Luka - Sarajevo

We said goodbye to our Banja Luka friends this morning and made our way to Sarajevo for a quick 2 night pitstop on our way through to Mostar.

Vrbas river alongside road.

Absolutely stunning countryside on our drive down to our first stop at a town called Jajce. 

Castle in background.

Banja Luka was relatively unaffected by the Bosnian conflict but as we drove further South and closer to Sarajevo we saw more and more evidence of the war that wracked the region from 1992-1995.  

Abandoned houses with roofs missing, bullet scarred walls and the occasional wall with a massive hole through it.  

There was a lot of new work going on to the houses but those (presumably) without the money or because they were forced out were still showing signs of the conflict.

Fort at Jajce.

We stopped at Jajce (in Bosnia Herzegovina, no longer the Republic of Srpska) which has a huge 14th Century fort perched on a hilltop in the middle of town and right next to the hill is a waterfall which is the confluence of the Vrbas and the Pliva.  One of the few cities in the world to have a waterfall smack in the middle of town.  

We walked around the old town and grabbed some lunch right next to a 1992-1995 war memorial for Croatians with names of many 20-something men engraved on the side.  (I don't know either.  Serbs in Bosnia, Croatians in Bosnia, Bosnians in Croatia, Serbs in Croatia.  You'd need the wisdom of Solomon, a massive bottle of Rakija and about 1000 years to sort this place out.)

View at top of fort - Jajce.

We left Jajce for Sarajevo with 3 hours up our sleeve (for a 2 hour drive) to get to tonight's soccer match in Sarajevo.  Initially when we looked it up on the web we thought that might be a bit of fun seeing Banja Luka play Sarajevo in Sarajevo as we'd just stayed in Banja Luka.  

That is until we realised that Banja Luka, the capital of the Srpska Rebublic and a region full of Serbs, were playing Sarajevo, a city full of Bosnians and the very people they were at war with some 18 years earlier.

Scenery of the way - brillant.

I tried to reassure the kids that we'd be right but as we drove along and closer to Sarajevo we saw some police and then some more police and then a whole bunch of police in riot gear with a coach load of young blokes parked by the side of the road while the bus was being searched.

I leant over to Nicki and said I think they're the Banja Luka supporters.  (They were.)  After passing that I told the kids that maybe we wouldn't be going to the soccer tonight because I wasn't a 100% that we'd be able to get tickets, didn't know where the stadium was etc etc. (And I didn't want to get stabbed and set on fire.)

Chocka block stadium - great fun though.

Anyway we found our accommodation with about 15 minutes to spare after a detour due to roadworks, a traffic jam due to the match and asked our host if it was possible to go the soccer and how far away the stadium was.   He seemed amazed that we wanted to go at all but assured us that we'd be safe and even gave us a lift to the stadium which saved us a 2km walk.

Bought our tickets from the worlds dingiest ticket box and went through the gate only to be met by about 4 security officers who frisked all of us including Ryan.  

After the free grope on the unmentionables, I felt like I should have brought flowers or something, we were in.

Luckily this time the Sarajevo team read the script and scored 2 and left the Banja Lukans with a big fat donut.  Lucky for us because we got to go home in one piece.

Had to laugh at some of the chanting and abuse of the Sarajevans as I know a little bit of the lingo swearing wise and lets put it this way if you took out the big 2 and references to opposition's mothers they weren't saying a hell of a lot.

Stray observations:  Football matches between former wartime enemies aren't the most jovial of affairs.