Croatia and a couple of Balkans, Day 4, into Bosnia

We said goodbye to Slavko, our host in Dubrovnik and took the time to walk down to the base of the concrete steps that led from our apartment to the shore. I took a couple of photos, not that it was particularly pretty, but as a record.

Anne had booked us into a pension in Mostar for the night so the only thing to do was to decide how to get there. Her guide book (Rick Steves) suggested 3 routes. We chose the longest and most remote, mainly because it went past a rather spectacular lake, or so it looked on the map.

We crossed the border (no stamp this time) and drove to Trebinje a small town were we could find a cash point and get some Bosnian Marks. Some of the town looked quite eastern European but there was a great market which we had a walk round.

The scenery was of rocky hills with sparse vegetation, quite Mediterranean.We came to the lake which was really a reservoir, Bileçko Jezero and stopped where it met the road. Here were the ruins of a rather nasty concrete hotel. We got out of the car and had a wander around. We thought we were alone and so were surprised when man smoking a cigarette stepped out from the broken glass of the foyer, presumably to see what we were doing. We moved on passing by the small town of Bileça.

We drove further through the same mountain scenery passing several roadside shrines which Anne thought were to people who died in the war. I got out to photograph one and realised, looking at the back of the camera that it must have been some poor kid who had come off the road more recently. However we did pass a 2nd world war monument. We were going through the Republika Sprska area of Bosnia Hercegovine, or the Serb Republic, this gives way to the Hercegovine area just east of Mostar.

At last we came to the coal mining town of Nevesinje, where we thought we would stop for lunch. Not a good idea as it was hardly conducive.

Instead we went further down the road, past a village with a small church until we came to a lay-by next to a field with a small bridge where we could sit and eat our excellent smoked ham sandwiches.

We sat eating, watching lorries come and go as we had inadvertently parked opposite a quarry which we could not see as it was so deeply inserted into the hill. My reward came with the sight of several autumn crocuses growing wild in the pasture.