Day 114
After crossing the border into Bosnia there’s the long-awaited descent down a twisty hairpin road and the views are amazing.
Day 115
I head down to Trebinje, a very pretty town, and it’s busy. Hard to find a free café table for a coffee, everyone is out and about.
Then I try to pick up the route for the Ćiro Trail, the GPS is showing I’ve crossed it several times but I can’t see it. Then it dawns on me: it’s in a tunnel directly underneath me! I find it, but shortly after the actual rail line has not been converted yet, a lot of the bridges are in pieces and the route is along the road.
I want to stay half-way along the trail, that’s quite a short day so I detour out to the Croatian border for a view of the Adriatic before picking up the trail again.
There are reminders that there are still land mines around here and to take care
The trail itself is wonderful to ride, I don’t see another car for the rest of the day
Plenty of abandoned villages and stations, some painted with “OK” or “MINE”
My accommodation is in a restored station and it’s fantastic. There are a couple of cyclists on a booked tour with bag drops, and the owner plies us with 14-herb Raki and tales of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It’s so nice here I want to stay an extra night and spend the day visiting the caves and monasteries but sadly they are fully booked.
Day 116
The next section of the Ćiro Trail is variable, last night’s host has explained the political reasons for this, so I am variously on and off the trail and sometimes on very dodgy paths. I skip most of the tunnels (I’ve been here before) and eventually descend down to the Lakes of Hutovo Blato.
Then back on the railway route through the backs of villages and across some old bridges.
From there it’s a long slog back up into the mountains, my route takes me on the tiny back roads up and down through the villages and ends up in Grude with the prospect of a big climb tomorrow
Day 117
The climb out of Grude is quite taxing, I’m glad I saved it until the morning. I add more climbing by not skirting round Posušje, which is on a hill, and stop for a coffee. The town clearly has some heritage, there are some old parts, but virtually everything is brand new. The wiki entry doesn’t say it was destroyed in the war, only mentioning that there was little water here until the 1980s when a reservoir was built.
Here there are dense broad-leafed forests with rocks and very little else. Then the landscape opens out on to a wide flat plain, with many houses. I’m not sure what the people here live on, the main crop seems to be hay though there is no sign of any animals.
I continue to Tomislavgrad, then over the next ridge to Lake Buško.
Livno is very different to Posušje, it’s very 20th century. It does have a very odd monument just outside.
There’s nowhere to stay north of Livno, so I opt for a Motel on the road out to get a few km further, ready for tomorrow.
There are some clouds building up and I check the forecast: storms predicted. When I check in to the motel the guy asks “where are you going?”, fairly normal and I give a vague answer. He then says “No, where are you going tomorrow?” and shows me the weather forecast. I’m clearly not going anywhere tomorrow. Can I stay an extra night? No, there’s a public holiday and they’re booked up.
Day 118
Dodging the rain I go retrace to Livno, where I can’t find anywhere for a beard trim, or a shop selling a USB C charger, but I do find the best beer in the Balkans: Tomislav Brown (brewed in Tomislavgrad, see above).
Day 119
I set off early from Livno, it’s finally stopped raining but the clouds are low over the mountains.
I’m in a flat glacial valley between the mountains that form the border with Croatia and another ridge to the east. There’s very little here and it seems to go on forever…
…until I cross the conjunction and it opens out to a rolling, barren landscape. There are abandoned settlements all along here, occasionally one or two houses among them have glass in the windows and washing hanging out. There are more cemeteries than occupied houses.
I’ve covered 80 km before there’s somewhere to stop for coffee. The road is beautiful to ride, what little traffic there is tends to be Slovenian or Czech motorcyclists, the views are constantly changing. It’s hard to believe this is all at about 1000 m elevation until I reach the descent to Drvar which seems to go on forever. I start to meet quite a few touring cyclists, this seems to be a favourite route towards Greece and then Istanbul, I’m a little surprised they don’t choose the Croatian coast.
Climbing back out of Drvar I turn off the main road to head towards Una National Park. The road has thick trees on both sides and it’s hard to get any idea of where I am until suddenly the trees thin out and I can see I’ve been cycling along the top of a massive gorge.
This is followed by a massive, twisty descent, and it is now clear why the motorcyclists love this route so much. At the bottom there’s the River Una and checking OSM for places to stay it points me to Martin Brod and the Una-C Hotel, tagged as “Fish and Chips”. Several signs on the road tell me this is one of “The most beautiful villages in Bosnia and Herzegovina” and it doesn’t disappoint, though the hotel itself is very ex-soviet style. There is a quite impressive waterfall and the river also goes through gullies on each side of almost every house, it’s quite noisy rather than calming.
The owner of the hotel is a lovely, chirpy woman who sorts out a room, offers breakfast from 7, and of course fish and chips:
This day reminds me why I love travelling like this. In a single day I’ve covered four completely different landscapes and been immersed in every single one of them. Each one has been unknown until I get there and it opens out in front of me.
Day 120
I’m up at 7 for the promised breakfast but there’s no-one about apart from the dog on the sofa. There are signs of life at the cafe over the river so I head up there. Coffee comes with a free glass of raki, I initially refuse (it’s 7 AM in the morning!) but the owner gets quite animated, she makes it herself and everyone else is drinking it, how can I possibly say no?
By 9 O’Clock I’ve been unable to rouse the owner of the hotel, she’s been drinking Aperol Spritz until the early hours, presumably on the back of having an actual guest at the hotel. I only have a €50 note so I leave that to cover the room, food and beers, knowing that it includes a tip of nearly 100% of the room price for someone who couldn’t be bothered with the promised breakfast. On the other hand, if she’d said it was €50 for the room last night I’d have said yes.
The ride starts out along the Una National Park and River Una. There’s a lot of municipal money being spent here, perhaps not in the most effective way, but it’s clear this is going to be quite a big tourist destination soon. Then there’s a very long ascent of 6-7% to get out of the Una valley followed by an even longer descent into the northernmost tip of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This is a big contrast to yesterday, it’s very green and rolling, and clearly very much more affluent than the rest of the country. My stop for the day is Velika Kladuša on the Croatian border. As I’m leaving tomorrow, I have only a handful of Bosnian Convertible Marks left, but virtually everywhere in the town is cash-only. Though from what I can see the restaurants appear to be serving the Bosnian staple of big slabs of meat with more meat on the side.
