Balkans August 31, 2018 Zagreb, Croatia

9:00 pm.  Another day, another border crossing, language and currency. We crossed into Coatia passing through immigration quickly and smoothly, no review by Customs and we didn't have to take off our helmets again.  the currency is the Kuna equal to about $0.16 US.

We rode to the Jasonovec memorial for the thousands of Serbs, Jews and Roma killed at a labor camp during WWII. It was sobering, depressing and important to remember so that it never happens again. It's had to believe it's only been 75 years or so.

The site had an impressive piece of art to recognize the site and it is huge. The one picture below that has the closeup shot has Sooz in it to show the scale, you have to look really close at the base.

We then rode into Zagreb, Croatia on a really nice 4 lane divided highway.  Traffic was moving right along so I set the cruise control at 85 mph and watched the BMWs, Audis and Mercedes cars go blasting by.  It was fun to air it out a little and I may have entered triple digit speeds for part of the ride.  I really like this new GS, I just may look into getting one.

Coming into Zagreb I stopped for gas and filled up with 100 octane!  They sell nothing less than 91 octane, very nice fuel.

I had to include the street side warning against driving your car into the water. It's one of my alltime favorites.  We could use that sign in Florida. 

Susie found us a very nice apartment to rent for 3 nights through AirBNB for much less than a hotel and it's right downtown close to all the action.

For lunch we went to the pastry shop less than a block away and had a piece of the local specialty cream cake called Zagrebacke Kremsnite, and ice cream.

The downtown area is lively, modern and full of young people and families. For my planner friends I included a picture of a street with 2 sets of street car rails, a center lane for motorized traffic and wide sidewalks on both sides. Very pedestrian and mass transit friendly.  It was pretty exciting riding the motorcycle down the center lane with streetcars going beside me in opposite directions.

Balkans August 30, 2018 Kosarska Dubica, BH

8:30 pm.  Rode 120 miles and it took about 6 hours.  Traffic was pretty thick at times mostly going through small towns on 2 laned roads.  We also had a lot of really fun, winding, twisty roads with elevations up to 3,600 feet.  Some drivers here drive slower than Florida drivers which is hard to believe. 

We had our first pretty bad meal todat at a rural roadside restaurant that appeared pretty good.  The goat roasting over the fire pit pulled me in. We ordered some kind of meat plate and a salad and the salad was good, the meat not so much, it was like shoe leather. 

Pictures include us getting ready to leave our hotel in Sarajevo, shots from the road and a couple of pictures from our hotel here.

We are staying at a hotel right on the Una River which is the border between BH and Croatia. Tomorrow we will cross the river and visit the WWII extermination memorial in Jasonovec where over 700,000 Jews and Serbs were killed.

Balkans August 29, 2018 Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina

5:45 pm.  During breakfast this morning we chatted up 2 young women originally from South Korea.  They are best friends.   One came to Sarajevo for a conference on criminology in support of her PhD from Leeds in England. Her friend came from Amsterdam where she works as a food and beverage manager for a large hotel.  Her previous job had been in Dubai. They were in their mid to late 20's.

Another couple we met later in the day were married.  He was from Split, Croatia, former Navy skipper and she was from Amsterdam, went to college in England, has family in Zagreb,  Croatia.  They met when she came to Croatia to visit family and now they both live in Amsterdam for their careers. She speaks 4 languages and they are both in their early 30's. 

Our waiter for lunch is an engineering student and going to Portland in a couple of weeks for a conference.

The world is indeed shrinking.

We took a guided walking tour of downtown Sarajevo this morning so I am going to write down some interesting things before I forget.

Sarajevo has 400,000 people, is 85% Muslim, 3% Catholic, 11,000 were killed in the most recent war, 40% unemployment overall and 65% for young people so many leave for jobs, English is taught in the schools.

Pictures below from downtown and old town Sarajevo.  There was a small shop selling handmade metal goods and I could hear some banging going on inside so I investigated.  There was an older gentleman working at a metal press, he never looked up or stopped working and mumbled a few words when I mumbled something.  Neither one of us understood the other - a true Geezer to Geezer exchange and then I walked out feeling like we had connected.  I think you had to be there to fully grasp the significance. 

We saw where King Ferdinand and wife were assassinated resulting in the beginning of World War I, the bright colored building is city hall, and lots and lots of mosques. Our guide said there are 200 mosques in Sarajevo. The joke is that whenever the Saudis want to invest in building a mall or a road the deal is they also get to build a mosque. 

