Filed under: eastern europe
Travelling through ex-Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia etc.) we’ve noticed that any English words used on signs are written as if heard by a yugoslavian, the only ones i can remember are a bit lame, ‘tourizm’ and ‘captan’. The best though we’ve just found… have just now been out into Novi Sad center for some food and felt like a quick perusal of the paper while waiting for our traditional serbian fare (fried meat + fried bread) and came across the football results. Normally these are obviously very dull, but the local versions of the team names are good… (J is pronounced y, Č is pronounced ch)
Vigan
Vest Hem
Man. Jun.
Čelsi
Midlsbro
… and our favourite, Njuskastl
All of these will sound the same as pronounced in Britain when said but here they are spelt like they would be pronounced by someone who speaks Croatian/Serbia/etc
I’ll leave you to decipher the other good one we found… Ejmi Vajnhaus (clue: female singer-songwriter)
Don’t worry mums, we only followed used tracks and took local advice! It is a big problem for Bosnia though, some frontline areas are still completely out of bounds – luckily it turns out none of the roads we used were mined…
After Mostar we followed the busy route to Sarajevo, stopping for the night above the Jablanica lake which serves as a reservoir for most of Bosnia and a decent bath for smelly travellers! A friendly bar owner decided to waver the 3euro “charge” and let us use his floating fishing platform for free.
I think we only brushed the surface of Sarajevo as we were beginning to tire of city sights. The war torn buildings are left scattered everywhere as pretty blatant reminders – for better or worse – as well as the extensive cemeteries for either side. 200+ graves on any one site, all with identical date of death.
From Sarajevo we headed into the hills in search of our utopian pineforestclearingwithfireandquietness… and that’s exactly what we found! We received some funny looks from workers in the forestry yards as we plunged down the familiar shrinking road/track/path/vague direction, but our perseverence was rewarded with a perfect quiet spot to relax in. Which is just what we did for two nights; I don’t think I walked further than the end of the van! To entertain ourselves in this period of relaxation we embarked upon a whittling project, carving ourselves some pieces for the beautiful chess board we’ve painted onto a marble tile we found – see the photos!
Fully revitalised we saw off Jose; our friendly Australian, vegetarian hitchhiker; with a totally traditional Bosnian lunch – meat. Then dropped him on the road to Australia.
Expensively negotiated the Serbian border and are now being excellently entertained by a friend+family of Will’s Dad in Novi Sad; pivo has appeared in front of me as I write so I will leave it at that!
As mentioned in our last post we were preparing ourselves for our second night with just the two of us, however we picked up a friendly didgeridoo playing australian in split for our journey into bosnia so disaster has been averted! We are now in Mostar, which is famous for it’s bridge connecting the muslim and christian communities in the city for the past 500 years. It was destroyed in the war 15 years ago and has recently been rebuilt.
Bosnia looks to be interesting, much more of a muslim influence than anywhere else we’ve been yet. Mostar itself was seriously damaged in the war and there are still bullet holes and mortar shell damage everywhere. The main street was the front line for a while and the ruined buildings are still there.
Entering Bosnia was interesting as they required a document we didn’t have. Fortunately a bribe of a cheap bottle of macedonian red wine did the trick and we were allowed in! Pleading ignorance to the police officer who caught will speeding (ridiculous speed limits over here) also worked a treat!
We’ve become incredibly lazy; moving slowly down the coast road in Croatia jumping into the sea whenever its hot! We lost Tom in Rijeka but promptly gained Imi, and have now said a sad Dobidenja to Yasmin in Zadar as well. Imi is leaving tomorrow so in case you didn’t follow that, which is quite likely, there will be just the two of us for pretty much the first time on the trip! The coastal towns have been Venetian dominated for a lot of history and are really beautiful, although we are almost becoming immune to beautiful sights and I think need to stop for a bit to consolidate…
The Adriatic is officially the cleanest sea and i think we’ll probably agree with that. It’s a shame the land doesn’t always emulate it! The car parks and camping all seem to be a bit grimy after the clinical Slovenia, haven’t seen any landmines yet but i’d swear i saw a missile in amongst the white goods on one of the rubbish dumps we’ve made a habit of finding. One of said dumps led us to a lucky find: down a very rough deadendish looking no hope track we discovered the only sandy bay on the small island of Vir, North of Zadar. Totally deserted with the signs of only a few visitors we were just congratulating ourselves when a second van came down the track to meet us – a really nice german couple, and their friend, and child, and 5 dogs leapt out! They had actually been sleeping on the beach for some nights previously but let us share it and we made a fire and ate bananas loaded with chocolate, international pleasures!
Just coming to the end of a nice couple of days on the island of Korcula near Split, we left the van on the mainland. Its been a constant force 4 and boats have been coming and going all the time we’ve been here. I very nearly threw ben the keys and jumped on one, tearing my hair out with no means of getting on the water!! We’re staying in an unfinished “Apartman” owned by a crazy croatian lady, and her family. She speaks several languages but unfortunately all at the same time, this leads to difficulties. As does her husbands homemade “wine”!!!
Filed under: croatia, eastern europe, italy, photos, slovenia, western europe
Took me a little longer this time as we’ve been chilling out on beaches away from big towns more than before so internet cafes are not so plentiful, but here is the link to the next Facebook album of photos from our trip…
http://bristol.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2124536&l=10874&id=193107027
