jaro gruber ;-)

Thursday, August 11, 2022

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

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.

Saturday, August 6, 2022

korcula island, dalmatia - croatia, HR

the green marco polo island korcula HR [curzola IT, melaina korkyra (= black corfu) GR] in the adriatic sea was the main purpose of our summer trip to south dalmatia in croatia. strange and sad at the same time, all our stop-overs were much nicer than korcula itself 😳. our pain points? the really bad and loveless hotel lumbarda, where the owners did not give a damn about the tourists. it was also too hot + too long (2 weeks) + too crowded 😈😥

our lovely stop-overs:

our sad korcula island experience:

there are nice green forests all over the island, mostly black pines 🌲

why to write a story, when we've my memos here? 😇

47km x 8km
no rivers, no local water supply, but a pipeline from the only 2 km far croatian mainland
peljesac peninsula? we've passed the peljesac bridge on the 1st day of its opening for the public, so we did not need 2 ferry transports to our holiday island
sveti ilija mountain, 961m, peljesac, crotia
jadrolinija ferry from orebic to korcula
do not visit the unkind hotel lumbarda in lumbarda. even if the stuff was friendly, the owners + the quality + the pricing + the mood were like once-and-never-again-experience
water taxi boat trip to the badija island + deer + franciscan monastery
vrnik + planjak islands
mr. cicada
the holy chair
fortress hum
museum vela luka, korcula ~ greek hellenic silver coins
smokvica village
adria - adriatic - adriatic sea
pupnat bay (pupnatska luka)
cevapcici / fish / pizza food
etc.

HISTORY:

prehistoric cave (vela spila) in vela luka. in the last ice age was the sea level 100m lower than today and korcula was a part of the european mainland 🌊
illyrians
melaina korkyra (= black corfu), settled by greek colonists from corfu in 6th century B.C.
roman province illyricum (200 B.C.)
slavic settlement in 6th century => croats & croatians 😂
city of korcula, HR (CRO)
in 998 under venetian control (IT)
marco polo (captured in the battle of curzola in 1298 as genoa defeated venice)
austro-hungarian empire
yugoslavia
croatia
unknown future

enjoy few pictures: