And environs

The Mostar Bridge...redux. The 12th century bridge was destroyed in 1993 during the late unpleasantness.


We were kicking around ideas for a day trip and Matt and I settled on Mostar, Bosnia. Katherine and Kim were a bit less enthusiastic about the whole thing, especially as we had no clue how long a trip it would be, etc. But we convinced them. Mostly through whining and repetition, but still, a win's a win.

So off we went up the coast to a border town called Metkovic, through the border where they glanced at our passports and waived us through.

Another 75KM driving through a nice river valley and we were there.

The city center has been pretty much rebuilt, but there were still signs of the fighting that had yet to be cleaned up.

On our way back, we stopped at Pocetelj, a riverside town with a hilltop fortress.

When we departed Pocetelj, we accelerated out onto the highway, went around a corner and were immediately pulled over by the Bosnian police. The guy came over, asked for my license and passport and invited me back to his car.

Once there, he informed me that I had been going 82 KM/hour, 32 over the speed limit. And wouldn't you know, 30+ km/h over the speed limit is a 150 euro fine.

Show me my speed, I said. I was just leaving this town, there is no way I was going that fast.

Of course, I didn't say exactly that, as he didn't speak English and I didn't speak Bosnian. So through my Russian, his Bosnian and his few English words, we went round and round. Finally he said, either pay here, or we go to court. Fine, I said, let's go to the court, pointing to my passport again (the implicit argument being that as a foreign diplomat, though not accredited in his country, I was willing to go to the court to avoid the shakedown). Defeated, he took down my name and thrust my passport back at me.

Another day, we headed to Ston and its sister city, Mali Ston. The cities are on a small peninsula, and were a part of the Dubrovnik empire, and were the source of salt for the area. Salt being important, the cities were well defended.

You can see the city walls going up and around the small mountain here.

We walked around Ston for a bit.

Then headed to Mali Ston for a seafood lunch. Mali Ston is also known for its homegrown oysters. Matt and Katherine are fans, Kim and I, not so much.

Jack seems to not have a seafood or shellfish allergy, as he ate pretty much everything in the seafood salad, seafood risotto, and anything else we put in front of him.


We also found a pile of sand to play on, which is nice.


Zaton Mali. Two bays up from Dubrovnik sat our little guesthouse. The House Tereza. It's there in the middle of the photo across the bay. Quite nice, and a perfect location to explore the area.