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Published: September 20th 2009
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After Croatia, the Ćevapčići continued, and we found a new food - bureks, a greasy pastry filled with meat, spinach, cheese or potato. Obviously Carol's favourite was the potatoes.
We started off in Mostar, and what a fabulous place it is. We got off the bus and found the cheapest accommodation with the loveliest lady, Lena. She made us some local coffee and chatted about the town and we decided to explore it for ourselves. The old town is so pretty, and its hard to believe that it was ever destroyed, especially so recently. Mostar's icon is the Stari Most, also known as the old bridge. There is a museum in the old town which shows some interesting and shocking footage on the destruction of the old town in the Bosnian war in the 90's. The bridge itself was completely destroyed in Nov '93, and was not rebuilt until 2004. However it was rebuilt using 16th century methods so as to be identical to the original. Local men dive/jump off the bridge all the time, but once a year for the last 400 odd years there has been a diving competition and some how we managed to land in Mostar
for this event. It will definitely be one of the highlights of the trip. The whole town and more flock to this event, in fact we met a guy from Sweden whose family moved there from Bosnia when he was young because of the war. He comes back every year for this event. Its a 21m jump from the bridge and the water is icy cold and rocky so quite a dangerous jump. It was amazing to be there for it.
Sarajevo was our next stop. The scenery on the bus trip up was fantastic, pictures don't do it justice. The town itself is not as pretty as Mostar but it has its own charms. The old town has a more lived in feel. Although they have done a lot of work to restore some of the buildings destroyed in the war, there are still a lot of buildings with bullet/shell holes or that are just vacant foundations. We had a bit of a disaster with the accommodation here - we stayed our first night in a hostel, met a great crowd there but unfortunately had to share one bathroom with 24 people. Later that night, someone got mugged
View from the bridge
The Day before the Diving Contest right outside the front door, fun times. So we moved places but then ended up way way way out of town. You just can't win in Sarajevo!
We decided to check out the war tunnel. Most do a tour, we decided to do it ourselves. What we didn't realise was how far out of town the tunnel was. We took a tram to the last stop, then a bus. We asked the "lovely" bus driver to let us know when to get off - this guy does not like tourists. He charged us double the cost for the bus, then told us some random stop to get off, where we had to walk 2km to get to the tunnel, instead of dropping us off at the normal stop which is beside the tunnel! The Bosnian war (1992-1995) is an interesting bit of history that we didn't know too much about. During the Siege of Sarajevo, the Serbian forces had cut off the city. The airport (neutral UN area) separated the free Bosnian state and the city of Sarajevo. Over a period of 4 months, the Bosnian people dug a tunnel under the airport runway to link Sarajevo with the
Ruins from the War
they have fixed up and rebuilt so much including the bridge but there is still a reminder or two free state. It was dug in 8 hour shifts, was 800m long, 1.5 metres in height and width. It was used by 1 million people during its time and was used to allow food and humanitarian aid in, for people to get out, and of course for military purposes. It was completed in mid 1993 and is said of have saved Sarajevo. The tunnel was most famously used to transport the former Bosnian president in his wheelchair which was run on the railway tracks of the tunnel. Can you believe they managed to build railway tracks in this tunnel! Not to mention there was a 110kW electricity cable running over head and sometimes the tunnel was filled to the knees with water. There is now only 20m of the tunnel left at the museum but it is well worth a visit and possibly a guided tour if you are in the area.
Time to move to the next country - Montenegro. We didn't spend long here. We stayed in Budva which to be honest was a bit of a let down. We were excited to get back to the beach but first of all, we arrived at 4am and
had to wait at the bus station for 2 hours for accommodation. The old town is lovely, but not so impressive after every where else we've been, and the beach was dirty and sleazy, lots of trash on the beach and in the water and bars every where with half prostitutes (what ever that is, Lonely Planet assured us that's what the ladies outside the nightclubs are called). We took a day trip to the town of Kotor, which was really lovely and made us glad we came to Montenegro. Kotor's old town is much more impressive, and you can take a long walk up to the fortress on the hill, which is tough going but well worth the it for the views.
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Graham
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:-)
Great picture of Kotor Bay guys. Happy smiley faces - don't see many of that here at work :)