IT WAS ONLY, FIVE HOURS ON THE BUS TO TUZLA

October 2023. Belgrade, Serbia to Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Public transport in Serbia seemed very efficient. Prompt departures, easy-to-use ticket machines, spotless train loos, comfy seats.

That’s the trains, anyway. Buses are a different beast.

Gorgeous frontage,

but Belgrade’s bus terminus was chaotic and fraught with tension as we tried to first find, then board, the 3 5 hours bus trip over the Bosnian border.

We needed to buy a separate platform ticket (only 80p, but still) to be allowed to board our coach, which pleasingly had a non-operational toilet on board. So it was a good job I’d only had the one espresso.

An observation about the trip; Serbia’s countryside west of the capital is flat and agricultural, but the long wooden houses lining those farming villages are quite something.

Lots of great churches,

but a few yards further on this residential block in Hrtkovci was the winner.

At the border you have to leave the coach twice to get your passport stamped out by Serbia and in by Bosnia, and there was a slight worry that the Kosovan stamp would come back to haunt me. But no.

Bosnia looks immediately more modern, and hillier, and the bends more stomach churning.

Gojsovac provides the first Orthodox highlight in the diatance.

But enough culture. Having boarded at 08:58 it’s 13:58 when we decide to exit the coach before it’s terminus, and have late lunch in Tuzla’s brewery.

If there’s a joy about arriving in a place about which you know nothing, that joy is amplified when your first stop is an actual brewery tap like the Pivnica.

There’s a few business folk having a late lunch, but otherwise only a handful of drinkers, though at least they’re not queuing.

Nice enough old place, if not quite a Cologne brauhaus, though we did hear an actual phone ring.

Three choices of beer; Pilsner, Pilsner unfiltered, and Crno.

The service, at first efficient but not effusive, livens up when Mrs RM demands a pint of the dunkel, and the lone English speaker is summoned from the kitchen.

I should at this point apologise on behalf of our nation that we learnt no Serbian or Bosnian before our trip, and mangled the basic words (“please”, “thank you”, “bap”, “beer”).

But they could tell we loved their homebrew, especially the unfiltered pilsner, and if there’s a better way to consume your entire calories for the week than on these kebabs, chips, onion and fluffy bread I’ve yet to come across it.

We didn’t eat again till morning.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

16 thoughts on “IT WAS ONLY, FIVE HOURS ON THE BUS TO TUZLA”

    1. Is it “Dunkle” ? I didn’t even know it was called that as I asked for the dark beer.

      It was cool and rich but not as thick as you’d get in the best German pubs, but the unfiltered Pilsner was good.

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      3. I wonder how far the tradition of brewing German-style beers goes back round there. They were part of the the Austro-Hungarian Empire along with Pilsen, Prague, Vienna and Budweis until the end of World War I.

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  2. Nice building, but those Roman numerals do have me wondering how those same Romans ever did long division and more?

    All those folks living next door to one another but using different alphabets can only ever have been trouble too. “Sorry, I got your post but opened it because I didn’t know”

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    2. I think 1888 would have been the longest year in roman numerals, which might be why snow fell across Britain on 11th July.
      We should remember that giving us numerals that aren’t numbers is what the Romans did for us. .

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      4. Nettles and hops are both of the Rosales order of plants so there could have been confusion between them.

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