Woke up in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) today in the town of Mostar. The town gets is name from the famous old bridge built in the 15th century under the ottoman empire, destroyed in the war in 1993 by the croatians, and rebuilt in 2004 using all the exCt same techniques (the guy who showed ua around said it looks exactly the same!) "most" means bridge, mostari means bridge guardians, hence the name of the town. We stayed at a little hostel in old town, and the owner gave us and the other guests (four brits a norwegian and a Canadian) a walking tour of the city last night. He showed us a video of the bridge being destroyed and walked us to the street that was the front line during the war, and told is some stories from his childhood growing up during the war. Most of the town has been rebuilt but there are still buildings (ruins) scattered throughout that are riddles with bullet holes, so it's not too hard to imagine what it looked like during the war. Even though it was only an hour drive from the coast of croatia, BiH looks very different. Having been under the influence of the ottoman empire while Croatia was under the Austro hungarian empire, there is a lot more middle eastern influence. Mosques, Turkish coffee, carpets and pillow decor, hookah bars, and even some burkas. Very very cool.
It was another hot day so we walked around after our Turkish coffees we has with the two people we met at the hostel and went for drinks with the night before. Ate a Burek (pastry will delicious meat filling) and walked around on a mcCall photo safari and search for gifts. McCall wanted to buy a sweet copper kettle but it would have been a burden to carry around with us.
We drove through the Bosnian countryside (had a slight run in with the police.... McCall got a speeding ticket. They wanted 20€ but she offered them 70kuna (~10USD) and they took it).
Got our passports stamped (finally!... We were quite distraught when they didn't stamp them upon entering) and then stamped again when we entered... Wait for it...
MONTENEGRO!
the photos of this town are so beautiful. So hard to believe there was a war there.
ReplyDeleteI can practically smell that meat pie!
Are the people about the same in BiH? Same language?