This summer we wanted to try something a bit different. At the time I’m writing this, summer’s already gone, but that won’t stop us from sharing a billion photos we took while it lasted. We usually spend our holidays at the Adriatic coast, but lately rivers and woods became our thing. Our friends were telling us about the Una river in Bosnia, we made an arrangement with them the very same day and started planning.

Fast forward to Mlin – a restaurant at the entrance to the town of Bihać. It’s a family restaurant which in the past grinded wheat, corn, barley, rye, oats, etc. for the the population. It was renovated before the World War II, and redeveloped into a restaurant in the 90’s. This is the spot which you don’t wanna miss if you’re headed this way – the food is great, and the environment is very enjoyable as you can see.

The place is simply crowded with ducks and fish, although you don’t see any on this photos.

Turkish coffee, or as they call it “domaća kava” (homemade coffee). Or “ukrasna kava” (decorative coffee) as Vedran calls it. Very good, five stars.

Random tourists trying to Instagram.

This is the place we stayed at, and as far as we know this is maybe the best option if you’re planning to stay in Martin Brod. We rented the ground floor, which has two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen / dining room. It’s not big, but it’s more than enough if you’re spending most of the time outside. Besides that, it has a really big yard with a fireplace, and they are also planning to build a pool (hush-hush).

The fly fishers. Here it’s not allowed to fish, except for the fly fishing.

An orthodox monastery of Rmanj, from 1498. It’s situated just below the house we stayed at.

A big waterfall in Martin Brod.

A suspension bridge over the river. On both sides you can enjoy a view with waterfalls.

We discovered a small family restaurant nearby called “Kod Zore”. You can’t be too picky in Martin Brod, there’s only a few places where you can eat outside, and we got hooked on this one, mostly because of the fresh trout they serve every day.

Sugar on a plate 😀 This is baklava, a traditional Bosnian cake with walnuts and honey. We thought it will bee too sweet for us, so we decided to split one piece. Good stuff.

Let me introduce you to a place called Čardaklije – it’s an ethno village where you can find a home made food (bunny from the photo above not included), accomodation, various home made products etc.

Another homemade coffee tasting.

I love the whole process of preparing that kind of coffee, it’s just not meant to be sipped right away, but enjoy.

Peek-a-boo.

A walk to the top of the hill to church with medieval tombstones.

On the way uphill we ran into a flock of sheep. Some of them were frightened, some of them looked at us suspiciously, we didn’t know what they were up to… pretty confusing situation for all of us.

Mushrooms.

And yes, at Čardaklije you can even ride horses. Or you can feed them with sugar and make instant friends with them.

Vedran couldn’t help himself… we can’t just go on holiday and enjoy it doing mostly nothing, he has to invent new projects, even with the one and only tool he got. Leatherman saved the day again.

If you still don’t know what this should be, fast forward to a picture below.

Like a true hunter, Vedran caught a package of sausages hiding in the fridge all this time. This was our favorite activity almost every evening

Not sure if we ever saw the clearest sky – this was an attempt to photograph the starry sky. Not great, not terrible I would say.

A view from the house.

A bridge to Kulen-Vakuf. Yes, this is the main bridge to enter the town, and I must say we hesitate a bit before we drove over with a car 😀

Finding this little stool in front of a local market was an unique opportunity to make a group photo.

The clash of the chess titans.

Auto – camp BUK, which is also a rafting center. We didn’t go rafting, though, the river temperature was freezing, although it was a very hot summer.

Vedran took a chance and jumped few times into the river to get a refreshment. There were actually kids who literally spent the whole day at this little waterfall, jumping into the river or sitting on the rocks. Crazy.

We also made some new friends.

Who still decided to stay ashore

Josip took a chance to see if he can catch us a dinner.

But we were more interested in this cozy restaurant place. You can see it on the picture above, it’s on the right side of the bridge.

Some skulls and other decoration.

A fireplace.

Another trout, or as they call it: pastrmka.

We went to see the mystical tunnel the locals were telling us about – it was actually one of two tunnels that were built for the purpose of making the railroad, but after the tragic accident in another one, the works stopped.

Another day, another river crossing.

Here you can see a fine specimen of a swamp siren.

At least we didn’t run out of wooden sticks, because Vedran’s new project was to build some kind of a wizard walking / fighting stick, and decorate it with a special Bosnian tufa stone. This project is still in the process.

Our host wanted to show us the river spring – this was our last full day in Martin Brod, and it seemed like a cool idea. Some time before, there was a trail through the forest, along the fish farm, but today this trail is pretty overgrown in vegetation, so it’s not functional anymore. The only way you can get on the trail is to pass through the fish farm, which is actually forbidden for the random tourists, but if you come with locals, that’s ok.

The look from the above.

City kids

The crew. And yes, our guide / host wore Crocs the whole time, which deserves respect, because the terrain was pretty wild.

Yogi Bear cave.

Our guide told us that there will be some river crossing, but we took it pretty casual, till the moment we actually had to cross it. Needles to say it was so cold it literally hurt. I went last.

Lonely island.

First, we tried to cross it barefoot. It was a horrible experience 😀

Saving private Pavlek. The terrain was quite steep in some places, so I needed a little push.

Here it is – the water spring Unac. You could see the water rising in some places, through the sand.

Two frozen herons.

Yep. We weren’t sure who lost his head at this place.

And finally – the river pool. It was kind of an oasis in the middle of the jungle – at this part, the river stays pretty warm, the water is crystal clear, and when you step over the stones, you get to walk through to a fine sand. Just beautiful.

Water lilies having the time of their lives.

This is the view we were looking for. The river, the mountains, the ultimate silence.

On the way back.

At this point we decided to cross the river with our hiking boots on. Highly recommended, it wasn’t so cold and you could stay in the river just as long to take a selfie like we did.

A monkey. Believe it or not, holding for this little tree is the only way you can cross this part of the path.

Channeling Ace Ventura.

All along the river you could smell different kind of herbs, but the mint scent was so strong we had to pick some and take it home.

Instagram crossing.

Coming down.

This is an old ambulance which works only one day a week, so you have to be careful about timing your illness or injuries.

A bat.

Passage.

Just look at next three photos 😀 Everybody experiencing his own zen.

Enough of this zen thing, let’s go climbing.

Last evening in Martin Brod.

On the way back, we stopped to see a few bridges.

This one was demolished in the war, but they didn’t repair the damage completely. It’s still functional, though.

Another railway bridge.

We didn’t want to go straight home, so we stopped at a place called Japodski otoci (Japodian Islands) – a camp on the river where you can enjoy nature, homemade food, camping etc.