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Banja Luka
Oct. 11th, 2017 11:15 pmWe left Tuzla Airport at around 12:30pm on the Sunday (1 October), with our destination Banja Luka some two and a half hours away. The drive was quite pleasurable although the winding roads didn't present many overtaking opportunities, thus became frustrating whenever we got stuck behind a slow road user. There were a number of these, but Wolfie's driving was good. On the way, we either takled, listened to Bosnian radio or heard songs I had downloaded through Spotify, creating a nice eclectic backdrop as we drove through some truly wonderful scenery. Most of the country is mountainous and the roads often snake through river valleys, hugging cliff edges. This presented some really epic rock formations, while the water in the streams was as crystal as I have ever seen. There were quite a few tunnels too, which was always an exciting experience and even though the drives were long, they didn't really feel it. We grabbed some snacks and drinks along the way - trying the local Sky Cola which was probably the best non-brand name drink I have ever had. Indeed, it was so close to Coca-Cola that it would be hard to tell the difference so I was suitably impressed. One thing we noticed was the huge number of petrol stations meaning there were quite a few places to stock up, while we also occasionally stopped at the frequent parking places just so we could take some photographs of the view. Alas, what with it being early Autumn, in many places the vista was obscured by foliage but we did manage to take some pictures as we travelled.
We were on something of a deadline, only because we were scheduled to stop for just a night in Bosnia's second city, meaning we wanted to see as much of it in daylight as possible. It was a toss-up of spending one night here and two in Mostar or vice versa and in the end we definitely chose wisely. We arrived in Banja Luka at around 4pm and conveniently found a parking place right outside the hotel. We feared we may be ticketed but the receptionist reassured us that parking there was fine and soon we were settled in our rather massive room. There were two beds, one double and one single, so I snaffled the single and Wolfie had the double. We then pretty much headed straight into the city as we knew we only had about two and a half hours of sunshine remaining.
As it turned out, we didn't really need that amount of time as there isn't an awful lot to do in the city. Considering it is the de facto capital of the Republika Srpska (whose flag we saw in place of the Bosnian national flag on many lampposts as we drove across), I would have expected a lot more but there is only really two main streets and most of the sights are in close proximity to one another. The first thing we saw was literally on the end of the street where our hotel was - the Ferhat Pasha Mosque. Whenever I saw a mosque, I couldn't get Deputy Director Bullock from American Dad! out of my head, when he said 'instead we are raiding a mosque', which was somewhat unfortunate, particularly as many of the buildings we saw in Bosnia were architecutral marvels. The Ferhat Pasha Mosque was one of the grandest, and had been awarded UNESCO World Heritage Status before it was destroyed in the Bosnian conflict. It has since been reconstructed on top of the ruins, with it being reconsecrated in May 2016. It is a huge symbol of the progression this country has made over the last twenty years and remains faithful to its traditional sixteenth century Ottoman architecture. We didn't get chance to view its interior, which I believe is stunning, but it is one of those buildings that dominates the skyline and the pegoda in particular with its blue and burgendy patterning was breathtaking enough.
We got a better view of the Mosque over at the Kastel, the castle which has sat on this site since Roman times. Most of the remnants though are Turkish and again from the sixteenth century. There is a little stage area with seating tucked in one corner of the fortress but unfortunately it was closed off to us. However, we were able to walk along the ramparts, which afforded excellent views of the river on one side. A couple of couples were canoodling up here, which was somewhat offputting, but I didn't let them deter me as I hiked my way around the perimeter. There was a couple of small buildings inside the fortress from memory, including a rather good restuarant with particularly good riverside frontage, but we opted to head into town once we had export the castle as we wanted to catch all of the main sights before dusk.
As I said before, we needn't have worried as there aren't too many of them. The main church in the city is the Christ The Saviour Orthodox Church, an orange and dark red striped building that sits on the main square. It's gold dome and particularly large standalone bell tower makes this rather hard to miss and is a good example of the Austro-Hungarian influence in the city, with the Church having been constructed in 1929. It was destroyed in the Second World War and outside there are some remains of the original pillars and stone masonary which had been damaged. Again, I believe the interior was lovely but it was closed and we couldn't get down into the crypt either, largely because a beggar lady had started stalking us and we were feeling somewhat unnerved.
