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Mostar
After a 6 hour bus journey going through many boarder controls we finally made it into Bosnia. Once in Bosnia we had a rest stop but were not allowed to go to the loo because some old woman wanted paying before letting us in, considering we had just come from Montenegro which uses Euros and Croatia which uses Kuna we could not quite understand how she expected us to pay her!!! She would not accept Kuna so we boarded the bus with our leg crossed and hoped the ride was not too bumpy for the rest of the way.
After 8 hours going across 3 boarders we made it to Mostar. Straight away you could still see the lasting effects of the war and bombing in 1993 by the Serbs. Where Croatia had done everything they could to cover up bullet holes, here they were as fresh as the day they were put there.
We had pre booked a nice hotel for one night, G desperate for a good night’s sleep and not waking up with more bites. So we walked along the old front line to our hotel. Bristol Hotel, 95 Euros but worth every penny
not to be bitted by any blood sucking things!!!!
We had a quick shower and headed out for a quick beer. This involved us watching the BEST electrical storm ever that lasted all night and came back the next night!!!!
After an amazing night’s sleep we ventured to our next accommodation (Dinos Hostel for 22 Euros). This hostel was really nice, it was so clean!!! Next on the "to do" list was to venture out to see the sights, Mostar is pretty small so it did not take long to have a look around and get our bearings. It is a beautiful little town, we were both surprised at how lovely it was with its eastern feel, there is a Turkish quarter, 16th century mosques and of course the famous Satri Most, which was destroyed in the war and re built in 2000-2004. It is here where men jump off the bridge for money, we reckoned a few of Tony’s mates would do it just for fun!!! It is 21 m high by the way!!!!
Our luck did not last forever and the heavens opened with G in her white linen trousers and T in his shorts,
we had to somehow slowly get back to change into more appropriate gear without getting any nasty flip flop makes on our nice clean summer clothes!!!!
Sarajevo
After two nights in Mostar we headed north to the capital, Sarajevo. This too suffered a great deal in the war but seemed to be re-building itself slowly. There are still remnants everywhere of the shelling they took. Once again it was chucking it down. We did not have a map to our hostel, so in hope we followed a bunch of other backpackers who were on our train hoping they were heading the right way. They were, phew, so we arrived at our very cool hostel, Hostel City Centre and checked in for a cool 25 Euros. We dumped our bags and headed out straight away, aware we only had one day here.
Once again the place astonished us. The old Turkish quarter of Bascarsija is amazing with 4 different places of prayer for 4 different faiths. We saw sniper alley which was the avenue of death created by the Serb snipers in the surrounding hills. We also saw the spot where WW1 started. This is on a
bridge called the Latin Bridge, here in 1944 Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Ferdinand of Austria which inturn started world war one.
We did not have time to go to the tunnel museum which we were gutted about because everyone raved about it.
The rest of the evening was spent chilling out in our hostel with a few beers talking to other travellers.
We totally loved Bosnia and would recommend it to anyone, its rough around the edges, even more than Croatia and the whole eastern feel gives it something no other western country we have been too so far.
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almira
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Bonjour de Mostar, Vous avez raison d ecrire de Mostar et de faire les photos.Merci pour la publicite de ma ville, et bienvenez la prochain fois vous et votre amis a mostar. Mais il faut visiter BLAGAJ, POÄITELJ; CHUTE de KRAVICE, MEÄUGORJE, Le parc national-Hutovo blato, Neum, PODVELEŽJE et apres vous pouvez sentir la beaute de Mostar et des environs. Bon voyage et a bientot. ALMIRA