Bosnia and the End of Croatia

Talk about slacking off on the journaling. Well that is me.

Right now I am flying to Vienna again, how I got to this time and place I will try and summarize for you.

We left Dubrovnik and made the long drive to Mostar, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We stopped inside Bosnia at a small town with a small castle and a cool little mosque. Refueled we continued our drive. I think it took about 4 hours or so. Arriving, there was a tangible difference in the ‘feel’ from the relatively touristy Croatia. This was accentuated when the eerie Muslim call to pray echoed from the minarets of the many mosques in the city. We quickly (YAY) found our hotel and moved our stuff in, we contacted a local guide for a guided walk, and had lunch in the courtyard.

Our tour guide took us around the city and explaining various ins and outs to the city. We walked down a very cool street and eventually made it to the pride and joy of the city, the bridge. It was very magnificent and recently rebuilt as the original bridge (built by the ottomans) was destroyed in the recent war. Absolutely beautiful! We also toured a Turkish house and another mosque, which really made me excited to go to Istanbul in the fall.


What really was chilling about Mostar was that it is not completely restored. They only finished rebuilding the bridge in 2004. Many of the buildings still show evidence of battle. Several buildings still have burned sections, bullet holes, and huge holes from artillery of some kind. We walked through two or three cemeteries full of graves of young men, all with a deceased date of 1992 or ’93. It was so weird to see so many graves all with the same date of death, all roughly around my age. Like I said, chilling. If you are interested, google some of the war time pictures of Mostar and then compare them with my pictures, how much progress and rebuilding they have done!






We enjoyed a nice dinner in full view of the bridge all lit up and met some extremely cute and friendly kittens. My mom was particularly taken with one black and white one and picked it up to feed it. A very cute cat, overall: a very interesting, moving, and unique city.





Yay for travel days!

Our next day was essentially a travel day as we drove 5 hours to Split (again), flew to Zagreb and then to Pula, Croatia arriving at 11:30 pm after all the lay-over’s and such. The drive was pretty at times as we drove along the BEAUTIFUL coast. Tiring day, but one that was necessary to reach the northern part of the country.

The Next day

We saw the 6th biggest roman amphitheater still preserved and then headed to Rovinge. We toured the city a bit, settled in and went swimming of the rocky shores of the city outskirts. Remember when I said the other cities we visited were romantic? Try this one. Especially cause the day we were there was the Croatian version of Valentines day and the city had set up 8 stages around the city by the water where musicians played and were required to play love songs. Jesse and I walked the city for hours that night. Just circling the city, people watching, and enjoying some music every once in awhile. The city is only 2 hours by boat from Venice and it definitely feels it. Very Italian, to the extent that the schools teach both Croatian and Italian and the locals use them interchangeably. It was somewhat of a relief to hear a language that I knew a little of (not that the Croatian’s don’t, for the most part, speak English). Anyway, exhausted from the miles of walking we did, Jesse and I wandered back, flipped on the Olympics and crashed. It was a pretty good last day in Croatia.

To Slovenia—and the EU

Back to the Euro. Oh yay!