After this, we headed further up the main drag, taking in the rather utilitarian National Theatre. This street reflected the Austro-Hungarian feel of the place, which was the time the city grew to prominence, while the bar area is what this street became, with about ten standard type hostelries down either side. We then doubled back down the parallel street and noticed some busts of national heroes dating from the times of Yugoslavia, about twenty of them arranged in a semi-circle. We had no idea who these people were, but we stopped to take a picture before realising we were near the one and only craft beer bar in the city - Pause. A rather hipster type place, they did serve beers from the Serbian craft brewery Kabinet. There were about eight in the fridge, along with a Mikkeller brew which had been brewed in collaboration with them. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity of sampling some difficult to get beers in the UK, we ended up sampling four of them, with the barman, who spoke little English, quickly cottoning on to exactly what we were doing. We would have stayed for longer, but we hadn't eaten anything and were starting to feel the effects of the high strength beers somewhat. We had drunk in this bar as the sun had set, with a rather intimate feel becoming a slightly more effervesent one and it was a genuinely pleasureable place to be - busy but not rammed.
There were a couple of places recommended to us in the guidebook, with one being where the old railway station used to be. Housed in the ticket office, this was another nice slice of Austro-Hungarian architecture but instead we headed to a back street restaurant called Monogram, which specialises in Serbian food. When we arrived, it was quite loud and I suspect there was a rather large party booking, with local music being played by a live quartet. We had to go through their performance just to go to the toilet, but we sat ourselves in the conservatory area and had soon ordered - a plate of Serbian cheese to start, followed by veal, which is an incredibly popular meat here. Indeed, I don't think I have ever eaten so much veal in my life as I did in Bosnia and its richness may have been partially responsible for the tummy trouble I experienced later in the week, but in the meantime the food was tender and rather well done, leaving us quite satisfied.
After this, we had a quick nightcap in Pause again before heading back to the hotel, knowing we needed to get up early as Monday was scheduled to be the biggest driving day of them all. We reached the hotel at 10pm and grabbed a bottle of Jelen, a local fizzy pilsner, to share in the room. We then watched crappy TV for a couple of hours, with a trashy American show called 'Paranormal Lockdown' being a particular delight. In this show, two ghost hunters armed with a geobox (whatever that is) spend 72 hours isolated in a haunted house to see if they can contact any spirits. It's as terrible as it sounds but strangely compelling and we did find it quite enjoyable. However, it was the last thing we watched before we went to bed, so we were feeling rather wired, which is why when I heard three errant knocks coming from the bedside table and Wolfie claimed it had not been him, I almost shit myself. Alas, after that I did manage to sleep uneventfully.
Our sleep was good and after a modest breakfast in the dining room, which was pretty much a small space underneath the main staircase, we packed our bags, loaded the car and set off on the long journey south to Mostar. We noticed that we had received a ticket overnight but were delighted to discover upon check out that the hotel had put it on there to prevent us getting a real ticket. After this scare, we left the city behind on what was a glorious day and headed towards our first stop of the day, the town of Jajce, which was an hour and a half away.
We were on something of a deadline, only because we were scheduled to stop for just a night in Bosnia's second city, meaning we wanted to see as much of it in daylight as possible. It was a toss-up of spending one night here and two in Mostar or vice versa and in the end we definitely chose wisely. We arrived in Banja Luka at around 4pm and conveniently found a parking place right outside the hotel. We feared we may be ticketed but the receptionist reassured us that parking there was fine and soon we were settled in our rather massive room. There were two beds, one double and one single, so I snaffled the single and Wolfie had the double. We then pretty much headed straight into the city as we knew we only had about two and a half hours of sunshine remaining.
As it turned out, we didn't really need that amount of time as there isn't an awful lot to do in the city. Considering it is the de facto capital of the Republika Srpska (whose flag we saw in place of the Bosnian national flag on many lampposts as we drove across), I would have expected a lot more but there is only really two main streets and most of the sights are in close proximity to one another. The first thing we saw was literally on the end of the street where our hotel was - the Ferhat Pasha Mosque. Whenever I saw a mosque, I couldn't get Deputy Director Bullock from American Dad! out of my head, when he said 'instead we are raiding a mosque', which was somewhat unfortunate, particularly as many of the buildings we saw in Bosnia were architecutral marvels. The Ferhat Pasha Mosque was one of the grandest, and had been awarded UNESCO World Heritage Status before it was destroyed in the Bosnian conflict. It has since been reconstructed on top of the ruins, with it being reconsecrated in May 2016. It is a huge symbol of the progression this country has made over the last twenty years and remains faithful to its traditional sixteenth century Ottoman architecture. We didn't get chance to view its interior, which I believe is stunning, but it is one of those buildings that dominates the skyline and the pegoda in particular with its blue and burgendy patterning was breathtaking enough.
