bosnia and hercegovina, BA

what a nice stop-over in bosnia and hercegovina at our drive home from croatia to germany 😄

waterfall strbacki buk at una river (una NP) close to orasac

we have entered this beautiful country from the south-west near the reservoir busko jezero (close to tomislavgrad) and were surprised by the many croatian flags & symbols. well, this is a part of herzegovina, where the croats are the major ethnic group.

then we've moved ca. 150 km in the north-west direction along the hills which mark the bosnian-croatian border. this was a territory inhabited by the orthodox catholic serbs and bosnian muslim, which is under the muslim control today. this was the most sad part of our journey, as also 20+ years after the war between the nations of yougoslavia there are still empty (serbian) villages, destroyed & not reconstructed houses & churches, grenade craters in the plains beside the roads. similar or even worse will probably look the muslim villages & mosques in the bosnian territory which is controlled by the serbs today, won't they? why? it is only my guess, but i remember that the serbs have controlled many years huge parts ot BiH and have had a lot of time to destroy croatian & muslim settlements. only in the end of the war, when croats + muslim bosnians (+ NATO?) united, there was a muslim-croatian victory over the serbs in BiH. => difficult peace out there

nevertheless, today control the serbs still 49% of the whole territory of BiH. there is a small independent or common part and the muslim & croats control the rest of BiH. well, it doesn't look like the country could enjoy any fast progress as every of the three major ethnic groups croats, serbs and muslim bosnians seem to block all other groups and thus also the development of the whole country, if you asked me, even if all 3 groups speak the same serbo-croatian language, it would probably be better to divide BiH into 3 parts and create a smaller independent muslim bosnian state and join the crotian and serbian parts to crotia and serbia respectively. hmmm, the future will show us the solution for BiH, won't it? 

what else? empty roads + not many people out there => huge areas for beautiful nature ... hills & huge plains in between (=> polje, polja?... this word means field in slovak, so i was a little bit irritated in the beginning .. all slavic languages are somehow similar, you know?)

anyway, good luck, dear bosna i herzegovina, BiH, BA 🍀😍🍀

on the road 🚙

the city of bihac:

bihac 1590

bihac today

bihac, this church became a mosque as the muslims became the major ethnic group in bihac few centuries ago + a muslim grave of some important citizen / family

1. bihac, the pedestrian zone 😀😊

any insights about our hotel park in bihac? well, it was not good. the room itself was fine and the city center easy to reach, but the breakfast was loveless and not tasty. my biggest pain point? in the nights it was much too loud (music from outside). but yes, the stay was also quite cheap, so it is probably still a fair price-performance ratio => if there, book / ask for a room from the una river park side 😇💤🍀

Čardaklije (cardaklije) ~ a serbian restaurant, hotel, museum, arts cafe, bakery, mill, pony farm, children playground, souvenir shop? yep, all of that. we liked it really a lot and thus have been there twice, became friends with a couple at the neighbor table, ordered & got drinks over the table edge 😄

waterfall strbacki buk at una river (una NP) close to orasac:

good-bye, una NP 😄

sokolac fort (sokolacka kula)

muslim cemetery with many young victims of the war 

view to bihac from sokolac fort (sokolacka kula)

peace! no more wars

hello mr. bear 🐼

more pictures here.