Donji Vakuf // The Bluest Blue

The Blue Mosque in Donji Vakuf // © John Bills

It was the best veal I’ve ever tasted.

Now, I’m not going to try and pretend that I’m some sort of connoisseur of veal. It took me a couple of tries to spell the word connoisseur, after all, and besides, veal isn’t exactly readily available in rural Wales. Mature beef, plenty of that, and all the lamb you could hope for, but baby cow? Not really.

Luckily for my ever so willing tastebuds on this snowy January afternoon, I wasn’t in Wales. I was in motherfreakin’ Donji Vakuf. The town didn’t come with much of a reputation outside an important geographical position in the country and my own memories of being stuck at the bus station a couple of years earlier, but I’d never been a big believer in first impressions. Overrated, if you ask me.

All told, the day had gone swimmingly. An early arrival, an easy check-in, a little nap (imperative) and a long walk around the town itself. The hotel (and subsequently the veal) were handily located, allowing me to find the town’s Clock Tower early on. ‘Find’ is the operative word there though, as I struggled to locate the path up to the thing. My rudimentary Bosnian skills were put into action, and directions were acquired, although all I understood of them was ‘up’ and ‘right’. Luckily for me, that was all that was needed.

Time, where would we be without it? // © John Bills

Donji Vakuf’s Clock Tower overlooks the town, a prime position for people to be able to tell the time before home clocks and mobile phones. It was built in the 18th century, but the bell had a longer history, being made in Venice (or Carinthia) centuries earlier before being brought to Donji Vakuf. There was no bell now, and there was no old fashioned clock face, a digital equivalent taking its place. This clock was kept on time by a digital signal coming from Frankfurt, guaranteeing efficiency. Between 1917 and 1952, the Clock Tower didn’t work at all. It obviously wasn’t the case, but I did enjoy believing that Donji Vakuf subsequently had 35 years without time.

What of the town itself? Without sounding disrespectful, there wasn’t a whole lot to bite into. The centre of Donji Vakuf moved with the bustle of any small town, as had been the case for centuries. The early days are a bit of a mystery, although the general consensus is that it was founded by Malkoč-beg, the first Ottoman governor of the Croatian vilayet. Donji Vakuf had existed under many different names over the centuries, from Fakvi-ziv to Donji Novi, before settling on the moniker it has today. Its central position made it a magnet for craftsmen, merchants, traders and other officials, while that same location made a consistent number of military officials the norm.

I wandered around in search of a coffee, before settling on what amounted to a small cabin on the left bank of the Vrbas. ‘Cabin’ was definitely the correct description, although it could just as easily have been a small kiosk. Still, it was large enough for me to amble inside and order a coffee before settling into a typically disjointed conversation with the woman who ran the place. She was from Donji Vakuf, but she wasn’t particularly optimistic about the place, and I wasn’t in a position to put forward any other argument. That isn’t my place. She was delightful in her own charming way, and we laughed our way through awkward chats about tourism and the future. When I left, she insisted I take a copy of the calendar she had, one dedicated to the many faces of Josip Broz Tito.

All of this might not sound like particularly inspiring copy, but my lasting memory of Donji Vakuf wasn’t the town’s geography-centric history. It wasn’t the friendly woman, it wasn’t the Tito calendar. It wasn’t even the veal that provided a handy introduction to this article.

The dome of Donji Vakuf’s central mosque is a divine blue, the bluest of all blues, the sort of blue that comes as standard in any pack of colouring pens. I struggled to identify a specific shade before realising that it was just blue. It was stunning. The mosque is informally known as the Blue Mosque, and that more than does it justice. It was the blue of a child’s ocean, football kit blue, Google Doc blue. A blue as rich as any that I’d come across in my entire life.

Donji Vakuf, January 2020 // © John Bills

The only blue that came close was the blue of the sky in Donji Vakuf that day, itself bluer than any blue that technology could create. Together, the two existed in perfect harmony, two idyllic shades of blue complimenting each other. Not trying to outdo each other, not looking to overshadow anything, quite the opposite. This was two shades of the same blue, hellbent on proving to the world that there was no colour more calming to the human soul than the very hue that they both revelled in.

Blue isn’t my favourite colour, but for the brief moments that I stood gazing up at the dome of the mosque in the heart of Donji Vakuf, backed by an equally brilliant shade of that most famous of colours, it was my favourite thing on the planet. It was an ocean of calm that had no problem embedding itself into my soul. I didn’t want it to end. I still don’t.

But the veal, oh my lord, the veal. It was the best veal I have ever tasted, in a nondescript town that is home to the most brilliant exhibition of blue that I have ever tasted, a town that gave me a Josip Broz Tito calendar to boot. Donji Vakuf, you’re alright.