We got a better view of the Mosque over at the Kastel, the castle which has sat on this site since Roman times. Most of the remnants though are Turkish and again from the sixteenth century. There is a little stage area with seating tucked in one corner of the fortress but unfortunately it was closed off to us. However, we were able to walk along the ramparts, which afforded excellent views of the river on one side. A couple of couples were canoodling up here, which was somewhat offputting, but I didn't let them deter me as I hiked my way around the perimeter. There was a couple of small buildings inside the fortress from memory, including a rather good restuarant with particularly good riverside frontage, but we opted to head into town once we had export the castle as we wanted to catch all of the main sights before dusk.
As I said before, we needn't have worried as there aren't too many of them. The main church in the city is the Christ The Saviour Orthodox Church, an orange and dark red striped building that sits on the main square. It's gold dome and particularly large standalone bell tower makes this rather hard to miss and is a good example of the Austro-Hungarian influence in the city, with the Church having been constructed in 1929. It was destroyed in the Second World War and outside there are some remains of the original pillars and stone masonary which had been damaged. Again, I believe the interior was lovely but it was closed and we couldn't get down into the crypt either, largely because a beggar lady had started stalking us and we were feeling somewhat unnerved.
After this, we headed further up the main drag, taking in the rather utilitarian National Theatre. This street reflected the Austro-Hungarian feel of the place, which was the time the city grew to prominence, while the bar area is what this street became, with about ten standard type hostelries down either side. We then doubled back down the parallel street and noticed some busts of national heroes dating from the times of Yugoslavia, about twenty of them arranged in a semi-circle. We had no idea who these people were, but we stopped to take a picture before realising we were near the one and only craft beer bar in the city - Pause. A rather hipster type place, they did serve beers from the Serbian craft brewery Kabinet. There were about eight in the fridge, along with a Mikkeller brew which had been brewed in collaboration with them. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity of sampling some difficult to get beers in the UK, we ended up sampling four of them, with the barman, who spoke little English, quickly cottoning on to exactly what we were doing. We would have stayed for longer, but we hadn't eaten anything and were starting to feel the effects of the high strength beers somewhat. We had drunk in this bar as the sun had set, with a rather intimate feel becoming a slightly more effervesent one and it was a genuinely pleasureable place to be - busy but not rammed.
There were a couple of places recommended to us in the guidebook, with one being where the old railway station used to be. Housed in the ticket office, this was another nice slice of Austro-Hungarian architecture but instead we headed to a back street restaurant called Monogram, which specialises in Serbian food. When we arrived, it was quite loud and I suspect there was a rather large party booking, with local music being played by a live quartet. We had to go through their performance just to go to the toilet, but we sat ourselves in the conservatory area and had soon ordered - a plate of Serbian cheese to start, followed by veal, which is an incredibly popular meat here. Indeed, I don't think I have ever eaten so much veal in my life as I did in Bosnia and its richness may have been partially responsible for the tummy trouble I experienced later in the week, but in the meantime the food was tender and rather well done, leaving us quite satisfied.
After this, we had a quick nightcap in Pause again before heading back to the hotel, knowing we needed to get up early as Monday was scheduled to be the biggest driving day of them all. We reached the hotel at 10pm and grabbed a bottle of Jelen, a local fizzy pilsner, to share in the room. We then watched crappy TV for a couple of hours, with a trashy American show called 'Paranormal Lockdown' being a particular delight. In this show, two ghost hunters armed with a geobox (whatever that is) spend 72 hours isolated in a haunted house to see if they can contact any spirits. It's as terrible as it sounds but strangely compelling and we did find it quite enjoyable. However, it was the last thing we watched before we went to bed, so we were feeling rather wired, which is why when I heard three errant knocks coming from the bedside table and Wolfie claimed it had not been him, I almost shit myself. Alas, after that I did manage to sleep uneventfully.
Our sleep was good and after a modest breakfast in the dining room, which was pretty much a small space underneath the main staircase, we packed our bags, loaded the car and set off on the long journey south to Mostar. We noticed that we had received a ticket overnight but were delighted to discover upon check out that the hotel had put it on there to prevent us getting a real ticket. After this scare, we left the city behind on what was a glorious day and headed towards our first stop of the day, the town of Jajce, which was an hour and a half away.
