Time in Bosnia then time around / in / to Split...

From Split, Croatia, after a few days in Bosnia...

In Banja Luka, Francois and I spent a great week end with Isodora, her sister and her grand parents, plus a great friend of Isodora.
On Saturday we visited the city center then kind of cooked for the family, a piperade made by Francois, some crepes made by myself.

Vedrana came to share the meal and brought some home made liquor, which made Isodora take some of their own liquor and share it too. After the meal we wet out, not to the "city pub" as on Friday evening, but to a more quiet cafe where we talked and made pyramids with bags of sugar!

On Sunday, after a morning to hang out and do nearly nothing or a lot of Internet, Isodora, Francois and I went for a walk in the old part of town, in a little canyon. We then stopped for a beer and came back, left Isodora who went to a Spanish meeting, and staid home to have diner and watch tv, a silly American movie but in original version, subtitled in serbo-croat, so understandable for everyone including the grand parents who do not speek English!


On Monday we left the family, had a 1st stop to buy some replacement inner tubes for Francois. He had repaired his tire and decided to use the old ones and keep the repaired one as spare, plus have some inner tubes for replacement, which was a good choice as we had no more problems.... until now!

In the afternoon we reached Mrkonic-Grad, after some quite long up hills, then realized that where we wanted to go, in Zenencovac, was still 15 km away... up hill again. But we manages without a problem. The place in Zenencovac, called an eco-zone, was actually more like a preserved area where where housed could not be built anyhow, or should be made of wood. Then the rest is not really ecological, but really nice for a few days...

We staid there 2 nights including one really cold one, as it was at more than 800meter high and the place is quite humid.
On Tuesday we walked around the place in the woods, then had the pleasure to see Renata and Marie our Tcheck friends from Valpovo, arrive. We had a diner together then some continued the evening around pool... i went to bed !

Wednesday we left the place in direction to Sarajevo.
Sarajevo we looked for a place to stay and found a youth hostel, booked it for 1 night, then for a second night.
Sarajevo was crazy with a football game Bosnia won, so the streets were full of cars riding around. Some with blond girls, some with covered hair girls... a mix of cultures around football, and after the Ramadan break for the night !
Thursday we visited the old town and the art museum of Bosnia, a free one and organized by colors...

Friday we went to the Tunnel museum, the one which was build under the UN controlled airport, to reach free Bosnia, and to arrange food and weapons to go through.
Then we went out of the Sarajevo Valle, with a quite high mountain to climb... around 900m high!
The other side was nearly only way down to the see, and we reached it in 2 more days.

We 1st stopped in a real nice wild camping spot a bit after Ostrozac, with a great view of the artificial lake down there.

Saturday we went to Mostar, had a missed contact with a girl from a local NGO, as the phone number we had did not seem to work. So we just visited the old town and found it beautiful but like a museum, and also we were stopped by people begging for money...

In the evening we found an abandoned AutoCamp, a camping place actually, and did put our tent there, close to a house with dogs in it, but they did not say a word about our presence...

On Sunday we continued the road south, crossed the border to enter Croatia in Metcovic, then started to cycle the coat, so magnificent...
We stopped in a small harbor in Gradac, and i could have a great bath in the sun...
Later in the afternoon we did find a supermarket in a village before Zivogosce, then found a good spot for camping.
But the night a big storm with lightnings and a lot of rain happened... and the tent did not resist so well and i got wet (Francois had a decathlon ultralight tent for 2)!

But on Monday morning the rain had stopped and we continued the road, stopped for a beach stop, and could dry all of our stuff!
We then continued and arrived in Split where Pascal, a French guy working there, hosted us. !st time in a home since Banja Luka, !st update of the blog then....

Next plan will be to go to Zagred, then Hunagry and Serbia, then Romania for the grape picking....