The spring of the river Tihaljina (photography ) / Izvor rijeke Tihaljine (fotografija)

Have I saved the best for last? I'll let you be the judge of that. This is my third and last post  (links for the first one and the second one ) from Peć Mlini and today I'll show you the spring of the river Tihaljina. This freshwater spring is absolutely beautiful. I was even fortunate enough to see a freshwater crab there, but unfortunately I don't know its scientific name. In vain I researched the internet, the name of this freshwater crab will remain a mystery to me. Nevertheless, it is another indication of how pure this water really is. Perfect place for a swim, my friends assured me!

Do you remember my posts about Trebižad river?  Anyhow, according to wikipedia, because of the fact that Trebižad river disappears and reappears many times, people have developed a total of nine names for it.In the past they didn't know it is one and the same river. Tihaljina is just one of those names. Isn't that fascinating?  Another fascinating information is that the area surrounding this magnificent water oasis was populated since the prehistorical times. Actually, it makes perfect sense. Who wouldn't want to live here?

Peć Mlini is in fact a part of the village Drinovci, located in BIH near the border with Croatia. The name of Peć Mlini, as fellow blogger +beate grigutsch  noticed, can mean 'furnace mills'. In Croatian 'peć' means furnace (or stove/ oven) but it can also be short for 'cave' i.e. pećina. I can't claim to know for sure the etimology of this name, but I think it is possible that in this case it can also mean the later because the spring of the Tihaljina river is as you can see located in a cave. In the first post, you had the chance to observe the ruins of one mill and in the second post I've included so many photograps that I decided to refrain from writing. This third post wraps it all up. I will repeat once again that I recommend visiting this place. Keep it in mind!

Jesam li sačuvala najbolje za kraj? Na vama je da prosudite. Ovo je moja zadnja objava o zaselku Peć Mlini (zaselku Drinovaca). U prijašnjim objavama pokazala sam pregršt fotografija pa i ruševine jednog mlina , a danas ću vam pokazati izvor vode. Izvor voda je tako čista da sam čak vidjela i riječnog raka, ali unatoč pretraživanju interneta, nisam uspjela pronaći njegovo znanstveno ime. Lokalno ga zovu škorpion i stvarno je divan, a ujedno još jedan pokazatelj čistoće vode... Ova je voda savršena za plivanje i rashladiti se, tako su mi rekli i ja to vjerujem mada se nisam odvažila.

Na internetu sam pronašla podatak da je rijeka Tihaljina zapravo samo jedno od imena rijeke Trebižad. Sjećate se mojih objava o ovoj rijeci? Pošto Trebižad izvire i nestaje nekoliko puta, narod ga poznaje pod čak devet imena. Zar to nije zanimljivo? Jednako mi je zanimljiv i podatak da je područje oko ove vodene oaze bilo naseljeno još od prapovijesnih vremena.

Ime ovog zaselka Drinovaca sigurno ime veze s mlinovima. Ruševinu jednog mlina mogli ste vidjeti u prvoj objavi. No, nisam sigurna na što se "peć" u nazivu odnosu. Možda se odnosi na peć, a možda je i skraćeno za "pećina" pošto je izvor kao što možete vidjeti u pećini. U svakom slučaju preporučila bi vam posjetiti ovo mjesto. 

For some reason, this place made me think of Byron's poetry, so here's his poem Dream.

THE DREAM

---

I.

Our life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their developement have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of Joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being;[35] they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,10
And look like heralds of Eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past,—they speak
Like Sibyls of the future; they have power—
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not—what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,[36]
The dread of vanished shadows—Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow?—What are they?
Creations of the mind?—The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own20[34]
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.[37]
I would recall a vision which I dreamed
Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.[38]

II.

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,30
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs;—the hill
Was crowned with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing—the one on all that was beneath40
Fair as herself—but the Boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young—yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The Maid was on the eve of Womanhood;
The Boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one belovéd face on earth,
And that was shining on him: he had looked
Upon it till it could not pass away;50
He had no breath, no being, but in hers;
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,[35]
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,[i][39]
For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,
Which coloured all his objects:—he had ceased
To live within himself; she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,[40]
Which terminated all: upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,[41]
And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart60
Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother—but no more; 'twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him;
Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honoured race.[42]—It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not—and why?
Time taught him a deep answer—when she loved70
Another: even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed[43]
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

[36]

 

