BiH

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As we left Vienna it drizzled rain and during the train trip to Zagreb, through Slovenia, there were spotted showers. We had to change trains a Zudani Most - an interesting little out of the way place where not much happens. We overnighted in Zagreb - the architecture there has a very strong Austrian influence from its time under their rule. We got a bit wet walking to the train in the morning and again we travelled through rain showers on our way to Banja Luka in Bosnia Hercegovnia. Even though it was raining the scenery was spectacular, green lush, deep valleys, high mountains and little villages. We had lengthy stops at border crossings and Sam must have looked very suspicious as her luggage was subject to a thorough search - much to the disgust of our fellow train passengers. The customs official commented on the good quality of the bottle of wine in her luggage.

When we arrived at Banja Luka there weren't many people who spoke English. We managed to find a place to stay (with English speaking reception) - Tony's grasp of Croatian was not as good as he though it was.

The next day we left with a travel guide who took us on the hunt to find Tony's parents places of birth. We only had old maps and the road signage here is in Cyrillic. In an amazing chain of events when we stopped to ask for directions to Tony's fathers town we actually found the woman we were talking to was Tony's cousin!!!! In a little while we were at his aunt's place meeting six other cousins and their families who were visiting from Italy. They took us to where Tony's father and sister were born, a small cemetary where grandparents, great aunts and uncles, uncles and aunts were buried and the church where his parents were married.

We also found where Tony's mother was born but unfortunately the area was heavily bombed during the war and we could only see ruins.

We will be visiting the family in Italy when we travel through. It really was such an incredible reunion.

We explored Banja Luka on May Day and then caught the train through to Ploce in Croatia.

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