Day 18: Into Bosnia and Sarajevo

We drove slowly across central Serbia, the roads are full of traffic. Nick got a 10 euro speeding fine... which was a complete scam from a local cop who pretended he had a working radar gun. Still it was easier to pay than argue. The Serbian countryside is very pretty.



We climbed through spectacular mountains and gorges. As we neared the Bosnian border we were delighted to see Sarajevo appearing on signposts. However, this was false hope, since the actual turn-off to the border was not sign-posted at all, and we overshot it by a few miles.


The border crossing into Bosnia was as simple as could be, with no queues. It seems no tourists hardly at all come along these routes at present. This meant that we were greeted with warm welcomes by the border guards and customs people.

The Serbian and Bosnian border posts are separated by about 5Km of 'no-man's-land'. We were initially confused to see a sign welcoming us to the REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA. Naturally, we had expected to see a sign welcoming us to Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, it turns out that this nation i snot just divided into teh two identies of "Bosnia" and "Herzogovina", but it is also sub-divided into Serbian parts as well. We happened to be entering the country via a portion that is Bosnian Serb... known as Republic of Sprska. Yup, there are no vowels in that word.


After crossing the border we stopped to have a late lunch in a lovely small town called Visegrad. Even though this is part of the Serbian republic within Bosnia they refused point blank to exchange the few remaining dinars that we had from Serbia itself. In fact they looked quite repulsed when we asked. It seems the politics and tensions of this area are incredibly complex still.

Visegrad is a delightful little town, built on a river with a lovely old stone bridge. It was a very relaxed place. However, there is a very new mosque in the main street... so new, it is still shiny. We suspected that it replaced one destroyed in the conflict.




After a nice lunch we headed down the road to Sarajevo. The road took us through incredible rocky mountain gorges with dozens of tunnels through the solid rock. It was a very spectacular drive!! Most of the tunnels are unlit, and very dark. Some are a few kilometeres long. This was quite a challenge to drive through, since our right-hand drive Mazda had seriously disabled headlights (to prevent glare to other drivers when driving on the right). We also found it advantageous to close the sun-roof since water dripped from the rock also.


Our route from the border to Sarajevo meant that we crossed a national park, and then descended a steep gorge into the ancient city itself. Wow, Sarajevo is the most fascinating city!