III.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned:
Within an antique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake;—he was alone,[44]
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon80
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned
His bowed head on his hands, and shook as 'twere
With a convulsion—then arose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears.
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-entered there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet90
She knew she was by him beloved—she knew,
For quickly comes such knowledge,[45] that his heart
Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o'er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,100
For they did part with mutual smiles; he passed
From out the massy gate of that old Hall,[37]
And mounting on his steed he went his way;
And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more.[46]

IV.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his Soul drank their sunbeams: he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea110
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined walls that had survived the names
Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fastened near a fountain; and a man120
Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumbered around:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in Heaven.[47]

V.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love was wed with One[38]
Who did not love her better:—in her home,
A thousand leagues from his,—her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,130
Daughters and sons of Beauty,—but behold!
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.[48]
What could her grief be?—she had all she loved,
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?—she had loved him not,140
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,
Nor could he be a part of that which preyed
Upon her mind—a spectre of the past.

VI.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was returned.—I saw him stand
Before an Altar—with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The Starlight[49] of his Boyhood;—as he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock[50]150[39]
That in the antique Oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then—
As in that hour—a moment o'er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced,—and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reeled around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been—
But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,160
And the remembered chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour
And her who was his destiny, came back
And thrust themselves between him and the light:
What business had they there at such a time?

VII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love;—Oh! she was changed
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes170
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The Queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;[40]
And forms, impalpable and unperceived
Of others' sight, familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise
Have a far deeper madness—and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?180
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real![j][51]

VIII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compassed round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mixed
In all which was served up to him, until,190
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,[52]
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,[41]
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains:[53] with the stars
And the quick Spirit of the Universe[54]
He held his dialogues; and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;
To him the book of Night was opened wide,
And voices from the deep abyss revealed[55]200
A marvel and a secret—Be it so.

IX.

My dream was past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality—the one
To end in madness—both in misery.

SOME POETRY FROM TIN UJEVIĆ, A CROATIAN POET

CITED FROM https://www.sic-journal.org/Article/Index/139

Daily Lament

How hard it is not to be strong,
how hard it is to be alone,
and to be old, yet to be young!

and to be weak, and powerless,
alone, with no one anywhere,
dissatisfied, and desperate.

And trudge bleak highways endlessly,
and to be trampled in the mud,
with no star shining in the sky.

Without your star of destiny
to play its twinklings on your crib
with rainbows and false prophecies.

– Oh God, oh God, remember all
the glittering fair promises
with which you have afflicted me.

Oh God, oh God, remember all
the great loves, the great victories,
the wreaths of laurel and the gifts.

And know you have a son who walks
the weary valleys of the world
among sharp thorns, and rocks and stones,

through unkindness and unconcern,
with his feet bloodied under him,
and with his heart an open wound.

His bones are full of weariness,
his soul is ill at ease and sad,
and he’s neglected and alone,

and sisterless, and brotherless,
and fatherless, and motherless,
with no one dear, and no close friend,

and he has no-one anywhere
except thorn twigs to pierce his heart
and fire blazing from his palms.

Lonely and utterly alone
under the hemmed in vault of blue,
on dark horizons of high seas.

Who can he tell his troubles to
when no-one’s there to hear his call,
not even brother wanderers.

Oh God, you sear your burning word
too hugely through this narrow throat
and throttle it inside my cry.

And utterance is a burning stake,
though I must yell it out, I must,
or, like a kindled log, burn out.

Just let me be a bonfire on
a hill, just one breath in the fire,
if not a scream hurled from the roofs.

Oh God, let it be over with,
this miserable wandering
under a vault as deaf as stone.

Because I crave a powerful word,
because I crave an answering voice,
someone to love, or holy death.

For bitter is the wormwood wreath
and deadly dark the poison cup,
so burn me, blazing summer noon.

For I am sick of being weak,
and sick of being all alone
(seeing I could be hale and strong)

and seeing that I could be loved),
but I am sick, sickest of all
to be so old, yet still be young!

Star on High

He loves no less who does not waste his words,
but asks and cares too much, though seeming dumb,
and his whole scope of loving (like a crumb
of bread to feed to hungry teeth), he hoards,
preserving it to give some star on high –
his soul, his heart, his distant destiny.

