Dubrovnik at the end.

Visited Monstar, the city with the world famous one arch bridge that was completed  in 1556 as a way to show city pride and then as a way to attract tourist after it was destroyed in the Bosnia War in 1993 and rebuilt exactly the same way and using the same stones. There are men that jump from the center into the creek below after they collectively reach 25 Euros from people walking by. The height is 78.9 feet high and can be deadly, at least 1 person (mostly tourists) die every year jumping. It’s a right of passage for the young men in the city. 

Monstar has a cute old town with lots of shops selling Turkish Lamps, hand painted copper tea/coffee sets, and small trinkets. Robby and I wanted to buy everything since it was so cheap, but the shipping cost to the US would have tripled the cost of the items. We browsed and only bought small tea light holders as momentos.

Leaving Monstar, we drove along a mountain road with a green river on our left and about 50 man-made tunnels in front of us. Apparently they just blew holes in the mountain for the road and half the tunnels were open rock with no cement bracings. Interesting, but scary when the tunnels went forever with only select cutouts in the side for light.

We arrived at the Blagaj Dervish House in the Herzegovina providence of Bosnia. It was built next to a mountain wall with the Buna river flowing out of a cave and past the 2 story house. The locals set up a restaurant along the shore with trout being the speciality. We all shared one last meal with Zejko because he would be leaving us in Cavtat (Croatia) and driving back to Serbia in the evening. 

Robby and I convinced Dale, Jackie, and Cindy to tour the House with us. All the women had to put on head scarves and Dale had to wear a skirt to cover his legs. Apparently it’s a no-no to show your legs if your a woman or a man. The House was furnished with Ottoman type items to give visitors an idea of how people lived there in 16th century. This is not a whirling dervish house, much to the dismay of Robby and I. Whirling dervishes are most known in India and spin in a constant circle until they hear the word of God in their dizzy delirium. They can spin for hours. This house is just a normal monastery and resting house for practitioners. 

Back in the van, we quickly stopped at Pocitelj, another fortress; but we only visited the watch tower. After climbing 220+ steps, we reached the four-story tower that once had floors on each section, but now only has a cramped, steep staircase leading you up to the attic (the only room with a floor left, although rotting wood is a loose term for a floor). Robby and I had fun taking a bunch of photos of the decaying building that’s managed to survive for over 400 years. The late afternoon light was streaming through the window slats and showed us a great view of the Bosnian vineyards in the distance with the Adriatic just over the last mountain we had to drive across that evening.

With the sun setting, we checked into our hotel, one semi short hill away from the central walkway in Cavtat (saav-TAT) and also where all the boats come in. Louise walked us to the waterway and showed us the main spots in the tiny town. A chilly wind had sprung up, so most of us opted to go back to our rooms for the evening. Robby, Mary, Ann, and I did stop for gelato on the way back, but mint flavor in Croatia taste like toothpaste, so it was a disappointing dinner. 

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In the morning the wind was still howling, so all the boats to Dubrovnik were not running. Poor Louise had to run around and find us a taxi to the walled city so we could spend the day exploring old town, which is now super famous due to Game of Thrones. We all went on a very informational walking tour of the city where we learned about Orlando’s elbow, the old trade unit of measurement that started around 1418 and was based on length of the most honest soldier’s elbow. There’s a monument of Orlando in the center of the city square and the first step is the exact length of his lower arm. People would lay their items along the step and go, “2 elbows is X dinar (dollars)”. 

Dubrovnik also has its own patron, St. Blaise. He was a real man that warned the city in 972 that the Venetians, who were only in the city to “restock food”, were in fact planning to conquer Dubrovnik. His warning gave the Senate enough time to mount an adequate defense and the city was saved. He is also the patron saint of sore throats because he once healed a child chocking on a fish bone. 

Dubrovnik is one of the oldest remaining living fortresses. People still live and work inside the protective walls, but more and more young people are leaving due to increasing costs of rent and the onslaught of tourists that make getting around difficult. The city of Dubrovnik is trying to bring back a semblance of order to the walled city by limiting the number of cruise ships allowed in the bay to a max of 3 a day and the cruise patrons visit times to 3-5 hour blocks in the Old Town. 

