The last thing we expected in the remote mountains of Bosnia was to find a recreation of Hobbiton in a spectacular hill top location with views to a far mountainous horizon. Four buried dwellings with the requisite round entrance door had already been constructed and they were furiously building several more. When we arrived we met one of the four sisters who are the masterminds behind the project. She sheepishly explained that they were not allowed to call it Hobbiton without fear of terrible retribution from the extremely well paid lawyers of New Line Cinema who hold the copyright on the name. This despite the fact that she was standing in front of a sign that said 'Welcome to Hobbiton, Bosnia". Inside our whimsical dwelling were tin mugs also emblazoned with the Hobbition logo which I hoped would never be seen by the legal eagles from New Line.

Each of the sisters was responsible for the interior design of one of the dwellings. Our designer had obviously had a lot of fun. Dominating our room was a table with six massive baronial chairs. Their scale suggested that the designer had not quite grasped the concept that Hobbits are in fact very small but some concessions have to be made if real sized humans are to inhabit a hobbit dwelling.  

On the bed was a blow-up crown which seemed somewhat incongruous but fun anyway. it hinted at some bizarre cosplay activities which might be inspired by the unusual surroundings.  A Gandalf cloak and wizard's hat hung beside the bed which only added to this uneasy suspicion that LOTR fans might be tempted to indulge in the sort of fantasies the rest of us only read about in the Daily Mail.

 Of rather more use were the presents they had left for us. On a table were a bowl of chocolates, a mini pot of jam, a bottle of Rakia and mysteriously a birg egg wrapped in kitchen roll inside a presentation box The egg had a plastic  horse shoe stuck to it. We presumed this was some reference to the Tolkien book. I've never read it or at least I never completed it. I read about a quarter and decided it was absolute tosh and gave up. I had a friend at school whose father was a writer and therefore held in great esteem by all of us whose fathers did much more prosaic things to feed their families. Chris was a much more sophisticated reader than the rest of us and had completed LOTR by the time we were in the 6th form. I suffered an inferiority complex as a result of his precocious reading habits which meant that LOTR became something of a cultural K2. Like the notoriously difficult mountain  LOTR became the peak which I failed to conquer.

The hobbit house was cozy and heated by an ornate  cast iron wooden stove that flickered red as we fell asleep in a bed that would have been several sizes too large for a real hobbit.

We packed up and set off for our next destination which is in Serbia.  The four hour drive took us through vast rolling landscapes and then through monumental canyons walled with towering rock walls. It was something of a revelation and made us realise that our assumption that New Zealand is the pinnacle of wondrous landscape might be a little parochial. This was landscape on a vast and majestic scale carpeted by an array of trees in their spring foliage creating a dazzling kaleidoscope of colours, all of them green.

Our impression of Bosnia Hertzogovina is of a country of stupendous beauty but struggling to come to terms with a brutal history. Driving through towns and especially Sarajevo the evidence of the tragic war is visible in the pock mark bullet wounds on many of the buildings.  We passed vast graveyards in the achingly beautiful mountains filled with young bodies from that war. The economy is only now beginning to forge ahead and we wondered how many generations must  pass before the bitter hatred of the war is an uncomfortable memory.