Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Trip Report North West Bosnia & the Northern Counties of Croatia

BANJA LUKA

On the road out of Jajce the views back towards the fortress were amazing, though I didn’t stop to take any photos. A little further on was a small church on the roadside with a deep valley behind it, and the most stunning part-built cathedral. I pulled in, and wandered round for a while. It was so quiet and peaceful, and a very beautiful place.

It is the valley of St John the Baptist, and the shrine to Sveti Ivo in Podmilajce, and a place of great healing powers – also called the Bosnian Lourdes. Apparently they had a service in the summer which was attended by 50,000 people. There is a little about it here…
http://www.zupa-podmilacje.com/sv-ivo-u-podmilacju/

The drive to Banja Luka was astonishingly beautiful, driving alongside the Vrbas river as it cut through the mountains in a deep gorge. Absolutely spectacular. I wish I was better at taking photos,and that the weather had been better, but my Samsung phone didn't do too bad a job all things considered.

At some point the road enters the ‘entity’ of The Republic of Srpska. This means the signs are now in the Cyrillic alphabet, though most are in English as well.

In Banja Luka I found a parking space on a side street, close to a memorial to ‘Forbidden Love’ where there is a shrine to this girl called Safikada who threw herself in front of a cannon after her forbidden love, an Austro-Hungarian soldier, had been killed on the battlefield so that she would always be faithful to him. This is the spot where she died. Across the road was the fortress on the banks of the Vrbas river. There isn’t a lot of the castle to see, but there is a restaurant within the walls, and a really nice one it is too, with vaulted ceilings, heavy timbers and stone buttresses, a river terrace, suits of armour and assorted ironwork, and an extensive menu. As it was little past midday I wasn’t really hungry, so I ordered a starter of grilled polenta with cheese, crispy bacon and kajmak (a soft creamy cheese). This was delicious – I could taste the woodsmoke of the fire the polenta had been grilled over! With a pepsi the bill was 10 BAM (€5/£4).

http://restorankazamat.net/

I thought Banja Luka a pleasant town, and one worth spending a little more time in, but I had a long way to go that afternoon.

It was a fast highway as far as Bosanska Gradiska where the border was, but it ended (unfinished) a few miles before the town. Signage was not good, and I got very lost for some time. Finally after asking at a garage for the 3rd time I found the crossing point, and again was waved pretty much straight through. The real border for me was the impressive bridge crossing the River Sava shortly afterwards.

A few pics here…

http://tinyurl.com/l4qbuka