Belgrade –> Sarajevo

I departed Belgrade by bus at 11:30 this morning on my way to Sarajevo.

In the picture below, you can see the Pobednik (“The Victor”) monument, which is located at Kalemegdan Fortress, the Sava River, the Belgrade-Glavna Train Station, and the St. Sava Cathedral.

By the way, nearly every pic in this post was taken from inside a moving bus, so the high quality of photography you’ve come to expect and appreciate in this blog (*clears throat while brushing dirt off shoulder*) isn’t quite there.

If you didn’t know, train travel in the Balkans can be tricky.  The train routes between Bosnia and Serbia are closed down and have been perhaps since the Balkan war.  I believe the only way to get into Bosnia by train these days is through Zagreb, which was completely out of my way and therefore not an option I considered.  I could have flown, I suppose, but flying is its own headache and it’s expensive, and then I wouldn’t have gotten to see the Serbian and Bosnian countrysides.  Bus was my preferred option.

Once outside Belgrade, the landscape quickly turned to agricultural fields: a lot of corn and sunflowers, some melons and/or squash, and green crops I didn’t recognize.  In many parts it looked just like driving through California’s farm country.  Less than an hour into the trip, we were traveling on a 2-lane road (one lane in each direction) and it stayed that way for the remaining 230 or so miles of the trip.  We drove through several small towns, like you might drive through on highway 1 in northern California, and there were often tractors and other slow-moving vehicles holding up traffic in either direction along the way.  At one point, some car junk yards and a used car dealership appeared among the fields in what looked like the middle of nowhere until, just a mile or two later, we crossed the Sava again into the not-so-small town of Šabac.

We stopped in Šabac for a few minutes for some unknown reason.  We did this a few times along the trip, stopping here or there so the bus “conductor” (not sure what to call him, but that was essentially his function) could handle some quick business or other.  Just outside Šabac, we were stopped by the police.  They were doing some sort of operation, stopping every car in both directions.  It looked like a DUI check point or something.  I can only assume they were looking for refugees traveling illegally, or perhaps others without proper documentation.

As we approached the Bosnian border leaving a town called Lozica, the terrain started getting a bit hilly, with the hilltops shrouded in gray rain clouds.  A fine, misting rain accompanied us nearly the entire trip.  We reached a spa town called Banja Koviljaca and were soon climbing the hills, looking down onto the homes built on the sloping hillside adjacent to the road.  From there, we turned south and followed the road along the Drina river, the border between Serbia and Bosnia.  There was still flat land with fields on the river side of the road, but it was giving way to trees and forest at this point.

The road became rough and uneven here, and the bus rocked and bumped along slowly.  Across the river, the hills of Bosnia were blanketed in a drizzly haze.  We continued passing through small villages stretched along the road, Serbian hills rising to our left and Bosnian hills across the river to our right.  The homes were mostly well built and picturesque two- and three-story affairs, with brick, stone, or stucco facades (or a combination) that reminded me a lot of the house I lived in in Germany back in 1999.

We crossed into Bosnia at the Mali Zvornik gate, just north of Mali Zvornik, Serbia, about 3 hours into the trip.  A policeman/border control agent took our ids from us while we waited on the bus.  I hate being separated from my passport.  When we crossed into Bosnia, we had to show our ids again.  This time, the officer only took some our ids off the bus, while others he just looked at and gave right back.

Once across the border, we continued south along the river.  This stretch of road ran immediately adjacent to the river, though, so you could clearly see the river and the buildings along the river in Serbia on the other side.  Bosnia seemed the poorer of two countries along this stretch; it housed a lot more communist block-style housing complexes, old and run-down looking.  The houses looked more run down, as well.

We stopped in Zvornik to pick up more passengers.  This was the first of several stops we would make to pick up more passengers and drop others off.  I didn’t expect this, for some reason, but I suppose it makes perfect sense.  The bus was practically empty coming from Belgrade, but the Zvornik passengers more than doubled the number of people on the bus.

There was a big hydroelectric dam on the river just south of Zvornik, beyond which lay a small lake followed by a wide river, with green hills stretching up.  The drive along the river was beautiful, with lots of green hills, quaint hotels, and charming homes. It looked like Italy.  We passed through several stone arches along the road, perhaps some sort of ancient gates.  There were many short tunnels through the mountainous terrain, as well, even just tracing the river’s edge.  While the road itself is flat, maybe 20 feet above the river, hills stretched straight up just to the right.

We turned inland from the river at a place called Kostijerevo and followed the road along a tiny river called Drinjača, a tributary of the Drina.

We were met with an incredibly picturesque scene as we turned away from the Drina to the west – pastoral and bucolic, there was a small field surrounded by trees with a quaint white farmhouse, mountains rising into the clouds in the background, and the low afternoon sun peeking, however slightly, though the gray cloud cover.  I’m afraid I wasn’t quick enough with the camera, though, so you’ll just have draw the image for yourself from my description.  It was in this rural and unlikely spot that we stopped on the side of the road to pick up yet another passenger.

Here we began the narrow, winding journey through the mountains of eastern Bosnia.  From time to time we passed through small towns along the way and I couldn’t help but notice how much it looked and felt like driving through Appalachia.  Every home we passed seemed to have laundry drying on a line strung up on the covered 2nd floor balcony, and I had to wonder whether Monday was laundry day in the Balkans.

We stopped a few more times in Milići, Vlasenica, and along the side of road to drop people off.  From Vlasenica, we really started climbing and winding our way up the mountain.

Shortly, we made a pit stop on the mountain at a restaurant with one of those delightfully Eastern European hole-in-the-floor toilets.

Driving through the forest, I was mesmerized by the spectacular pine trees.  There were many different kinds, but I especially liked the tall ones with thick, heavy groupings of pine needles that hung heavily like fringe from the upturned branches.  Others were perkier, with straight branches that shot upward at an angle instead of drooping in the middle like lazy smiles, and needles that stretched horizontally outward.

Eventually, the mountains gave way to increasingly flatter land and agricultural fields once more.  I saw a lot more livestock in Bosnia than in Serbia – lots of sheep (and a few little lambs) and some cattle.  Restaurants were nestled into the green hills all along the way, looking cozy and welcoming in the way of a lodge or a countryside British pub.  I wanted to visit them all.

After a while, we headed back into the mountains, through the sizeable mountain valley town of Pale.  Pale was very charming, with its homes scattered all over the hilly valley, and reminded me very much of the area of Austria/southern Germany/northern Italy.  We stopped once more at the Pale bus station to drop folks off and collect more riders.

It wasn’t much longer before we came out of a tunnel and began our descent into Sarajevo.  By this time it was dark and the city looked beautiful – a valley of lights surrounded by the Olympic Mountains.

The bus stopped at the eastern bus station, quite a ways from old town, where I’m staying.  My AirBnB host was kind enough to fetch me from the station and take me to the apartment, providing an impromptu car tour along the way.  She’s also going to give me a walking tour of the old city tomorrow morning, which I’m very much looking forward to.

TL;DR:  Enjoyed a leisurely tour of the Serbian and Bosnian countrysides during the 8-hour bus ride from Belgrade to Sarajevo.