It took a few hours, three border crossings and one filling of petrol to get us to Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but we made it in time for lunch. Because Bosnia wanted its own route to the sea when they were creating borders after the recent war, we actually went through a stretch of B and H along the coast, then drove through more of Croatia, before crossing another B and H border to get to our destination. Much to Jen's chagrin, none of these border crossings elicited a passport stamp. We must look pretty innocuous, because the border guards hardly even looked to see if we were the people in our passport photos at all.
After lunch in a quiet off-the-main-busy-tourist-drag (chicken kebabs for Jen, more grilled mushrooms than she could possibly eat for Rebecca) we started seeing Mostar in earnest. We began at the Crooked Bridge, which was built as a small practice run for the rebuilding of the main attraction, the Old Bridge (Stari Most), destroyed in the recent war, but rebuilt and reopened to much fanfare in 2004.
Jen with the Crooked Bridge. It's really not so crooked.
We proceeded along the Rick Steves' proscribed walking tour of Mostar (because Rebecca is a nerd like that) and saw the rebuilt Franciscan Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, some buildings still pockmarked with bullets and mortar hits from the war, crossed the Stari Most and survived a trek through the bazaar selling all sorts of trinkets to get to the Koski-Mehmed-Pasha Mosque on the Muslim side of the Neretva River. (Mostar's river divides the Catholic side from the Muslim side still today.)
Self portrait from the top of a minaret with Stari Most in the background.
(We're so respectful, we wore head scarves to enter the mosque.)
View from Stari Most of the minaret we climbed, despite the heat.
Once we made it back down the twisting steps of the minaret, we headed back into the heat to find the New Muslim Cemetary. During the war, the Bosniaks remained indoors much of the day and only emerged after dark in order to avoid the violence of the war. Due to this, much of the existing cemetary space was unavailable, however, this area was relatively safe from the Croat sniper fire. Thus, every tomb in this cemetary is dated 1993, 1994 or 1995.
Our tour continued onto one of the three Turkish-style houses open to visitors, with a detour through the fruit market (a lot of confusion later, we ended up with two pounds of grapes). No one lives in the Biscevic Turkish House today , but it did give us a view of what life was once like. Plus we had to take our shoes off, which gave them a nice rest from the walking on cobblestones. It also gave Rebecca a chance to have a photo shoot with Shaun.
Shaun at the hookah.
Turkish house pet turtle, having his afternoon cucumber snack.
We walked through the modern, non-touristy end of the road for a respite from crowds, then, after our daily afternoon ice cream cone, we headed back to the car from whence we came. This time, we didn't fare so well walking through the market, and may have left a jewelry store a few Convertible Marks/Kunas/Euros/Dollars lighter, but with pretty sparkly things to show for it! (I hope Misty understands our need for foreign jewelry. Sorry, Misty!)
Outside of town, we stopped at a vineyard and despite a language barrier with the friendly owner (Jen's high school German came in handy here, as it was the only common language spoken) we had a refrehsing glass of wine, grown and fermented on site, with some cheese olives and fresh grapes. We even got a tour of the casks downstairs. We survived the ride home in the dark on the twisty sea-side roads, and were thoroughly exhausted by the time we made it back for a late night snack and bedtime.
Shaun with rental car.
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