His silence says: in this world’s alien loneliness,
flowers and sonnets occupy my dreams,
with plant-pots perched on seasoned wooden beams –
our poverty’s pure, simple lines of loveliness.
beneath the veil of day and night’s clean blue,
I’m dreaming: I shall come, I’ll come for you.

Cited from 

https://www.sic-journal.org/Article/Index/139

From The Necklace (1926)

I

Come closer, darkness, lay your hand
across the horizon’s wilderness
and cover all of no man’s land
with secrecy and cloudiness.

Come closer, dusky haziness
till midnight thickens through the whole
wide world with dreams and drowsiness,
and while it sleeps, sing – from the soul.

V

These words – ripe harvests of black light,
these songs – ripened in silence – reach
cracked and bursting from deep night –
like beggared hands outstretched, beseech –

I’m no poet, but I do know pain –
so I must love my human hurt.
So, from my tears, I’ll braid a chain
to ornament a dowry shirt.

– With pearl and coins of minted gold
worth more than any poet wrote –
if only, my beloved child,
you’ll wear my necklace at your throat.

XI

Blessed morning, you cascade
roaring lightfalls in this room.
How can pain make me afraid,
dead already, in my tomb?

Well, perhaps you can ignite
buried sparks from ash and dust
since the lilac and the light
still swell longing in your breast.

When I lift your veil, you show
lines of quiet, forms of grace
in shelves of books, row on row –
then the whole room’s careworn face.

And yet, there’s something still I miss
from this crib without a cross,
a smile upon dear lips, the kiss
of flowers in a waterglass.

Blessed morning, while you dress
this room in your translucent robe,
I have no fear of death’s caress.
Only give love back to this Job.

XIV

Amid the pressing milling throng
without a guide and fatherless.
I’ve lived alone and groaned too long:
groans bear my seal of hopefulness.

I hunted every sound and sight,
I gladly parcelled out my soul,
I flexed my bow, my aim was right,
and every shot attained its goal.

I blazed to give out more to all,
with light my letter, God my trust,
and my own spirit criminal
if thorn and bramble were my crust.

But now the dreariest to end
all things is, in this dreary hell,
my spirit’s dead – my oldest friend –
and I a cracked and empty bell.

XVIII

Each smile strikes a fresh flare ablaze,
each word, sharp as a gunshot, sounds
into our breasts, torn many ways,
in through our hearts’ constricted grounds.

We dream green pastures, where peace shines,
hearthsmoke misting in blue breeze,
clustered grapes strung on their vines,
and deep sad summer-ripened seas.

We weep whole babbling mountain springs,
for moss of secret haunt and hollow,
and when done with such sorrowings
yearn for cleaner tears to follow.

Our pain is endless, like the wail
of mourners at some village death,
and misery, like alcohol,
sears fire, fire, on my every breath.

Each smile strikes a fresh flare ablaze,
each word, sharp as a gunshot, sounds
into our breasts, torn many ways,
in through our hearts’ constricted grounds.

XX

Listen how in this perfumed dark
our nerves’ thin wires are twanged to flame
as if struck by a nettle’s spark.
For wounding us, they’ll take the blame.

In this deep hush, with glory filled,
our epic dawn sets, lost from view,
yet vision from this strife is spilled
through the green ranks of the avenue.

The beauty of our grieving frays,
its splendid silk and velvet folds
like dewy rainbows, fade in haze,
fringed like the moon in blues and golds.

Listen how in this perfumed dark
our nerves’ thin wires are twanged to flame
as if struck by a nettle’s spark.
for wounding us, they’ll take the blame.

XXI

Tonight, my forehead gleams
and sweat drips in each eye;
my thoughts blaze through dreams,
tonight, of beauty I shall die.

The soul’s core is passion deep
in night’s abyss, a blazing cone.
Hush, weep in silence. Let us weep
and let us die. We’ll die alone.

XXV

Who’ll understand why – no one will
I rail at God each time I pray?
Within my flesh my soul lies ill.
A woman makes me waste away.

Instead of staying in my shell
when young and green I sought renown
in the wide world – but here in hell
now wear this thorn and wormwood crown.

With each tear, more tears long to blend,
consoling each sad syllable.
Aye, Hope is all: but here’s an end,
my life, my world, my hope – farewell.

 

XXXI

Deep in that heart, black wounds he dare not show;
he’s weary, cursed, a being in distress,
that sparkle in the eyes, that starry brow –
you’re dead, Tin. All your paths are emptiness.

