Tour de (Western) Balkans 2023

The first half of our trip through Bosnia (the last post) was definitely the more touristy Bosnia. Slowly we leave the more heavily beaten trail. Nothing very exciting happens in this section though it feels more like everyday Bosnia neither overly touristy nor gruellingly wartorn. It’s all polje/rain/headwind/churches. It does however start to give us a major sense of the tensions still present in the country, as we notice signs of sectarianism, like defaced road signs, both in the Republika Srpska bits and in the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina parts we cycle through.

Leaving Mostar: apricot jam donuts and burek breakfast from a pekara on the Croat side of town and that is us on our way after having visited the monument to the Spanish soldiers who died in the country. We climb up out of Mostar on a busy road that has the advantage of being steeply uphill so the cars and trucks are straining as much as we are. I was fully helmeted and suitably fluorescent and flashing my lights the Walterclan will be glad to know. The worst thing about it are the car fumes. Cracking views down on Mostar.

Once we’re over the top we’re back in polje land for most of the day going through occasional villages and although we’re on an unavoidable main road (the other roads dirt tracks) the traffic thins out. It gets gradually higher, and we are back into no-leaves-out-spring as well (for what feels like the 20th time on this trip) with folk only just getting their tatties in.

Lunch is a stand up picnic out of the torrential rain in an industrial pallet-shed with a skidoo parked up in it and a benevolent man as deliveries come and go around us. We leave puddles. It’s cold and very wet.

We eventually leave the main road to trend round a huge and beautiful polje, dotted with mosques and churches in a few villages. The tombstones in the Catholic cemeteries we pass get bigger and bigger with a definite trend towards the very shiny very large black headstones – some 4 or 5 m wide. Bling in death as Jon puts it. Many of them have photos of the dead etched into the marble or granite out whatever it is. Some of them aren’t even dead yet but have got their graves all ready.

This is another country with Big Views, and this a stunner. The light reminds me of the big landscapes in Orkney, with hills like Hoy in the background.

It’s been a long and very wet day and we’re both a bit frazzled by cycling for much of the day on a much bigger road than we would usually cycle on. Although it was completely fine, with respectful traffic (a special mention for Bosnian orange road maintenance truck drivers who are exemplary, and hoot loudly and joyfully as they pass), you remain on high alert and it isn’t carefree cycling. All this to justify chickening out of wet camping and rolling up to Motel Papic on a roundabout on the outskirts of Tomislavgrad and clocking in to this family emporium of driving (petrol station, motel, restaurant, bakery, truck depot all rolled into one). Est. Papic is a finely run business. It’s ace.

We eat omelette and chips and salad in a smokey local restaurant after a leg stretch through town. The joint is full of young’uns tucking in to big plates and a group of what looks like local politicians putting the world to rights over their fags n booze.

Last day of Ramadan and back at Motel Papic celebrations are a’swing downstairs in an unseen reception room. It all sounds really fun and doesn’t stop us from conking out as soon as heads hit pillows with all our laundry and wet things drying from Katy M’s ace washing line.

After Cheesy Omelette #2 at Papicmotel, and loading up the bikes in Papic Petrol station, we leave town after a cycle through – bustling agricultural/ tech training college feel to it which would account for the youth last night.

It’s bright and very sunny and the headwind is ferocious. We detour through a pretty village and get lost briefly next to an old water mill, see a cat skulking back with one of the numerous swallows in its jaws (already dead, very podgy and shiny), exchange friendly greetings with an old couple getting their vegetable garden shipshape, then back to headwind central.

Lunch is in the lee of trees by a massive war memorial with it’s flags and odd jaggeddy modern art and a col complete with road side cheesestalls. Quick col celebration then down to another polje, then we inch over to the other side that has a SKIRESORT (snow almost all gone). It also has a gigantic Catholic cathedral, brand new, in Kupres; the bells toll as we visit. They boom. The smell of cleaning product in the very shiny inside of the church is reaching chemical warfare levels. It’s a relief to get back out into the headwind.

Eventually it’s downhill again, this time crossing into the Danube watershed, we think. It isn’t a comfortable downhill all the way however, as there are long stretches of corrugated tarmac where they’ve prepped it for resurfacing. The grooves are vicious and it’s pretty much unrideable with our tyres. We spend a lot of time scooting down the side of the road. We then have to contend with burning fizzing new tarmac so that is us scooting down the other side of the road. We then spend some time picking molten tarmac gravel off Jon’s tyres where several kilometers of cycling hasn’t got rid of it. All in all it’s a faff, which is a shame as the valley is beautiful – following a semi flooding bubbling river down through woodland and pastureland.

We cross a very spindly dangly suspension footbridge onto a dirt track that turns into an old tramline along the same river, and this stretch is no hassle and all loveliness. The water is emerald. Everything feels geared towards pleasure as little datcha style wood cabins start dotting the shores. A man we imagine to be a retired professor tinkers on his patch next to his bike. We even get tunnel action before we glide into Jajce, that used to be the old capital.

Our tent is up in a trice along the river bank at the youth hostel campsite and we chat to German wedding guests staying there for their friends’ wedding the next day – a Bosnian German couple. We meet the very sweet groom who still can’t get over his luck of meeting his lovely Nina.

Jajce is lovely in a very mellow way. We spend a morning walking round the old town and fortress along with other mainly Bosnian tourists. We have several coffees and a mammoth piece of Bosnian swiss roll sitting in a shady square full of cafés and generally have a very mellow day meandering along the waterfall, through the park, through the streets. Even the feral dogs are lovely (two of them take a shine to us). Nice place. There seems to be a reasonably comfortable mix of Catholic and Muslim in this area (we are back in the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina). All very mellow.