Day 1/3: On Friday my wife and I started our first international tour this year. This was also the first tour with my Rocket and our new luggage for my wife's bike. In the morning we headed to the border to Hungary in the South of Austria under Bad weather conditions. About 8-10 degrees celsius and lots of fog and very high humidity. This situation lasted luckily only for one hour, than the weather cleared up like it was forecasted. In Hungary we made a short stop to undress parts of our warm clothes. The rest of our in sum 500 kilometers journey to Banja Luka in Bosnia was fine. Only stormy wind accompanied us the complete way down there. Through Hungary we used A - and B-roads until the border crossing to Croatia. But we had to pay a vignette in advance for the usage of the Hungarian A-roads. Due to the fact that Croatia is also in the "Schengen-Treaty" since 2024 we had no controls and we're able to pass the border without losing any time. Croatia we crossed by using highways only. For them you have to pay some moderate toll fees. At the border to Bosnia we faced a backlog at the border in the length of more than 8 kilometres. But we are bikers and therefore we passed the queue on the centre line of the street. We came until about 1,5 kilometres to the border crossing without any problems and then my wife, who was riding in front, was stopped by the police. Oh, oh! I was expecting bad news when I arrived also at the control post, but everything went fine for us! The police men told us to ride with our bikes a small street to pass the rest of the queue to reach the border crossing immediately. This was a very nice "order" from them! A few minutes later we reached the border crossing and had only about 8 cars in front of us!!! We were well prepared after our past Balkan travels and therefore we had our passports and the papers of the bikes available to present. So we lost no further time and we're able to enter Bosnia about half an hour later. In Bosnia we used a mixture of A-, B-roads and a highway to reach Banja Luka. After a riding time of 5:33 we stopped in front of our hotel in the centre Banja Luka. After some unpacking and refreshing we started a shopping tour in the near vicinity of our hotel. In Bosnia you can by clothes to very good prices. But we had always to keep our reduced transport capacity in our minds. After a fruitful shopping we went back to our hotel to store there our new stuff. A few minutes later we headed to a great restaurant for our dinner. 3 courses and some wines later we ended our day in our hotel. The first short stop in Hungary. An interesting office building on our way to the restaurant. Nice pathways through the governmental part of Banja Luka. The restaurant "Mala Stanica" in a historical train station. Some nice decorations in the restaurant. A beef salad called "Spicy Dublin". A special variant of "Bruschetta". Warm chocolate cake with a fluid center! Some nice parts of Banja Luka.
Day 2/3: After a refreshing night we headed to our breakfast room in our hotel and we're really surprised!!! In a hall the breakfast was offered in a huge buffet. Many local warm dishes, fresh fruits and salads, cereals and also some international dishes were available. We enjoyed it! With filled stomachs we started a tour through the surroundings of Banja Luka. Lovely scenarios, great views and interesting streets are available there. With our bikes we did a short pit stop to get them clean again and the chain of my wife's bike after the rainy conditions maintained. We tried to ride a with our navi-app pre-planned tour through a mountainous area, but we had to stop at a specific point, because the Yamaha XSR 900 of my wife and my Rocket have no off-road skills. Therefore we tried to reach the civilization again and took afterwards some more ridable roads. When we reached the valley of the Vrbas-river we stopped at a "special" place. In the internet we had found a "hot spring" area, which we wanted to visit. We were prepared and had taken our bathing equipment with us and tested the area. It was very nice there. On some terrasses basins with a direct connection of a small "river" are flooded with warm water of the hot spring. We spent a greatful and recreationial time there!!! After about one hour we headed back along a great B-road directly next to the river to Banja Luka. Back in Banja Luka we did a nice walk through the old town and enjoyed some coffee and cake and also some nice snacks there. The "breakfast hall". One of 6 offered buffet options! My on her bike. Some great views of the area. Our "dead end" of the road. Some more views of our route.
So nice to see Banja Luka looking so peaceful, I spent many weeks there but it was in the mid 90's and not so free
Second part of day 2: The river "Vrbas" from a great view point. The way down to the "hot spring" area. Some impressions of the hot spring possibilities. Some impressions of our walk through the old town of Banja Luka.
Some more impressions of the old town. Modern art Day 3/3: After another breakfast we did a real "summer ride" back home and reached our home after crossing parts of four countries. It was a great journey again. This time we had no waiting times at any borders and so we were able to ride the whole distance in about 5 hours of riding time. In sum we did 1.143 km and had many great experiences. The Rocket fuel consumption was about 5,8 to 5,95 litres/100 km for the whole tour. Due to the wind situations and our highway usage I am very satisfied with this consumption. Thanks for following my report.
Wow, @Markus, what a grand tour! I loved all of your photos. What a beautiful area. Thanks for sharing your trip with us!