9:00 pm.  Bosnia Herzegovina national government is made up 2 "entities", BH and Skrpska and a nationwide govenment.  What's your thoughts on how long that will last?

Balkans August 28, 2018 Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina

6:45 pm.  We landed in Sarajevo around 5pm after leaving Belgrade 10am. It was less than 200 miles but most was 2 laned roads through small towns,  twisty roads, about 4,000 feet in elevation change and a border crossing from Serbia to Bosnia Herzegovina. Once again,  the border crossing went very well.  We had a short line of cars but all we had to do was show our passports at both crossings, we didn't even take off our helmets and they didn't ask to see the motorcycle papers.

A nice ride of around 200 miles, one border crossing, 2 lane roads, small towns, stinky diesel cars, and sheep, cows and horses in the road.

We had a great lunch just inside the BH border at a local restaurant.   We had fresh trout, Bosnian Salad, tomatoes, veal soup and fresh bread for $12.00 US.  We have a new language, Bosnia, and a.new currency,  the Bosnian mark which is about 2 to the dollar.

We saw our first bullet holes in buildings coming into Sarajevo leftover from the war in 1991-1995.  We expect to see more when we walk around the city tomorrow.

I just started hearing a Muslim minaret singing at sundown, kind of haunting as it drifts in and out of the breeze.

Balkans August 27, 2018 Belgrade, Serbia

11:30 am.  We woke up, had a great breakfast, met a nice couple at breakfast from Holland who we were going to join on a walking tour.  We walked outside in the cold, rainy, windy weather, Sooz started feeling a cold coming on so we bailed on the walking tour and came back to the room for some r and r. 

9:45 pm.  I just wrote a long section and it disappeared. Short version is we ended up getting some cold medicine for Sooz and visited the Belgrade Fortress, St. Michaels Orthodox Church, a really nice outdoor mall nicely integrated into the old city and bought some great pastries. Pictures below.

Balkins August 26, 2018 Belgrade, Serbia

8:45 pm.  Long day on the bike today leaving Sibiu, Romania at around 9:30 am and checking into our Belgrade hotel around 5:30 pm local which is one hour earlier than Romanian time so around 9 hours total and 260 miles.  As far as miles go, we have ridden longer distances in one day.  However, we lost time in traffic, an unruly GPS, some rain and crossing the border from Romania to Serbia.  The border crossing was mainly 2 immigration checks, one leaving Romania and one entering Serbia. We were on a remote 2 lane road so it was pretty quick.  No customs, lines or crowds.  The personnel were friendly and didn't hassle us at all.  Though they were adamant that I not take any pictures of the crossing area, which is understandable, I guess.  The picture below is one they said I could take just inside the Sebian border.  Sooz wants me to mention that the female Serbian border guard had her nails done just like women in the US.

There was major construction underway on several sections of the main A1 highway that my GPS did not acknowledge so when we got on the detour the GPS was useless. So luckily Susie's phone was able to access Google maps which did the job.

The countryside was not unusual except for a couple rock formations that looked like western US.  Some parts reminded me of inland south Florida south of Lake Okeechobee,  except of endless sugarcane fields we saw endless fields of sunflowers and corn; long, straight, 2 lane rural roads.  A picture is below of Sooz sitting on the bike in the middle of nowhere.  

For dinner Sooz found a traditional, no frills Serbian restaurant about a 15 minute walk from our hotel.  I had goulash which cost about $6.60 US, and Sooz had about a 12 ounce perfectly prepared steak for about $13.00 US.  She couldn't eat it all even with me helping.

We have a new currency,  the dinaro which is about 100 to $1 US.  Prices look expensive but they're not.

The Serbian language is indecipherable. There really is no way to even get a basic understanding by reading it.  The Romanian language is kind of a mishmash of Italian, German, French and even a little bit of Spanish, so there is some familiarity of letters and words.  But Serbian, forget it.

Gas is expensive, about $6.00 US a gallon and was hard to find out in the boonies. The little towns we went through had virtually no commercial or retail businesses to speak of. 

About 30 miles before Belgrade we stopped at a cemetery.  I have a picture below.  The grave sites were the most lavish and well maintained I've ever seen. We didn't walk the whole site but there were recent as well as older graves.  I thought we might see a lot of graves from the war period of 1991-1995, but we didn't.