Bridge on Una river between Croatia (right) and Bosnia & Herzegovina at Hrvatska Dubica-Kozarska Dubica Border Crossing

We had a comfortable night's sleep at Zagreb. The morning sun rose, golden light slipping between baroque spires and red-tiled rooftops. It was the kind of morning that practically demands a flaky pastry and strong coffee—which is exactly how we started our day, perched in a café off Tkalčićeva Street. Today was another legend, we overlanded three countries on our beloved Shehzadi (meaning "the Princess") and also paid our respects at profoundly somber memorials at a horrible Yugoslav concentration camp site.

Zagreb: Gothic Grandeur and Legends in the Old Town

We have explored Zagreb before, the last time in a rental car. Zagreb is as beautiful as ever, but this time there seemed to be a lot of scaffoldings and restoration work going on!

🕍 St. Mark’s Church & Square

St. Mark’s Church, Zagreb, Croatia

We kicked off the morning with a stroll through the Upper Town (Gornji Grad or Gradec or Grič), Zagreb's medieval heart. St. Mark’s Church, with its colorful tiled roof, features the coats of arms of Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia. The square around it is stately and home to the Parliament and Presidential Palace.

🧱 Stone Gate

Stone Gate (Kamenita Vrata), Zagreb, Croatia

Next came the Stone Gate (Kamenita Vrata), the last of Zagreb’s original gates. Inside its tunnel is a tiny hidden chapel.

Stone Gate (Kamenita Vrata), Zagreb, Croatia

A painting of the Virgin Mary, miraculously spared during a fire in 1731, still draws locals and visitors who light candles and murmur prayers.

🧑‍🌾Dolac Market

We sat down for a while at a cafe at the Dolac Market - the main open-air farmers' market in the heart of Zagreb. It is well known for its traditional red umbrellas and bustling atmosphere. It is located in the Gornji Grad - Medveščak district of Zagreb, just a short walk up the stairs from the main city square, Ban Jelačić Square, nestled between the historic Upper Town (Gradec) and Kaptol.

Dolac Market, Zagreb, Croatia

Dolac Market is totally the spot if you want to dive into authentic Croatian grub. Up top, under those bright red umbrellas, you’ll find the kumice (in Zagreb, a kumica is one of the traditional women from rural villages who have traveled to the city for centuries to sell homegrown produce at the local markets) selling all sorts of fresh, seasonal produce like sweet cherries, peaches and everyday veggies, plus gorgeous flowers, local honey and artisanal olive oils. Then, head downstairs to the covered area where things get meaty and cheesy; you’ve got to try sir i vrhnje, which is a local favorite of cottage cheese and sour cream. Beyond that, grab some famous Paški sir (that sharp sheep cheese from Pag island), cured meats like spicy Slavonian kulen and pršut, or even some hearty čvarci (pork cracklings). There’s even a daily fish market down there, though not on Mondays and you can pick up fresh, homemade bread too—just remember to bring cash for most of the stalls (there are two ATMs along the edges of the market square which worked for us, too).

⛪ Zagreb Cathedral

Zagreb Cathedral: Scaffolding on spires

The Gothic spires of Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary are visible from nearly every point in the city. Unfortunately, due to ongoing restoration work, we could not see much more than scaffoldings this time. It was so much better when we were here last!

🛣️ Zagreb to Dubica, Bosnia & Herzegovina

We set off toward the Hrvatska Dubica-Kozarska Dubica Border Crossing to Bosnia. The drive was pastoral: cornfields, village steeples and storks standing guard atop chimneys. The border crossing is across the Una river just before its confluence with the Sava river.

Border crossing Donja Gradina (BiH) - Granični prijelaz Donja Gradina (BiH)

🚧 Crossing at Hrvatska Dubica-Kozarska Dubica

At the Croatian side, the guard barely glanced at our passports. The Bosnian side? Warm smiles and curiosity about Shehzadi, our Toyota Tundra. Stamp, stamp, wave-through.

