Since Budapest, we have logged long days on mostly flat terrain, largely as we’ve been eager to get to Bosnia and also have enough time for the beaches of Croatia. We are now in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s second largest city. We’ve been fortunate to have cooler weather and tailwinds.
Below is the day by day, as recorded by my Garmin 500 and Strava.
(We’re having some technical difficulties with Strava, so the maps aren’t always displaying below. If there are big blank spaces below, it is because the maps aren’t showing up.)
We left our Budapest flat at about 1 pm (actually, Dora’s flat), stopped by the former Jewish district, visited a Soviet statue park outside of town, and then pedaled south along the Danube. About half an hour before sunset, we figured we should start thinking about where to camp. We were lucky: in the small town of Szigetsanmiklos, we ran into an American, Bart, who had married a Hungarian woman and was visiting his in-laws. We pitched a tent in grandma’s yard, and Bart told us what it was like to be an American living in Hungary.
We followed Europe’s official bike route 6 south along the Danube, which was beautiful, but it was dirt more often than not. We went inland and followed the busier, much faster road to cover more distance. Also, tailwinds! Score!
A little before sunset, we returned to the Danube bike trail and found a spot along the river to camp.
The next day was another long one following the Danube south. We spent 1.5 hours and 13 kilometers in Serbia (which had real border control as it apparently isn’t in the EU). We left without even learning the currency, as we biked into Croatia, where we spent the night on a recently cut hay field. That involved a fun interaction with a local farmer, who gave us permission to camp – but warned us of the wild pigs (more people speak German than English, but with a little snorting and miming it was easy to figure out what “shvine” meant).
We passed through the “overwhelmingly pleasant” Croatian town of Ocijek, took a siesta in Dakovo, and then crossed into Bosnia and Herzegovina, another non-EU country. Fortunately, on bikes, we didn’t have to wait in the long line of cars to cross.
Before crossing, we met a Croat who spoke English and who told us that he used to live in Bosnia, but fled during the war. He said that no more Croats lived across the border; they had all been forced to leave. He also told us that the area along the border had been heavily bombed and that there was “nothing there.” He was right.
The first 20 kilometers in Bosnia felt like biking through a house graveyard–the road was lined by numerous empty brick buildings whose roofs appeared to have been burned away over a decade ago. Many had trees growing inside and gaping holes in their sides. Some had newish, inhabited homes right next to them, but in other areas there were no people or inhabited buildings. It was creepy.
After biking 130km to Derventa, we got a hotel for the second time this trip. we were tired and dirty and thrilled when the first people we talked to spoke English and pointed us to a guesthouse and market (to buy breakfast in anticipation of an early departure the next day). After showers and laundry we went downstairs to the attached restaurant where, in response to “We are very hungry. Can you make us something delicious? With French fries?” we were served what we are calling Bosnia burgers. They were delicious. As were the fries.
Getting the earliest start of the trip, we left at 5:30 & biked about 50 miles to Banja Luka along a road that was busier than we would have liked. There were some nice stretches, though, with haystacks and views of the river, and by noon we rolled into Banja Luka where we will meet several contacts from the biking and couch-surfing community. It’s the biggest city we’ve seen since Budapest. It is very hot.