Death is your love, in every step you take,
death, in your belly and in every breath,
death is your drink and daily bread you break,
in expectation and attainment, death.

What use blind love or hope without a goal,
what use desire’s wild dash, when there’s no cure
through breathing lungs or heartbeats, for the soul,

and though your loves are beautiful and pure
like faded perfume in a broken bowl,
none of your babbling larksong can endure?

XXXII

The Gulf! Whole oceans scaled over my head,
and gold fish fashioned out of crystallites,
I ask where Madam Moonlight’s lain abed,
and blue horizons haze blue mountain heights.

The dawn is spiked with delicate clear dread,
thought’s needles – piercing, lucid – snap and freeze.
No scales or spirals raise me, spirited,
nor mirrorings of rocked realities.

The heart’s a world unfathomed, fertile, deep,
and man, beneath his lead sky, breaks and sinks,
while life, a seagull, soars above his head.

Aye, well-fed easy woman, stuffed on bread,
thought’s rhythms broke our last connecting links,
but oh, how heart and pulse beat, beat and leap.

CITED FROM https://www.sic-journal.org/Article/Index/139

Frailty

In this mist, in this rain –
oh drunken heart, don’t drown in pain.

Love unrequited gave no rest,
so now you yearn for earth’s breast,

And all your longing, cry of a slave,
is to find some quiet grave:

here my soul will soon expire
and here will wither my desire

on the waves of our blue, blue sea
and white, white pebbles cover me,

and my needs will all come home
under Blessed Heaven’s dome,

with sun, calm blue, and clarity,
beneath the ground that once bore me.

cited from https://www.sic-journal.org/Article/Index/139

Cited from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43825/darkness-56d222aeeee1b

Darkness

BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts

Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:

And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,

The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,

The habitations of all things which dwell,

Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd,

And men were gather'd round their blazing homes

To look once more into each other's face;

Happy were those who dwelt within the eye

Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:

A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;

Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour

They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks

Extinguish'd with a crash—and all was black.

The brows of men by the despairing light

Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

The flashes fell upon them; some lay down

And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest

Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd;

And others hurried to and fro, and fed

Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up

With mad disquietude on the dull sky,

The pall of a past world; and then again

With curses cast them down upon the dust,

And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,

And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes

Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd

And twin'd themselves among the multitude,

Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food.

And War, which for a moment was no more,

Did glut himself again: a meal was bought

With blood, and each sate sullenly apart

Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;

All earth was but one thought—and that was death

Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails—men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;

The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,

Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,

And he was faithful to a corse, and kept

The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,

Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead

Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,

But with a piteous and perpetual moan,

And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand

Which answer'd not with a caress—he died.

The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two

Of an enormous city did survive,

And they were enemies: they met beside

The dying embers of an altar-place

Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things

For an unholy usage; they rak'd up,

And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath

Blew for a little life, and made a flame

Which was a mockery; then they lifted up

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects—saw, and shriek'd, and died—

Even of their mutual hideousness they died,

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow

Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,

The populous and the powerful was a lump,

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—

A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.

The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,

And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd

They slept on the abyss without a surge—

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;

The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need

Of aid from them—She was the Universe.

WHILE WE WERE THERE WE ALSO VISITED A NEAR BY CAVE!

CITED FROM THE SITE  https://visitbih.ba/en/ravlics-cave-a-little-known-treasure/

Ravlić’s Cave is located high above the spring of the river Tihaljina, on the outskirts of the hamlet of Peć (Peć Mlini) in Drinovci, Grude municipality. Until recently, the term was known only to those with a narrow interest in archaeology, because it is among the most important prehistoric sites, not only in BiH but also in the wider region.

It is believed that the settlement in it was created in the period between the Young Stone Age – Neolithic – and the end of the Early Bronze Age. Favorable living conditions, natural potential for hunting and fishing, drinking water and communication opportunities enabled the inhabitants of prehistoric communities to stay in the cave for a long time. The opening of the Ravlić’s Cave faces south, and it is about 40 meters wide and about five meters high, so during the day enough sunlight penetrates into the interior of the space.

An unusual find

The Cave consists of one larger and one smaller hall. The length of the explored part is 145 meters, and the height varies from 5 to 20 meters. The front part of the cave is exposed to sunlight and heat, so that dry part of the cave space is favorable for a longer stay of people.

