A couple of days before I was going to start traveling again in April I decided to follow up on some of the plans I had. I had a second stop in BiH (short for Bosnia and Herzegovina) in the town of Konjic. While I fill in the details in the itinerary it seems like it is going to be difficult to do the things I want to do here without a car. Additionally it seems like the town is light on the activities if you don’t count river rafting (and it is a bit off season to do that). I attempt to move the days I had allocated to the two other stops I have in BiH but with it is getting too complicated to change things and I am running out out of time; I decided to keep things as they are for now.

Come to find out my intuition was correct. This town would have been better for me to visit as a day trip instead of an overnight. They don’t really seem to be set up for tourism right now because either it is off season or covid decimated the tourism industry. There is a lack of dining options and entertainment. The one big attraction I do see is almost a mishap: Tito’s Bunker. For Tito’s bunker luckily a local tourism office helps me with a taxi despite neither of us speaking each other’s languages (it is too difficult to walk there – believe me I thought about walking the 6 km). In addition one restaurant I try to dine at makes me feel really stupid for being there. I know I am part of the problem because I come into the country not knowing the language but most waiters are gracious and just hand me a menu and it works well enough. The waiter in this restaurant looks at me like he is not willing to work with me at all, no menu, nothing, so I walk out embarrassed. This situation is not repeated at other restaurants but I guess I need a situation to humble me once in a while. I really would like to learn local languages but the way I travel makes it impossible. I visit way too many countries. Learning a few phrases is all I can handle most of the time.

Despite all that above, it is a lovely town. It is almost like a Swiss town in the middle of the Balkans. There is a beautiful river and beautiful mountains in the distance. My rental is a basement apartment rented by the lovely man and his wife who live above. Today he gave me a homemade baklava made by the wife – Bosnian style with walnuts.

My second day I visit the main attraction Tito’s Bunker, the bunker created during the Cold War by the very popular Yugoslav leader President Josip Broz Tito (died 1980) . Construction started in secret ( even to the local community) in the 1950’s and completed in 1979. It’s construction cost $4.6 billion to construct (more than $20 billion today). It is no wonder why Yugoslavia was under financial collapse. It was kept open until 1992 but never used for its purpose. It was closed during the war in the 1990’s. It was only rediscovered in 2011 and shortly after opened for tours. This place is nice to visit because it is a well preserved relic of the Cold War era due to being forgotten for so long. I really enjoy my visit here. You can only visit by a prearranged tour. Fortunately they have tours In English. Along with the well preserved rooms there are also recent related art installations scattered around. Luckily the travel agency that books this visit also arranges my transportation to and from here because there is no public buses to get here.

I arrive back in town and walk around for the evening. There isn’t much else to do so I suppose it is good I am leaving tomorrow morning by train to Mostar. It’s a pretty town but maybe too sleepy for me.