Day 3: Sarajevo to Jajce via Travnik

Today was the start of our road trip around Bosnia. After another breakfast of burek in the apartment, our first task was to make our way back to Sarajevo airport, from where we were picking up our rental car. The plan for today was to take the airport bus, which was due to depart from a bus stop just behind the town hall at 10am. I'd researched this quite meticulously, including going to find the bus stop in the rain yesterday and confirming that it was indeed in the spot labelled "Airport bus stop" on Google maps.

Pulling suitcases around Sarajevo is a little difficult due to a combination of the pavements being narrow and uneven in places, plus it seemingly being fair game to park on them, but we made it to the bus stop around 10 minutes ahead of schedule and proceeded to wait for the airport bus. If it wasn't marked as the stop for the airport bus on Google, there would really be no way of knowing that that's what it was. While there was a sign marking it as a bus stop, there was no information about which buses stopped there or their timetables. I was reassured to see there was another lady waiting at the stop with a suitcase, although that reassurance turned out to be short-lived when after five minutes or so someone pulled over in a car to pick her up.

Never mind, I was sure we were in the right place, despite the lack of other passengers. 10am came and went, as did 10.05 and 10.10. I was just starting to despair and suggest we walked back towards the town centre to get a taxi when we caught sight of what looked like it might be the airport bus on the opposite side of the road. Was it about to loop around to our bus stop or had we been waiting on the wrong side of the road?! Another few minutes of suspense followed until the bus eventually appeared again on our side of the road and pulled over for us. Phew! We were the only passengers and remained the only passengers for the 30 minutes journey to the airport. I suspect they would get more business if they put some signs up

Once we'd successfully made it to the airport, our next task was to track down the car rental company and pick up our car. That all went pretty smoothly and the weather was looking loads better than yesterday.

Before too long we were on our way. Our ultimate destination for the evening was the town of Jajce, around 100 miles northwest of Sarajevo, but we planned to stop in the small town of Travnik for lunch on the way. I'd read that Travnik was really scenic, so was looking forward to seeing it.

We arrived in Travnik around 1pm and found somewhere to park on the outskirts of the town.

It did indeed seem like a pretty town, with lots of striking mosques.

The town is dominated by its medieval fortress, which is where we were heading.

Actually, we didn't realise that's where we were heading  We were walking down the main road when I saw a sign saying "Stari grad - 200m" and assumed it was pointing us to the old town... without realising that the fortress is called "Stari grad". So we suddenly found ourselves walking a bit more uphill than we expected!

It was a scenic route though

When we got to the entrance of the castle, we paid 4 KM each (£1.70) to get in.

From up here the views of the town were spectacular.

The fortress here was originally built prior to the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia.

Travnik was under Ottoman rule from 1463 to 1878 and during that time the original castle was expanded and fortified further.

Travnik even had a period as the capital city of Bosnia, from 1699 to 1850, after Sarajevo was destroyed by fire in 1697.

I climbed all the way to the top of the fortress.

The views were fantastic. Not just of the town...

...but also of the hills surrounding it.

And we loved seeing the Bosnian flag flying in the breeze

We were hungry by this point, so started heading back down towards the town.

We stopped at a restaurant not far from the entrance to the castle where the waiter recommended that we try a Travnik schnitzel. The meat was filled with local Travnik cheese, which is famous in Bosnia. It was interesting to try it, but I don't think we'd have it again; it was sheep's cheese and the flavour was quite strong and salty.

The entire time we ate we were watched by the restaurant cat, who clearly fancied a bit of Travnik Schnitzel himself. His strategy of pestering us eventually paid off, when the waiter gave in and brought him some food

The entire meal, including pudding and coffee, only cost us around £27  Bosnia is definitely good value!

We walked back down to where we'd parked and set off towards Jajce.

It took us a bit longer to get to Jajce than I'd anticipated. The maps app on my phone plotted a route which was very scenic.

Admiring the scenery we felt like we were somewhere Alpine rather than in Bosnia.

However, after a while the route became a bit too scenic, when the app decided that the quickest way to get to Jajce would be on an unpaved road through the hills! We promptly turned around and headed back to the main road, which was nicely tarmacked and eventually got us to Jajce just before 5pm.

We're staying in an apartment here for two nights, for the bargain price of EUR 88 in total. We've got a really nice living room and kitchen...

...although the bedroom is a bit on the small side.

For €44/night we can't really complain, though