Ragusa is the latin name the city of Dubrovnik formerly had when it existed as an independent republic and rivalled Venitian supremacy in the Adriatic sea as well as in the entire Mediterranean due to its strong merchant fleets and its strategic "ententes" with various superpowers, such as the Ottoman Empire and the Spanish Empire. Nevertheless, what now remains of those days is a beautiful little old city built within a fortress, more well-known to 21st century contemporaries because it is the summer hang-out destination of the Brangelinas, the Clooneys and the Bonos of our time and generation. It is also a popular stop-over for these rather lame cruises (apologies to all of those who do appreciate them. I sincerely do not) with an average passenger age of 65 years that go around the Mediterranean. As a matter of fact, I ran into a a hurd of c. 200 such individuals during my morning visit of the old town. I was astonished to see so many eager faces... and so much American English and German being spoken around me. It was quite a "reality" dose versus the rest of my trip... particularly after having spent 3 days in Bosnia Herzegovina.
But before entering the Croatian territory for a second time (remember I was in Zagreb a few days ago), I made a short stop in the city of Mostar, which is located about half way between Sarajevo and Dubrovnik. My good buddy Alex Coca had been there a few years back and he advised me to go, at least for a few hours on the way to Dubrovnik. And so I did... I left Sarajevo quite early (7am train), after yet another wake-up to the beats of the local mosque. As in the majority of my train travels in BiH, the ratio of passengers to seats on the train must have been 1:10. This time though, it turns out that it had been snowing so heavily all night long + still in the morning that the train lines were heavily covered in snow. Therefore, the train had to stop in Konjic (about 1.5 hours into the train ride) as the conditions of the tracks made it impossible for the train to continue. We nevertheless got a replacement bus between Konjic and Mostar and managed to get there only about c. 30 minutes after our initial arrival time. In Mostar, I was forced to switch on to a bus to continue on to Dubrovnik as there is no rail connection available. Apparently, there used to be a Dubrovnik-Belgrade service in the early times of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Those were other days... I nevertheless had a c. 3 hour layover I could very well use up to see the Mostar. The city is commonly known for having been one of the most affected cities during the Bosnian war as it was subject to numerous air raids, the most famous of which destroyed the Stari Most / Old Bridge (pic below but here is some further reading on the topic for any of you interested - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostar; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stari_Most). What is more appealing about the city, which, by the way, can be seen in its entirety in just under 2 hours) is the old town as it enables one to travel back in time and enter an old medina, similar to those found all across Morocco, with its tiny shops, its street vendors and its unique aromas. Stari Most literally divides the old town into two and is the true insignia of the city. After exploring the main mosque in old town, walking across Stari Most and peaking into a few local shops, I bought myself a tasty pita burek (http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://img2.blogcu.com/images/h/a/c/haciselim/burek.jpg&imgrefurl=http://haciselim.blogcu.com/bosnak-mutfagi/4878571&usg=__01T7FJX_AWqm4q0QJea_vux4vng=&h=357&w=474&sz=38&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=EEl1dFyuVoNuEM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=167&ei=-qtqTZLyKcKW4AbWp_DhCQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpita%2Bburek%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D681%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=123&vpy=75&dur=2546&hovh=195&hovw=259&tx=169&ty=148&oei=-qtqTZLyKcKW4AbWp_DhCQ&page=1&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0) and headed back to the bus station.
The journey from Mostar to Dubrovnik should have been quite short as only a mere 80 kilometers separate the two cities. It nevertheless ended taking about 3 hours. You may be asking yourselves why... It turns out that the bus crosses the Croatian / BiH border 3 times in order to get to Dubrovnik. This strange phenomenon is due to the fact that BiH has a tiny maritime coast which divides Croatia into two. Although the coastline is only c. 20 km, BiH still has its access to the Adriatic, as dictated by United Nations law. In addition, the journey, albeit long, enables one to witness some of the most breathtaking coastal views... absolutely stunning. Upon arrival in Dubrovnik it turned out that the hostel I was due to stay at had its reception open only between 8am and 2pm and between 6pm and 8pm during the winter season (i.e. now). As you must have guessed, I got into town at about 4pm and thus had to wait about 2 hours until I could check in at the hostel. I was originally intending to walk around old town and have a first taste of the city but it was raining heavily. I thus decided to have a beer in a local bar not to far from the hostel and began to think about my itinerary after Dubrovnik. Once I finally got settled in the dorm room, I was pleasantly surprise to find that someone was already in the room. His name was Fred and he was a Swiss engineer, who was on his way back to Switzerland after having attempted to reach India by car. He was meant to have been travelling for c. 1.5 years but given it was impossible for him to cross Iran he had to abort his original plan and after just under 5 months he was heading back home. He turned out to be quite a nice chap with whom I had dinner and went out on Friday night, but before I managed to stroll around old town for about 2 hours (before dinner) and take the some amazing pics (some of which were aimed to be below but had some technical difficulties and will upload pics soon). After a very enjoyable dinner in a local pizzeria and a rather bee and local spirits drowned night, we wished each other good luck and safe travels and off we each went in our own direction. I was due to catch the 3pm bus to Podgorica (Montenegro) and he was headed for Split (Croatia's most important commercial harbour). I still had plenty of time to visit Dubrovnik, which is precisely what I did. In the time I spent enjoying the quite, clean and very white yet tourist-packed (yes, remember those oldies from the cruise ships!) I managed to use my Canon's video recording function for the first time. Really silly not to have used it before but I think the inaugural clip is worthy of its honorary #1 status. I attempted to share it with you below (now that blogger allows video uploads) but it just takes too darn long to upload... In any case, it was a 20' clip of the old town harbour. Overall, I very much enjoyed the city. After the storm I had to endure the previous day, that morning was absolutely super... the sun was shining and had clear blue skies all day. Couldn't have asked for more! I would say that I would much rather recommend Dubrovnik over Venice, but again, that is just my own humble opinion based on a one day back-packing visit, and also based on the down season I managed to visit the two cities in. Don't want to imagine how packed they both are in the summer time!
Finally, at 3pm I got on a bus, which compared to all the others parked at the bus stations seemed from at the very least the 1970's and was meant to take me to Podgorica (capital of Montenegro - which since 2006, and after a referendum, is an independent sovereign state). The journey took about 5 hours (again... distance was just under 100km) because we stopped on a few occasions (once even for an entire hour. Here the driver tried to explain me that he had to "take a break". He told me personally as, at that point, I was the only passenger in the bus!). The scenery was quite picturesque and at one point we even had to take a "mini ferry" to cross a lake and get from one point of town to another where the road continued. Once I got to Podgorica, I had about 2 hours to go around the city before I got on the 10pm over-night train to Belgrade. The city was quite modest and didn't have too much to see unfortunately... but at least I was able to get back on a train and I can always say I once was in Montenegro, which I guess not many people can! ;) The train ride over-night was decent enough although my pleasant sleep was interrupted at c. 1am when we reached the Serbian border and I had to hand my passport to the ever so kind and respectful customs / police officer to get a customary validating stamp after a few random grins at my Spanish passport. Arrival time in Belgrade was c. 11 hours after departure and headed straight to the hostel to drop off my gear.
What happens next is for yet another tale. Hasta pronto!
pv