 CITED FROM https://fort-net.org/objekt/river-trebizat/?lang=en

The river Trebižat is a right tributary of the river Neretva. The course of the river is located in a very karst area, which causes water to sink along the riverbed. At its entrance to the territory of the municipality of Ljubuški, the river has the name Tihaljina. It receives the largest spring of constant character and great generosity, the Klokun spring. Downstream from the Kavazbašina bridge (Klobuk), Tihaljina gets the name Mlade and under that name flows through Ljubuško polje. The Mlade River on the left receives the occasional watercourse Grabovo vrelo and the permanent watercourse Vrioštica. After passing under the bridge on Humac, the river gets the name Trebižat. Trebižat has only one permanent tributary Studenčica on its course.

IF YOU ARE A LOVER OF NATURE, CHECK OUT MY POST ABOUT NATIONAL PARKS IN HERZEGOVINA. 

According to my research, there are four national parks and three nature parks in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Don't hold me by my word, I'm not entirely sure is that a complete list. I did some research about protected areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina and that is the information I found. There are many beautiful parks in this country, but not all of them have the status of a Nature Park. Speaking of which, both National Park and Nature Park are terms used specifically for protected areas of nature. Both have to met certain standards to be awarded this title and are typically regulated by conservation laws. 

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A NATIONAL PARK AND A NATURE PARK-  National Park and Nature Park are terms that are sometimes incorrectly used as synonyms, for there is a difference between them.  National park is defined as category II type of protection areas. Nature park is also a protected area, but it falls under III or IV type of protected areas. A Nature Park typically involves long term protection planning and protection, but the laws governing National Parks tend to even more strict. If you check Wikipedia (English article) for the definition of the word Nature Park, you'll see a photograph of Hutovo Blato listed as an example. Isn't that cool?

PROTECTED AREAS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA-  The three Nature Parks in Bosnia and Herzegovina are: Hutovo Blato (founded in 1995), Blidnje (founded in 1995) and Bardač ( also founded in 1995). The four National parks are Sutjeska (founded in 1965), Kozara (1967), Una (2008) and Drina National Park (founded in 2017). As the title indicated, today I will focus on two nature parks: Hutovo Blato and Blidinje. The reason why I'm focusing on these two is because I have visited both of them (and more than once). So, I think I can give you a pretty good idea of what to expect and give you some ideas about what to do there. I haven't visited the third Nature Park that is to be found in the country. Once I visit it, I might blog about that too, but for now I'll stick with what I know. 

NATURE PARK HUTOVO BLATO-  A WETLAND WORTH A VISIT!

HERZEGOVINA IS SIMPLY A DREAM TO VISIT AND RIVER TIHALJINA IS ONE OF ITS HIDDEN GEMS

When it comes to Herzegovina, I can honestly say that I travelled it up and down. I often recommend visiting Mostar, the largest town in Herzegovina region.  Moreover, I regularly write about other cities and places worth visiting in Herzegovina.  However, there's more to this region than its lovely cities and villages. I also like to recommend places that aren't that well know and that might not be on the tourist radar yet. 

10 WAYS TO WEAR A NAUTICAL DRESS- In 2020, I posted about ten ways to style this nautical print dress from Austrian brand Mana.

Nautical prints and patterns are simply perfect for summer. They often come in traditional nautical colours such as red, white and blue, making them easy to style. In fact, when putting together nautical outfits, it is these three colours (red, white and blue) that you will often (subconsciously or unconsciously) rely on. I came across nautical look being referred to as one of the trends for summer 2020, but honestly for me nautical look is a classic in summer time. One summer arrives, it is only natural to make a mental connection with everything nautical chic represents: voyage, wanderlust, open spaces,  love of the sea and ships. If you're into nautical chic, then nautical print is an easy way to capture that. Nautical prints and patterns often include stripes, ship, boats, nautical equipment and so on. My dress is a mixture of all those things often found in nautical patterns. No wonder I love it so much, right?  If nautical pattern is too much for you, then try wearing traditional colours associated with the nautical trend and focus more on recreating sailor and navy inspired outfits.

POST UPDATE

Herzegovina is simply dreamy in Spring time. I will link a few up for those who might be interested in learning more.

WHAT TO SEE IN HERZEGOVINA? THESE TWO FORTRESSES AND NATIONAL PARKS- 2023 //AMAZING CITIES TO VISIT IN HERZEGOVINA-2019  // PROTECTED AREAS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA- 2019