Hit the road

Road trips. That’s what our cars are for. Especially the diesel ones that offer reduced travel cost.

I have long wanted to visit the unknown land of Bosnia & Herzegovina but there was no one willing to do it with me by car. No one to spend 11-12 hours travelling. No one daring visiting a country only known for wars and crimes (WW I and the conflict of 1992-1995).

Unexpectedly a group of friends agreed on the destination and we all managed to find some free time. Trip duration should be 5 days including traveling. Due to the long duration of the trip we decided to split our journey back home in Niš.

The necessary places to see are numerous but due to our tight schedule we decided to visit only the necessary ones. Our plan was to go from Thessaloniki to Sarajevo and spend 2 whole days there. On the 3rd day we should visit Mostar. On the 4th day we included Visegrad and Mećavnik (or Küstendorf or Drvengrad call it as you like) in our preferred stops before reaching Niš. The final day was reserved just for return to our homes.

Preparation for the trip (389€)
I was responsible for the preparation of the car. Having safety first thing in mind I took advantage of an offer for free car inspection by the local VW dealer (this offer was due to some event organized by the dealership to give the opportunity to the public to get acquainted with the new VAG models). There it was found that my wipers should be changed and that one of my tires had a sidewall bulge. Given that I should increase the tire pressure to 2.4 bar to carry 4 persons with their luggage in addition to the long trip and the high speed I was advised to change my old factory tires (Continental Premium Contact 5) that I was using for the last 3.5 years.
For the wipers I went for the extremely good rated Bosch Aerotwin (A 863 S for the front and A 282 H for the back). I bought through Amazon for a total of 36.27€ including shipping

For the new tires after long discussion I opted the same brand and model as my previous tires (Continental Premium Contact 5). I bought a really fresh (36th week of 2016) tire set from the official VW dealership taking advantage of a 15% price reduction if you buy tires from them until the 31st of December 2016. The final price was 315€ including removal of old tires and installation of the new set. The job was finished after approximately 2.5 hours.

Finally the car was filled with 35.81 liters of the new version of Shell V-Power diesel that appeared in our country on the 3rd week of October. Of course again I took advantage of the offer that Shell is giving in Greece: Every Thursday the V-Power diesel is given at the same price as ordinary diesel. At that point the price of Shell V-Power diesel was 1.055€ per liter

On the road
We started our trip on 06:15 in the morning of the 26th of October. This proved to be an excellent choice as we met little traffic and no delays at the border crossings.

The trip was recorder using the Android app Geo Tracker that provided me with some statistics (don’t pay attention to the track length of 553 kilometers. This was obviously distorted because of the bad reception of the GPS inside the numerous tunnels in our route). The real distance between Thessaloniki and Sarajevo is approximately 845km!

Our first refueling stop was in Čačak after 606km with the trip computer showing a consumption of 5.4 l/100km where I refilled the car. I still had enough fuel for 320 additional kilometers but I decided to use this gas station as I trust the EKO company and their Diesel Avio premium fuel.
The road from Čačak to Sarajevo passes through some very beautiful scenery. My favorite are the regions of Ovčar Banja and Mokra Gora in western Serbia. There we met a combination of road turns, slope changes and a lot of trucks or cars that drive slowly. This was a problem as many local drivers drive dangerously: in my opinion even if you know the road overtaking 2 cars (or 1 car and 1 truck) without being able to see if another car comes from around the corner poses a serious threat to all. The situation was made more difficult due to a light drizzle.
After 11 hours and 17 minutes we finally arrived at the city of Sarajevo and settled in our hotel.The hotel is located in an excellent location and the personnel was absolutely helpful and friendly.

Sarajevo
The city is a very interesting combination of people, religions, architecture and food. Last but not least the city offers a connection with 2 important points in European history: the 1st World War (Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip at the entrance of the Latin Bridge) and the Bosnian conflict of 1992-1995 which as the locals say it was provoked by the killing on the 1st of March 1992 of a serb attending a wedding (Nikola Gardovic) by a bosniak (Ramiz Delalic aka Celo) in front of the old orthodox church in Baščaršija (exactly on the opposite side of our hotel).

