Community Highlights Europe Continuing our journey to the Coast

Continuing our journey to the Coast

Today we would have to leave this pretty little town of Jajce, but not before one last meal. Even when our lovely hostess promised that we could stay little longer when she heard that our bus wouldn’t leave in hours and it was starting to rain, we opted to check out at 11AM and head to one of the restaurants, which we knew would be on our way.
Knowing it would be late in the afternoon when we arrive to our next destination we ordered food. The waitress didn’t speak English so I wasn’t sure what I would get after ordering (the menu was mix of English and Bosnian) but it was one of the best dish I had on our holiday. French fries were companied by chicken and Ćevapi (handmade Bosnian sausages made of beef and spices). I tried those sausages again on our trip but they weren’t as good.

Finding our bus was a little bit of a hassle, partly we being too early. We did get on our way in the end and the scenery were again amazing.

More of an hassle was finding our accommodation in Mostar. Like in Jajce, the owner had asked us to contact him when we know the exact time of our arrival so he could come to let us in. I had informed him beforehand that I wouldn’t be having internet. I even added that, I wouldn’t be able to use Whatsapp, Booking.com app nor the e-mail.
However, I had looked from the map the location of our accommodation and I texted him from the bus, when I knew which time we would be there. We were little bit early, I had reserved more than enough time for our walk from the busstop but after The time came and went we started to wonder are we even in the right place.
After an while, I caved in and called him. The guy who answered sounded pissed off and asked why I haven’t messaged him our ETA on the number he had messaged. I hadn’t got any message from him which I told, and after some more talking, he said that he would be here in 15 minutes. Arriving, on the contrary to our phone conversation, he proved out to be really nice guy. He showed us in to our apartment and before leaving, said that we could contact him if we had any problems.
After connecting to the apartments wi-fi, I noticed the message he had sent me. Via Whatsapp. Which I haven’t got. Becouse I didn’t have internet. Which I had told him…Sigh.

The first evening just after we got home from the corner shop, it started raining so our planned evening walk turned in to an night in.

After Jajce, I wasn’t too exited to be in a bigger city but here we were and on a holiday so staying in wasn’t an option. Sun was shining and we headed towards the Old Town and Mostar’s famous bridge, Stari Most. Streets of Old town were narrow and tourists were everywhere, in the bridge too, but we noticed nice looking terrace facing the bridge on the bank of Neretva River, so we headed there. From there we had great vantage point to the bridge. The first bridge was built in 15th century and the name of the town Mostar is derived from the word “mostari” which means bridge keepers. Old bridge was destroyed in the conflicts of early 90’s and the new one opened 2004. Now, we had our eyes on the young guys who were walking on the railings of this bridge. They were raising money from the crowd and when they had enough one of the guys would jump from the bridge. I am not sure how long we sat there watching this but we only saw 2 jumps. The bridge is 20 meters high so it was quite entertaining.

Next day we wanted to visit Blakaj tekke which situated 15 kilometers from Mostar. The distance were a little bit too long to walk so we opted for an taxi. Getting an one proved to be more problematic than I anticipated. Taxi-site on internet said that you could either text or e-mail the address and time and taxi would come. Well, I didn’t get answer to neither, and we waited for ages. In the end we just headed outside and decided that we would try to find a taxi park or something, and if we couldn’t find any, too bad. One taxi was waiting at the parking lot in front of our building but it wasn’t waiting for us. Though, the nice taxi driver told us that we could find a taxi at the parking lot of this church that was just around the corner. We found lot of people, and several cars and busses but not even one taxi. We finally got bored waiting so we headed towards city center. Then the luck stroke and we saw taxi leaving customers almost beside us so. We were on our way!

Tekkes, or Tekijas are places to worship for Tariqas. Tariqa is part of Islamic religion.
On their homepage is a verse “Come, come, whoever you are, any unbeliever, was to pray the fire. Our caravan is not a caravan of despair. And if you are thousand times broken his promises, come, come and once again come.”

I am most certainly not a believer of any kind, but the verse was beautiful and the place most definitely was. Very clear, blue waters of River Buna are running out from the mountain and this picturesque white house is standing on the bank. Restaurants on the opposite bank are breaking the religious feeling a little but their terraces are beautiful too. The water is flooding them and there are great views on both directions on the bridge that is crossing the river.

From Mostar we continued our journey towards the coast of the Adriatic Sea and entered to Croatia once again. This time the border crossing wasn’t as smooth as it was last time. Bosnian side was okay but at the Croatian border, everybody had to hop off from the bus and go through border control. As was normal and expected. But the staff was vigilant and took several passengers to the side, including us. We were asked if we have any luggages, we did, both in the cabin (purse and shopping bag) and below the bus (backbags). We were escorted by the border patrol to get our bags and get everything out. We were also informed that we should tell if we have any drugs and that if they would find any, we would be either going to jail or get hefty fines. We, of course, didn’t have anything illegal with us, and after quite intimidating questioning we were allowed to put our things back in to the bags and enter to Croatia. This experience was somewhat scary, even when I knew that I didn’t have any contrabands.

Naturally this kind of vigilancy took time, and our bus was late arriving in Dubrovnik. We were meeting my sister there and her flight had landed way earlier and she would already be in our rental apartment. Which were amazing. I have never rented accommodation which were as homey as this. We had 2 bedrooms and joined kitchen+ living room. And huge terrace.

Our time in Dubrovnik included a lots and lots of relaxing, including eating well, both in our apartment and in a restaurants, and just walking around. We did visit Old town, which was jampacked with people, as was expected. It must have been popular tourist spot before, but after being a filming location of Game Of Thrones, it has come to be hugely popular. I did like the series but I liked the books more.

Old Town was beautiful but it being so crowded, I liked more when we visited Lokrum Island. We had weather-wise maybe best possible timing. When the ferry left from Old town, sun was shining as it was most of our roaming around even if the sky was starting to gather clouds.
On the path that goes around the island there is marked several interesting sights to see. Cross that is dedicated to God of the Ocean, Triton, Old Quarantine Hospital and Path to Paradise to mention few. Building of the old hospital was never finished doe to the realization of the powers that be that island situated such a strategic place, it would be easy to invaders conquer the island if the only inhabitants were sick or dying and their caregivers.

Being as it may, the first and the last residents of the island were monks. When they were forced to leave it is said that they cursed the island, one who wouldn’t leave before nightfall would die of unnatural causes.
To me the island didn’t seem cursed, we had a nice walk around it’s gardens and on Path to Paradise, and only when it was time to leave the weather started to worsen. Becouse of that, there were quite a queue to the ferry, so we needed to wait a while before we got back to the mainland.

We were lucky getting back to the apartment before the storm hit. We also had a great view of the lightning sky. Me and my sister parked ourselves in to the sunloungers on our terrace, me with a cup of coffee and a blanket and just enjoyed the show that Mother nature was giving us. That sums up pretty nicely our time in Dubrovnik. Good ending of a great holiday, relaxing surrounded by a fine scenery and even better company!

Bus, Jajce-Mostar 28e
Bus, Mostar-Dubrovnik 48e
Accommodation, 3 nights 163e
Accommodation, 4 nights 470e
Groceries 96e
Restaraunts + pubs 287e
Activities 94e
Others 78e

Total 1264e

This featured blog entry was written by hennaonthetrek from the blog hennaonthetrek.
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