Dubica: Riverwalks and Church Bells

We crossed from Croatia into Kozarska Dubica (used to be called Bosanska Dubica), a small town in Bosnia and Herzegovina, along the Una river south of the Croatian border.

The Una, renowned for its stunning turquoise color and numerous cascading waterfalls, originates in Croatia and carves through dramatic karst landscapes in northwestern Bosnia, ultimately draining approximately 10,400 square kilometers. Its name, derived from the Latin for "one," is steeped in legend, with Roman soldiers reportedly exclaiming "Una! Una!" ("The one! The one!") upon seeing its unique beauty.

Una river at Kozarska Dubica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

In contrast, the Sava is a major, placid river of the Pannonian Basin, forming Bosnia's northern border with Croatia and serving as a key tributary to the Danube, with a vast drainage basin of over 95,000 square kilometers.

The confluence of the Una and the Sava occurs at this historic town of Kozarska Dubica, a site of strategic importance for centuries. Historically, this junction marked a frontier of the Roman Empire and later, during the Ottoman period, the location of a crucial defensive fortress.

🍽️ Lunch by the Una River

Lunch at Restoran Una, Kozarska Dubica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

We had lunch in Kozarska Dubica. Ćevapi, fresh bread and onion—washed down with plum rakija that could ignite a tractor. Our table overlooked the Una River, which sparkled in the afternoon light.

Restoran Una, Kozarska Dubica, Bosnia & Herzegovina

⛪ Serbian Orthodox Church of Dubica

The cute yellow and red church in Dubica is a Serbian Orthodox church and it looks exactly like the kind of place where you'd expect to hear peaceful bells ringing and smell homemade bread baking somewhere nearby.

Serbian Orthodox Church of Dubica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

That tall tower with the cross on top? Classic Orthodox style. The colors? Like Neapolitan ice cream with better lighting. The whole setup, including the house next to it, probably serves as a local parish hub — and maybe even where the priest grabs his morning coffee.

It’s cozy, quiet and full of character — kind of like the town itself.

Serbian Orthodox Church of Kozarska Dubica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

We stepped in to light a candle and rest in the hush of polished wood and sun-streaked windows.

🕊️ Jasenovac Memorial Site

Memorial Zone Donja Gradina (Спомен подручје Доња Градина)

A sombre place, a spiritual place.

During the Second World War, the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), under the Croatian fascist and ultranationalist Ustaša regime, was a Nazi puppet state perpetrating widespread genocide and ethnic persecution. They established the Jasenovac concentration camp system, one of the largest and most brutal in occupied Yugoslavia.

Memorial Zone Donja Gradina (Спомен подручје Доња Градина)

Its largest sub-camp, Donja Gradina, here in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was the primary site of mass executions, where tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croats and Bosniaks were murdered.

A quote from Jure Kaštelan's poem "Maslina" at Donja Gradina Memorial Site, Bosnia and Herzegovina

One of the engraved stones here at the memorial site quotes poignantly from Jure Kaštelan's famous poem "Maslina" (Olive Tree): 

"Olive tree into cypress, cypress into bitter-vetch. A vine flows into wild-garlic."

🌳 Poplar of Horror: Tree and Shed Memorial

Poplar of Horror (Топола ужаса) - Donja Gradina Memorial Site, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Today, the "Poplar of Horror" (Topola užasa) at Donja Gradina - a tree used for hangings and torture - is preserved near the Jasenovac concentration camp site as a stark, living witness. A simple, silent tribute: a tree under a protective shed, marking a site of execution. No tour guides, no tourists - just reverence and silence.

The original tree, which fell in a storm in 1978, has been preserved and is displayed horizontally within metal supports on a small plateau as a testament to the atrocities committed there by the Ustaša regime. It is one of the key sites within the Donja Gradina Memorial Area, the largest execution ground of the Jasenovac concentration camp complex.

Stone plaque next to the Poplar of Horror, Donja Gradina Memorial Site, Bosnia and Herzegovina

A stone plaque next to the tree displays text in the Cyrillic script of the Serbian language. The inscription reads:

The Poplar of Horror

The Poplar of Horror represents one of the most terrible symbols of Gradina and the entire Jasenovac camp complex.

