A few hours in the city of Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina

Sarajevo is known to the world for two things. One, the city hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, and two, it was badly destroyed during the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1996.

It is not really known as a tourist destination, although there are some things worth seeing.

We set off at just before 9:00am to walk down to the city to see what there was to see...

Drive to Sarajevo

This is today's second post. Earlier today I posted our October expense report. You can read it here if you haven't already.

On Sunday, we did the fairly long drive from Jajce to the big city of Sarajevo. Not really a long distance, but a fairly long time because we took the back roads and probably averaged about 60 km/h (36 mph) or less. 

October Expenses

A little higher than we expected.

We spent a total of $2,182 CAD ($1,762 USD, €1,525) for the month. The unexpected parts were mostly still related to getting our bikes from Canada to where Max was located. But, we also are going to have to up the budget a little for fuel, LPG (propane gas) and campgrounds, all of which were higher than originally planned. Here's how it all broke down...

Jajce, Bosnia... more castles and waterfalls

If you like castles and waterfalls as we do, Bosnia is definitely the place to be!

Saturday morning, we drove to the town of Jajce. It's situated in hilly terrain at the confluence of two rivers, with a waterfall and a castle overlooking it all. It's a really pretty area. As we arrived just outside of town, we stopped at Plivsko Lake where there are some walking paths and picnic sites.

Heading further south... and some good news!

We're in a bit of a race with the weather. We definitely don't want to be caught in any snow, so the idea is to keep heading further south! And we've got some mountainous areas to go through, so we want to beat the snow through those areas before we can get to the coast in Albania.

And, both Bosnia and Montenegro have snow tire laws that come into effect on November 15th, so we need to be in Albania by then.

An authentic Bosnia experience!

Once again it took a while for the morning fog to burn off. In fact, by the time it had cleared enough to make it worthwhile to go for a hike, it was almost lunchtime so we had something to eat before heading out.

Our destination was Ostrovica Castle, sitting high on a hill above the nearby town of Kulen Vakuf. In fact, we can see the castle from our campsite by the river.

The fabulous Štrbački Waterfalls, and a really nice campsite by the river

It was a bit cold and quite foggy when we got up Wednesday morning. We had two goals for the day... the first one was to see the nearby Štrbački Waterfalls, and the second was to get some laundry done!

We headed to the waterfalls right away. Good thing we did too, because there is an 8 km (5 mile) narrow winding road in, with very little opportunity for someone to pass heading the opposite way.

Welcome to Bosnia & Herzegovina... country #48

Travel days are always interesting, especially when it involves crossing a border. You just don't know what to expect!

After we finished exploring Tito's abandoned Villa Izvor (you should click the link if you missed that post) we headed to the Bosnia & Herzegovina border. There was a lot of truck traffic, and I was surprised because it didn't look like a very major border crossing based on what the road looked like on the maps.

The abandoned summer residence of Yugoslavia's dictator Tito

Most people go to Plitvice Lakes National Park to see the waterfalls. But there is another hidden unique attraction that not many people know about. 

In the hills high above the lakes, but now located within the National Park itself is the abandoned summer residence of the former Yugoslavia's dictator Josip Broz Tito. It was very elaborate in its day, and in fact was the most expensive residence ever built in Yugoslavia at the time. 

Now, it's a crumbling ruin.

Heading into Bosnia & Herzegovina

We would like to explore more of Croatia, but we have a choice of which route we are going to take, and we have decided to go through Bosnia & Herzegovina instead. It's all new to us anyhow, so we would be missing something no matter which way we go.

But we think Bosnia is a little more our style. It's certainly more "off the beaten path" than Croatia is. As an example, for every fifteen tourists who go to Croatia, only one goes to Bosnia. 

Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia - our frugality and research paid off!

Let's start by saying this... Plitvice Lakes National Park is stunning. There is no question that the unique geography and waterfalls deserve the UNESCO world heritage rating, and there is a reason it's so popular. It's a really pretty area.

But it's also ridiculously expensive. I don't blame them for charging what they do. If the masses are willing to pay it (and apparently they are) then the market dictates the price, as it should be.

Slunj, Croatia... the town with 23 different waterfalls!

We had arrived in Slunj late afternoon on Friday, so we didn't go out exploring at that time. And then Saturday morning it poured with rain all morning. They called for clearing skies around lunchtime, so as soon as the rain stopped around 11:30am, we headed out to see what there was to see.

And there was definitely stuff to see! It's hard to figure out why this area isn't more well known.

Castles and caves... that was a good day!

It rained on and off all day, but fortunately the "off" times were when we were out doing stuff. So it worked out okay. And even though there was a bit of rain, it wasn't cold and there was no wind to speak of. Highs of maybe 17C (63F) and overnight low around 11C (52F). We're fine with that.

We left our overnight spot at the restaurant parking lot, and it was only a short drive to our first stop... the abandoned castle at Bosiljevo.

Welcome to Croatia... country #47

We could easily have spent more time in Slovenia, but the incoming colder weather motivates us to continue heading further south. We knew this was going to happen, and it was part of the plan. But it's still frustrating not to be able to spend more time in these new-to-us countries.

And I don't think we're going to spend much time in Croatia either. The warmer weather is certainly along the coast, but wild camping (boondocking) is strictly against the law in Croatia, and the €400 fine is a bit of a turn off!

Interesting visit to a mercury mine

On Wednesday, we did the short 14 km (8 mile) drive from Ziri to the mining town of Idrija. It might have been a short drive, but it was long on excitement! Lots of curves and narrow sections, and a series of switchbacks going down the other side.

Idrija is a very different mining town. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to the fact that it produced almost half of the world supply of mercury... or quicksilver as it is sometimes called.