We Do Adventure

Today I did a quick 'there and back again' to Sarajevo. This was made all the quicker by the completion of another section of motorway since the last time I made the trip; that was mid-May, if my memory serves me right. It's strange to think that the six-and-a-month gap between that trip and today's represents my longest absence from the city in the last five years. We arrived to wintery-cold in the country's capital on Thursday 29 th November 2007, on a now discontinued BA flight from London, at the start of our first trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since then large parts of the city have become familiar stomping grounds. But while we can look forward to faster journeys to Sarajevo in the future we are unlikely to see any change to times to Mostar. Geography dictates the winding mountain roads are unlikely to ever be widened. We are taking some of the young people who attend Novi Most activities in Jajce to Mostar this weekend. The temptation is to try to ...

The other day the M40 cropped up in a conversation with a friend. We discovered we have differing views on this sweeping stretch of motorway that connects London and Birmingham. I used to look forward to it as a relatively congestion-free chance to actually drive after grinding around the M25. She was too aware of the accident statistics people playing this kind of catch-up caused to ever enjoy using it. At 89 miles long, or 143.2 kilometres, the M40 alone provides almost exactly double the amount of motorway capacity that the entire country of Bosnia and Herzegovina has. It is a country with only two sections of motorway: around 40 kilometres between the mid-Bosnian towan of Kakanj and Sarajevo, and around 30 kilometres heading north from Banja Luka to Gradiska, on the border with Croatia. I have driven both sections end-to-end several times. The good news is more is on its way. BiH's Federation government has just signed an agreement worth 115 million euros with a...