Beneath the poplar and on its trunk, cruel hangings were carried out and unheard-of slaughtering sessions took place.

During the hangings, the victims were tortured in the most savage way, which is why the inmates called this tree the "Tree of Torture".

Completely rotted from the inside, the tree collapsed in 1978, after which measures were taken for its protection and presentation.

🚧 Back Into Croatia

Leaving the confluence of the Una and Sava behind in Kozarska Dubica, we pointed Shehzadi north-east on the Bosnian M14. Her name, meaning "princess," felt fitting as she carried us from the green hills of Bosnia into the vast, golden expanse of the Croatian Pannonian Plain, across Jasenovac - Gradina Donja Border Crossing to Croatia Rt. 47, eventually merging onto the fast A3/E70 motorway. This border crossing takes us across back-to-back bridges over the Una and Sava rivers (the Bosnia-Croatia border runs in between the two bridges).

A side story at Jasenovac-Gradina Donja Border Crossing

We are asked where we are coming from. For whatever reason, since we were re-crossing Europe back easwards from Morocco, Africa, we said "Africa".

Eyebrows were raised, surprise expressed, and we were sent with Shehzadi into a small building for secondary checks 😂

In retrospect, we should have simply said Italy→Slovenia→Croatia→Bosnia, or some such thing. Watch our video for a glimpse of this in the whole trip (YouTube):

But at the beginning of this leg of our journey, just after crossing back into Croatia, we could see the soulful "Stone Flower" sculpture near the village of Jasenovac.

🪷 The Stone Flower

The central monument of the Jasenovac Memorial Site, "Stone Flower" (Kameni cvijet), opens in defiant beauty over fields that once held the largest concentration camp in the Balkans during WWII. Created by renowned architect Bogdan Bogdanović, the abstract sculpture rises from the floodplain of the Sava River on the site of the former camp's "Camp III" (Brickworks). It is also known as the "Flower Monument" (Cvjetni spomenik).

Stone Flower (Kameni Cvijet) aka Flower Monument (Cvjetni spomenik), Jasenovac, Croatia

Its form - a stark, petal-like structure of stone and concrete - deliberately avoids literal representation of the horrors that occurred there, where tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascist opponents were murdered. Instead, the monument serves as a silent, powerful symbol of remembrance, resilience and the fragility of life, inviting quiet reflection on the profound tragedy of the site and challenging all who visit to confront this dark chapter in history.

🚧 Into Serbia: Crossing at Bajakovo

The drive to the Bajakovo–Batrovci border crossing from Croatia and serbia was a study in serene monotony—endless fields under a wide sky. Then, the reality of a major European border set in. The line of trucks snaked into the horizon. Our lane moved quicker, but the successive stops—Croatian exit stamps, then Serbian entry checks—took time and focus, our passports becoming warm from constant handling.

🚧 Belgrade, Serbia

Finally through, the E70/Serbian A3 highway welcomed us with familiar ease. As the sun dipped low, casting long shadows, the skyline of Belgrade emerged. The approach over the now-familiar Sava River, with the colossal Branko's Bridge and the illuminated Kalemegdan Fortress, was a breathtaking reward for the day's journey. The Sava flows into the great Danube here in Belgrade at a scenic confluence ("Ušće Save u Dunav"). 

We got lost in the big city for a bit but eventually checked into Hotel Villa Bulevar on Bulevar Oslobođenja, its secure courtyard a perfect berth for Shehzadi. For dinner, we found a tucked-away kafana where the sound of live starogradska music spilled into the street. Over a feast of ćevapi, ajvar and local wine, we toasted—not just to Belgrade, but to the miles behind us and the roads still unwinding on our map ahead.

We rest tonight and explore Belgrade tomorrow. The Silk Road will then lead us into Bulgaria's Niš and Sofia, and then onwards to Istanbul and beyond. Stay tuned!

- The Vagabond Couple & Shehzadi