We decided it was time for a trip out of Sarajevo. Not too far but enough to stretch our legs and a bite to eat.
We had to start somewhere to whittle down all the places we want to go so we plumped for a small village in the hills, at least we can now check it off our very long list.
It’s not big enough to devote a whole report to by itself, so I’ve slipped it in here.
About 45 mins along a nice new dual carriage way is a town called Zenica - it is the third or fourth (depending on your source of information) largest city in Bosnia - population somewhere around 165,000.
It is also the biggest industrial city and on my drive in to the country in January I had passed it.
My route in from Croatia took me south a little, then east, then south again to Sarajevo, around 270km.
All but 80km of it was on new(ish) dual carriageways. The 80km that as not was through a valley to the north of Zenica and ending in the city where another dual carriageway began taking me to Sarajevo.
The reason I mention it is because the 80km of winding and busy single carriageway was suffering so much from air pollution I had to close all the windows and use the aircon to filter the air - but I could still smell it and at one point was stinging my eyes.
South of Zenica it cleared as I put my foot down and left the city behind me.
It is not particularly an attractive place and this is typical of the view -
But, we headed into the hills to visit a little village called Vranduk.
This is what is used to look like in the 19th Century -
The village itself is one of the oldest and well preserved settlements of Bosnia and Herzegovina, dating back to the 14th century and times of the kings of Bosnia and is established around medieval citadel of the same name.
A small mosque was built below citadel after the Ottoman conquest of the Bosnian Kingdom, which is still standing today. The mosque was dedicated to Sultan Mehmed II, conqueror of Bosnia, and is also referred to as the Imperial Mosque or Emperor's Mosque.
The reason for it being here is the main road from the north used to cut through the valley and as a ‘choke point’ led itself to an ideal location for a fortification.
This unfortunately was not open when we visited but I am informed it has a small museum inside and at one time as used by the Austrians as a prison.
We walked up and down more steps we could shake a stick at, had to backtrack so as not to drop off a cliff a few times, but it was good to get a bit of exercise.
This first picture is if the mosque, with unusually, a wooden minaret, the rest are randomly taken as we moved around -
I don’t know how they manage in the village because you need a car to get up the hills to it yet there is little space anywhere for parking, there are no shops and no cafes or restaurants.
As we began to get hungry we slipped down the hills and called in the aforementioned Zenica, which has a reasonably pleasant pedestrian street, to grab a late lunch.
Fortunately it was a Sunday so the pollution was minimal, but we drove in, parked up, put our masks on and immediately stopped dead.
The three of us noticed more or less at the same time, nobody else was wearing them.
Hundreds were walking lazily along and maybe one in a hundred had one on, but just around their neck.
Nobody in the shops or cafes or anywhere.
I am aware every town, city, village, canton, area or entity are allowed to make their own rules - there is no central government regulations or policy in existence or enforced.
In Sarajevo, in the week, only one in a hundred is not wearing a mask. Each shop/cafe has security to stop you entering if you haven’t got one on - but at the weekends due to the influx of visitors/locals from outside the city, seventy or eighty percent will walk around without a mask.
I’m wondering now when we visit other towns, what the situation will be there.
No matter to us as we always wear one, but either people are now fed up with wearing them and don’t bother, or they never bothered in the first place. No idea yet but the numbers of infections are going way up again.
I’ll let you know.