Cows and Colors - Bjelasnica

I love October! There is a part of it called Michael's Summer and it lasts ten days of that beautiful month. You have to be prepared and ready for, 'cause it's easy to miss it. Sometimes you are to early and sometimes is late and Michael's Summer is already left.
But, if your timing is well, then the award is special and unrepeatable. Anyone who loves red, yellow blue and brown will enjoy these ten days, of course if hit right place and right part of the day.
We are again on Bjelasnica olympic mountain, some 30 km from Sarajevo. Weather is nice and warm, elevation about 1000 meters. Near small mountain village, two girls are posing just for me.

These girls knows what is healthy life on a clear air and good vegetarian food.

They have a friend who also decided to pose for me. He perfectly fits to the autumn atmosphere.

Winter is close, so the clouds are in scouting mission, low and quiet, searching the best place for their rest and final mission. In just few weeks snow cover will reach about one meter deep. Nature and residents are ready for it.

Lake above the clouds

Have you ever been above the clouds, but still on the ground?
There is a lake named Prokosko, only 60 km from Sarajevo, in the Vranica mountain. It's central Bosnia, heart of the country and old kingdom of Bosnia. Road is not so fine, but that explain why is this place preserved and so natural.
If you decide to visit it, be prepared for wild and beauty forest, with several streams before you reach the lake at the top.

Lake is with clear, drinking water, with a small village around it. Here is possible to eat some domestic food prepared on a traditional way. Altitude is 1.6 km so the appetite is just great. Meat pie is even better if you drink yogurt from the host pantry.

Hiking is possible in any direction, simply choose you way and enjoy variety of pure and unique environment. With enough luck, maybe it's possible to find some endemics of your own. Plant or insect named by you, you never know!

 



The Forest

Ok, we already know that I am big fun of forest of any kind and anywhere. It's not important is it a green one in May or a gray one in November. I like it very much, especially with different collors. But what the most I like about the forest is a peaceful space, full of silence. That's the silence you can feel it almost with your fingers and take it with a breath inside your lungs.

I am not sure when I start to hate noise. Actually, I've never loved it at all.
Natural sounds of birds, streams and leaves on a trees is the only music we shoud listen. Everything else is attack on our senses. Matrix we live makes us indifferent. It's time to wake up.

Deer Lake - somewhere behind the mountain mirror

What is enough to be happy and satisfied in the autumn afternoon? Newspapers, coffee? Or a short trip to Sarajevo's neighbourhood mountain. Come to the end of road, walk a while, enjoy fresh air, smell of late autumn and shoot a few pictures.
First an old forest, stronger than thousand winds and storms. Home of good dwarfs.

Lake is mountain eye, a mirror where this beauty find its place, every day and morning.

I discovered a place for myself when colours left, but still it was a nice and inspiring. Didn't see any of deer (name of the lake). Just one extremely clever dog, came to check us and protect his sheeps.

 



Skies are Limit?

I love to visit different places. Most of all love to come somewhere without a sound nearby. Usually those places are very high, sometimes above clouds.

Lovćen is one of these. It's not in Bosnia, you will have to go more to the south, Montenegro. You can find some snow here even in the May. Remember that Adriatic is only 100 kilometres from there.

Jezernica

It was just an ordinary day when my friends pick me up for a "short" trip, some 50 kilometres from Sarajevo, to the heart of Bosnia. You pass Fojnica and then up to hill for a few additional miles.
After 15 minutes just turn off the engine, get out of the car and feel the forest silence. No traffic sounds, horns and buzzing of thousands vehicles, with different frequencies and intensities.
A few birds singing and a streamlet jumping over rocks old as time.
Everyone needs at least half an hour of this silence per day. Not possible in these days, but we should be happy that places with natural silence still exist and they are not so far from us.