We Do Adventure

AVNOJ stands for Antifašističko Vijeće Narodnog Oslobođenja Jugoslavije, or Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia. If you were to take a visit to the AVNOJ museum in Jajce – and understand enough of the different languages the information panels are written in – you would come away with the impression that the establishing of Yugoslavia was a very organised affair. I've not come across anything to suggest this wasn't actually the case. That this organisation happened under occupation, while fighting a resistance movement is impressive. It provided the basis for a establishing a country that lasted fifty years, give or take. Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the meeting in Jajce that saw Yugoslavia signed into existence. Today more people will pass through the museum's doors than probably will on any other day of the year. The local news are reporting more than a thousand visitors in town for today's commemorative events. We went out ear...

Today we took a snowy Sunday afternoon stroll. Partly it was to walk off a generously proportioned late lunch but mostly it was to see the waterfall; we've been back in Jajce over a month and had thus far failed to pay it a visit. It is still there, still looking good. So good I would have been posting a wonderfully wintery picture here. However, it was upstaged by this recently installed tourist sign. Clearly the sign cannot compete with the waterfalls as a thing of beauty. But it highlights what is a surprisingly common problem with tourist signs in this part of the world: poor English translations. This is even more noticeable now we can read the local language. We know what they're trying to say. All too often it is lost in awkward translation. This sign is advertising Jajce as a "museum under the open sky" - something the town genuinely is - and is sponsored by two international agencies. However the English translation is clumsy and, in one section, part mis...

Tomorrow, Saturday, is the big AVNOJ commemoration here in Jajce, remembering the founding of Yugoslavia on 29th November 1943. ( AVNOJ stands for Antifašističko Vijeće Narodnog Oslobođenja Jugoslavije or the Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia.) We were asked to be part of proceedings again. Last year we gave an enthusiastic performance of some ex-Yu rock songs (plus a few international numbers) as part of the organised programme of events from the stage outside the AVNOJ Museum. And so, with a slightly-rejigged line-up, we will reprise the spirit of that performance tomorrow. The stage is set - I photographed it earlier today - it just remains for us to turn up early in the morning and hope it isn't too cold for guitar playing fingers!