Mostar
The road from Sarajevo is an excellent highway for the the first 30-45 minutes. After that it is just a normal road. It took us 2 hours to reach Mostar. We parked in an open air parking (43.34404,17.8128) with reasonable price and then walked to the old bridge. I have to say that Mostar is beautiful. I also have to say that Mostar is terribly touristic. The Neretva river divides the catholic (Croatian) side from the muslim (Bosniak) side. The differences between the 2 parts are obvious. The catholic side is turning slowly into a place with more west European character while the muslim part keeps its old character (as can be seen in the following photos). Forgive me for not giving you a photo of the old bridge. It is impossible to photograph it without tourists and of course better photos can be found in Google.

Višegrad
The city is well known due to the novel of Ivo Andrić that covers a long period of Bosnia’s history. The book tells different short stories that all include the famous bridge (which is a UNESCO World Heritage site). Building the bridge started in 1566. The river was crossed by Austro-Hungarian army to attack Serbia in World War I.
In remembrance of the writer the well-known film maker Emir Kusturica builds a town inside the town. Andrićgrad is contemporary part inside the old town Višegrad. It is supposed to become the filming location for Kusturica’s forthcoming film.

Küstendorf (aka Mećavnik or Drvengrad)
A village built by Kusturica as a filming location for his 2004 film “Life is a miracle”. You will find more details about this place here
We stopped there for a lunch (43.79598,19.50721). We paid approximately 5€ per person to enter and approximately 13€ per person to eat. We all agreed that the quality of food did not meet our expectations and that the overall price was high.

Leaving Küstendorf we refueled for second time at the same EKO gas station (in Čačak) as on our way to Bosnia. Again we opted for EKO Diesel Avio premium fuel. We had traveled 748 km with a consumption of 4.3 l/100km. The reason for such a low consumption is the mountain roads with many turns that kept our speed low (40-90 km/h). Again refueling was not totally necessary as we had fuel for 370 km more (enough to go to Niš). The reason we refueled here is that with full tank we could reach Greece and fill it up with the much cheaper Shell V-Power diesel there.

Niš
Our last stop in our way back to home. We stayed for just one night in an excellent apartment for 4 persons that we booked via Airbnb platform. We spend the night just having warm shower, relaxing and eating.
In the next morning, before going back to Greece, we made a small walk to the city center to get some breakfast and coffee. After having breakfast we visited 2 last places: the Crveni Krst Nazi concentration camp (43.3295541,21.8873299) and one of the impressive monuments erected by Tito: the Bubanj memorial park (43.3077883,21.8688613).

The Crveni Krst Nazi concentration camp is maintained in a very good state and is now a WWII museum. Approximately 30000-35000 people were held prisoners here between 1941-1944 and is especially known for the escape of inmates on the 12th of February 1942. Out of 147 inmates who attempted to flee, 105 managed to escape, while 82 died along the way. After the escape, as revenge, Germans killed 1100 of Serbian patriots. Although these events happened almost 70 years ago the feelings that we had were very intense.

On the Bubanj hill approximately 10000 people were executed during the Nazi occupation of Serbia. After the war, in 1963, Tito ordered the building of a huge monument depicting 3 fists on top of this hill. This is one of the 20-30 impressive monuments in ex-Yugoslavia built to commemorate the victory over fascism

Final words
After 630 kilometers we arrived in Thessaloniki. We saw just the very necessary for a tourist visiting in Bosnia for the first time. Certainly it was a nice break from everyday routine. We all found very interesting the mixing of Austro-hungarian, Balkan, ex-communist and islamic cultures in every aspect of the daily life (dressing, eating, architecture etc). I would love to go there again but…this time by airplane since the local drivers were overpassing dangerously on road turns without seeing if somebody is coming from the opposite side.
On the next day I refueled again. It was 630 km with an average consumption of 4.9 liters/100km. In summary we had traveled 1984 kilometers in 5 days. We refueled 3 times and we consumed approximately 95 liters of diesel. These figures lead to a total average consumption of 4.83 l/100km which is a nice figure considering that the car was loaded with 4 persons and their baggage. The total fuel cost for the trip was approximately 120-130€.

Happy and safe trips to all of you

P.S. The odometer during the final refueling showed exactly 44000 km. A small coincidence.