We reached the far end of the island in plenty of time and we all got out for a comfort break and coffee while waiting for the ferry.
When came time to board the ferry, one of our group was AWOL. The tour leader ran back the 100 metres thru the hamlet frantically trying to locate him. He eventually emerged from a side street and the APB was called off and everything got back to normal.
The crossing took only 30 minutes and we landed at Drvenik. Soon afterwards we stopped for lunch.
After lunch we drove along the coast to Opuzen where we turned inland and headed up the Neretva valley crossing the border into Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) at Metkovic.
Shortly after crossing into BIH, we had a 30 minute stop at Pocitelj for a look at a well preserved blend of Mediterranean and Oriental architecture.
One of the first things we noticed as we crossed into BIH was that the ethnic and religious divisions that marked the war of the 1990s have not yet healed. To wit, all road signs must be indicated in both the Latin script (for Catholic Croats and Bosniak Muslims) and using the Cyrillic alphabet for the Orthodox Serbs. In the areas occupied by the former, quite often the Cyrillic version has been blotted out by spray paint, while reverse takes place in the Serb areas.
We then continued our drive to Mostar, arriving in mid-afternoon.
With hours to spare before supper we toured the historic central core on our own. Sadly, damages from the war continue to be evident everywhere in the core of the city where so much of the bombing and shooting went on. Below the view from our room's window.
We headed out to supper at 7 and walked down to a restaurant next to the Old Bridge area. I had the house schnitzle which oozed a sea of cheese once I cut into it - not low-cal for sure.
-- Post From My iPhone
Did the signage cause you flashbacks of your years at Official Languages?
ReplyDeleteOn an unrelated note, I'll bet you've never been so glad to be olfactorily challenged! :oP