Day 21 - June 5

Distance: 10.0 miles (16.1  km)

Today we're off to Mostar, Bosnia, a short detour off our route up the Croatian coast. First, though, we made a morning visit to Lokrum Island just offshore from Dubrovnik. Lokrum is home to an abandoned centuries-old Benedictine monastery, an old French Fort, rocky beaches, and the entire island is a botanical garden with plants from all over the world as well as plenty of peacocks wandering around. There, I ran around the small island and up to Fort Royal, which is on the island's highest point - a run of nearly 6 miles total. I then took a swim in the Adriatic, dried off on a rock on the shore, and we caught the boat back to the Old Town harbor.

Old Town Harbor from Lokrum boat

Old Town harbor

Peacock on abandoned monastery ruins on Lokrum Island

Abandoned Benedictine Monastery

Dubrovnik from Fort Royal on top of Lokrum Island

Show-off

View over Lokrum Island from Fort Royal

The "beach" where I swam

Abandoned hotel with mortar shell-marks on the tower from the Siege of Dubrovnik.  The hillside on the right was blown up to block access to Dubrovnik during the siege

Old Town Harbor

After grabbing a pizza by the Dubrovnik bus station, we took the 3 o'clock (4 o'clock by the time it showed up) bus to Mostar, Bosnia, which, to be precise, is actually Mostar, Herzegovina. The country that we often call simply "Bosnia" is officially known as Bosnia and Herzegovina. Generally, the north of the country is Bosnia, and the south is Herzegovina. Mostar is in this southern, wine-growing region, situated on the crystal clear river Neretva nd surrounded by big hills and mountains.

When we arrived in Mostar around 6:30pm, the owner of our hostel, Deny, picked us up at the station and showed us around before taking us to our hostel on the east side. Have I mentioned that every place we stay, the hospitality gets better and better, the rooms get nicer and nicer, and the prices become cheaper and cheaper? Our hostel in Mostar is probably the apex of that trend. Deny's hospitality, helpfulness, and prices are going to be hard to beat, especially as we make our way up north out of the Balkans. Deny self-taught himself English about 5-10 years ago and turned his spare-room renting business into the highest-rated hostel in the city - just the sort of pure entrepreneurship that, in my view, symbolizes Mostar's recovery after the war.

After making it to the hostel, I went for a short run on both the east and west banks of the river, winding through the Old Town and over the famous Old Bridge. As I crossed the bridge, the mysteriously beautiful voice of the Muslim call to prayer rang out over the city, mingling with the notes of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata being played by a shop next to the bridge.  The two very different but strangely complementary melodies reflected the fact that Mostar is, to be cliche, a place where east meets west. Not just meets - clashes, mixes, intermingles, and intertwines. Mostar, along with the rest of Bosnia and much of the Balkan Peninsula, was captured by the Ottomon Empire and ruled by them for almost 500 years. This obviously left a lasting imprint of Turkish influence on the local culture.  Thus, Mostar is both a Christian and a Muslim city. As a result of circumstances during the war, the east side is generally the Muslim side and the west is mostly Christian. The Old Bridge, which was destroyed in the war in the 90s, was rebuilt exactly according to its original plans and once again unites the two sides.

The River Neretva, the Old Town, and the Old Bridge

One of many mosques in Mostar

The Old Bridge

The Old Bridge

Mostar's history is so dramatic and raw, it practically punches you right in the face. The most strongly apparent aspect of this history is made plain by the scarred and shelled buildings left from the war. They make for a paradoxical experience when walking - or running - through the city.  Mostar is such a beautiful, walkable, safe, and even touristy place, but there are reminders everywhere that this place was a living hell not so long ago - within my own lifetime. I got a glimpse of that hellish time after supper when I popped in a DVD on Mostar during the war (Deny had supplied the room with all sorts of movies and documentaries). It was shocking to see footage of Bosnian Army fighters sprinting under Croatian sniper fire across the near-collapsed Old Bridge, which I had stopped to take photos on just half an hour earlier. The Croatian Army had forced all the Bosnian Muslims onto the East side of the river, making it impossible for them to get out of the city and shooting indiscriminately at anyone - even women, children, and the elderly - that ventured outside. This Siege of Mostar lasted over a year and a half and led to the destruction of 95% of the city and thousands of injuries and deaths.

One of many leftover war-torn buildings

By the way, if you know little about the Bosnian War or the Yugoslav wars of the 90s, I suggest you look them up. There's no way I could explain it all here and do it any justice.

So anyway, I only watched a little of the video on Mostar because it was too darned depressing, especially after our wonderful supper of traditional Bosnian foods, perhaps the best meal so far on the trip!

The Bosnian National Plate - we were happy