Day 30: Ivo Andric Museum and Arrival in Banja Luka

6/5/22

Our 8 hours on the road was pretty uneventful.

We stopped at the Ivo Andric museum, which is a library to all his works and history of his very eventful life. For a literature bug, this would be the place to see. Andric is a pride for all of former Yugoslavia, and he is respected and admired by all regardless of their ethnicity for his work's depiction of ethnic relations and history.

Notably for me, the house picture features a wisteria, and there is one, presumably the same one based on its maturity and location, in the same spot. Cool detail :-)

I pass the time by writing these blogs or listening to Lore, my favorite podcast about dark history/true crime. It's very interesting and uncovers stories from parts of history most people have never heard. Would recommend 100%. Each episode is different, so if one isn't for you, just give another one a chance. Aaron Mankhe also has the nicest voice.

We then arrived in Banja Luka, the largest city in Republika Srpska, the Serbian part of Bosnia.

There is a new Orthodox Cathedral of impressive size right at the center. It was reconstructed after the first one in this spot was destroyed. This bell tower more than likely stands this tall as a statement of power.

At lunch I found a cool looking snail and got really excited about it, but was hard pressed to find anyone who wanted to see it. Big sad. He's a cute lil guy with a pretty shell.

In general, Banja Luka looks like almost any central European town.

Being exhausted from the day of travel, we saved the rest of our energy for the next day. I worked on my blog in the patio downstairs of the hostel since there was internet there.

Tomorrow will be interesting- we are meeting a very unique character, who is in fact sanctioned by the US.

Ćao for now!