Bob and Ann in the Adriatic 2012

Ston and Its Wall

We got into our bus at 10:00 and drove to the ferry back to the mainland. For the 20-minute ride, we had to get out of the bus. I took advantage of the air conditioned cabin and had a real cup of coffee at the bar. The coffee that we have been drinking at our hotels has been OK, but it comes from a machine and is not custom brewed. This was the best coffee so far on my trip.

We stopped at Ston for a break. This is an interesting town very close to Dubrovnik. It is fortified by a great wall stretching into the hills beyond the town. Its purpose was to protect Dubrovnik from invaders that wanted to steal the salt trade.

We continued to the Bosnian border where we had an extra long wait while the officials checked the bus papers and all of our passports.

Our Meat Platter at Lunch

Under way again, we went for a few kilometers and stopped for lunch at an outdoor restaurant. We sat under an awning under 100 degree temperatures and ate huge amounts of grilled meat. On the walk to and from the restaurant we bought small amounts of fresh fruit and dried fruit from ladies along the path.

We arrived in Mostar around 4:20 and checked into Hotel Ero. Ann and I had a suite, half of which was air conditioned - the bedroom was not. We were hoping that the wall unit in the sitting room would eventually cool off our bedroom.

The Mosque

At 6:00 we set off on a town tour. The temperature was still hovering around 100 so we saught as much shade as possible. Mostar was on the front line during the ethnic cleansing in the early 1990s. We saw many buildings that were battle scarred and totally destroyed. There are bullet holes in most of the other buildings. The old town is mostly rebuilt including the famous bridge. Tourists have discovered Mostar and the vendors are very happy. The old town is much more picturesque than I expected with ancient buildings and a blue/green river running through it.

We visited a graveyard for Muslims that were killed in the ethnic cleansing. The deceased dates were mostly 1993. We also visited a mosque. Muslims here are very liberal. I was surprised when they let us enter the mosque with our shoes on. One highlight of our tour was watching a diver leap from the old bridge.

We had dinner in the old town looking over the river. The food was OK and the view was grogeous. We were still sated from our meat at lunch.

Here is a link to the photos that I took today.