One thing we all have in common is Bruce Lee.

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I didn't know very much about Mostar except that there was a bronze statue of Bruce Lee there. They chose Bruce Lee after failing to agree on any national figure or statesman that the Serbs, Croats and Bosnians who had all fought against each other in the mixed city during its 18-month siege could all be proud of. Soon after the statue was unveiled, it was vandalised because "it was pointing towards a predominantly Croatian area in a fighting stance." It was returned only last year. Other than that, my grandmother told me she had visited the city, but that was back when Tito was president. Things were probably very, very different back then.

Sure, the city was nice. The so-called "old bridge" was shiny new, as it had needed a complete reconstruction after being wantonly destroyed by the Croatian army during the war. But it was small, and full of kitschy tourist shops, I am pretty sure there were more in Mostar than in Sarajevo, even. They were all selling exactly the same crap, how they all stay in business I have no idea. It took me roughly an hour to scour the touristy part of town before I went off in search of Bruce Lee. On the way I was stopped by a homeless guy who saw me looking at a map and offered to help me. He showed me to the Bruce Lee statue and told me his story on the way. "I fight for my country... my body is destroyed... bullet, bullet, grenade, grenade, bayonet... and then my government expell me and I must flee Sarajevo, now I sleep in that destroyed building." He also recommended I go hang out at the bar near where he was sitting where he found me. I needed a beer there after hearing that. The 5 marks I'd given him didn't feel like nearly enough.

I checked out the two attractions in the town centre, the bridge museum (not worth it unless you're interested in architecture or archaeology) and the war photo exhibition (needed another beer and a shot of slivovice after that), and spent most of the rest of the day relaxing at my hostel and looking for trips to go on the next day, because I was pretty sure I had seen everything in Mostar. There was the hill with the white cross on the top which I quite felt like checking out, but I knew trying to walk up rocky, exposed hills on a July afternoon was a terrible idea. And I was tired - I had woken up at 6am to get the early train, and was wishing I had waited till evening, what with Mostar being so doable in one day. That evening I only went out to eat and to watch Mladá Boleslav dismantle local Bosnian team NK Široki Brijeg in the Europa League qualifiers, obviously being the only person there who was (quietly) cheering for the Czech side.

The next day I slept in late and looked on the internet for bus times to Blagaj, a nearby village with a Dervish house and an old castle. I already forgot about that first commandment of travelling in the Balkans - about the internet being useless and that - and obviously the bus times I had find were complete bollocks. I retired to the café owned by the owner of my hostel which is situated at the bus station next to the Globtour office. He was a nice enough guy, just didn't speak English so I had to talk to him in a mixture of GCSE-level German and Czech with a forced mediterranean accent. Finally I left on the bus to Blagaj and went to check out the Dervish house. It was cool, but I wondered where the Dervishes disappeared to while all these tourists are trunching about their abode taking photos, because I didn't see a single one there. I then tried to walk to the castle from a sign saying "old castle - 1km" and after walking about 3 kilometers ran into a couple and they said they couldn't find the castle either, so we all went back down the hill together and got chatting. We waited together for the bus and then had one of those "truly Balkan" moments as we set off for Mostar, when an old man wearing a cowboy hat and an extremely colourful shirt got on shouting loudly and started handing out flyers for a betting shop. I took the couple to the restaurant next to my hostel for lunch and bade them bon voyage on their onward journey to Sarajevo, wishing I had spent longer there.

I write this entry from Split, at the end of my journey. I haven't got very much to say about Split. I left Mostar at 6:15 on an old minibus with dysfunctional air-conditioning and 4 hours later I was just about ready to jump into the sea. However, it isn't easily possible to do this in Split because there are yachts everywhere. I managed it eventually and then went to check out some of the art galleries and museums - which were all closed on a Saturday. The only interesting thing around the city for me was all the Hajduk Split/Torcida Split football street art, which for once goes a step beyond just spraying team names and crossing them out and actually featured some real art. Other than that, I spent most of today sitting in deck chairs reading Zlatan.

Split is, however, the perfect end to a rail trip, because it truly is the end of the line. It's where the main railway route just ends, doesn't go any further, and you can't even go into the station and go back out again down a different line, like you can for example at Brighton station. In continental Europe there really aren't too many places like that, but there are four in Croatia: Pula, Zadar, Split and Ploče (which is where I wanted to go from Mostar, but the service has been withdrawn). Even though I do now have a 22-hour train journey ahead of me back to Prague, it was nice to arrive here in the morning at the bus station attached to the ferry port attached to the railway station and look down at the lone buffer at the end of the tracks and think "this is the end."

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Photos

The scars of war
Not sure who in their right mind would destroy a war memorial, but someone did.

Split railway station
The End.