This is only a small help in stemming the streams of people wandering aimlessly in wonder and snapping photos abundantly without care to the working people trying to get places. But with such a short amount of time to explore, the tourists can just about walk the 2kms of the Wall and have a coffee before they have to reboard their ships. This in turn actually hurts the vendors and restaurants in Old Town because no one has time to shop or eat. So a city perceived as a top tourist destination can be a hardship instead of a blessing. 

Either way, we enjoyed the city immensely. We did have to weave in and out of large tour groups and oblivious wanderers, but we managed to see most of the city in the 1.5 days we were there. We bought a 1 day city pass that allowed us access to 8 museums, the City Wall, 3 art galleries, and a 24-hour bus pass. It cost us $5 more than just the City Wall ticket, so totally worth it; especially since our “1 day” started at 1pm, giving us time to visit some of the places the following morning before our afternoon ferry to Hvar Island.

The Marin Drzic House was mostly an art gallery for a random woman’s pretty paintings, but was supposed to be a memorial museum to Croatia’s most famous playwrights, Marin Drzic. The top floor had a replica of his writing room, but that’s about all we could find on him in the building.

The Archeology Museum was supposed to have an exhibit on the five phases of construction that shaped the Old Town, but it had an exhibit on the churches in the area, complete with relief pieces of the old buildings. Interesting in a way, but didn’t tell us much about Dubrovnik. However, the Maritime Museum showed pictures of the city from the 1800’s onwards and had hand drawn maps of the city dated even earlier. 

We learned that Dubrovnik was a major port city and they built their city walls to be firm enough to withstand most cannon attacks, but didn’t fortify the sea walls as well because they didn’t think anyone would attack them from the water. The city managed to abstain damage from all wars prior to the 20th century due to the imposing looking walls and the silver tongues of the city’s tradesmen, but it did concede to bombs from the 1991 Bosnian War. Croatia was fighting with Serbia and sort of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

Around 417 people died, countless boats were destroyed in the harbor, houses caught fire, and the 11th century clock tower in the center was blown up. Man’s ability to create something magnificent will always be overshadowed by his ambition to be number one, so what is precious will most likely be destroyed by power, in time. Part of the reason why Robby and I travel so much is so that we can see that which remains - old ways of life, living ancestries, ruin cities that shout their stories if one is willing to listen, ancient societies - before they are taken away by greed or war or Mother Nature. If we don’t see what was, how will we learn from the past and grow to something new?

The Cultural Historical Museum told us a bit of Dubrovnik’s history. It was housed in the old palace of the town Rector, the deciding factor on important matters for the city. In the 10th century there was a lot of strife and a little corruption in the city government, so a Rector was selected to be the peacekeeper. A Rector could only be in office once a year for a single 1 month term, had to be over 50 years of age, and couldn’t leave the palace during his term except to celebrate city holidays, in which case he was carried out in a fancy box to greet the public. 

He lived in 8 or 9 rooms on the top floor of a marble Palace. Replicas of his rooms were set up showcasing elegant golden candle holders, Rembrandt-eque paintings of past Rectors, and beautifully carved wooden armoires painted with intricate flowers or shapes. The bottom floor of the palace held a dungeon and another exhibit on more hand drawn maps of the Adriatic. 

The National History Museum had a sound exhibit on insects, so I got to listen to the lullaby of cricket chirping and flies buzzing as I read about creepy crawlies daily lives. In the stairwell of the 4 storey building, we learned the story of all the past and present owners of the museum and that the museum’s location has changed about 8 times since its conception in 1872. It was started by a man that got random travelers to donate animals specimens they found all over the world so he could put them on display for educational purposes. 

We walked the crowded streets and admired the amazing architecture of the buildings and the wall that people whom fought with sticks and stones managed to create in a time of hardship and zero technology. Dubrovnik is a fantastic place to visit, but the crowds were a bit much, so we caught the ferry back to Cavtat with the Aussies mid afternoon. Ann and Mary walked up a hill in Cavtat to a cemetery where the dead had a beautiful view of the Adriatic; a nice resting place. 

In the evening, all 7 of us, plus Louise shared one last meal together as this was our last night of the trip and we all were going our separate ways in the morning. It was sad, but a great last evening together. Dale had devised a game where we all had to answer questions about the history of the places or people we’d learned about for the past 2 weeks. When he ran out of questions, everyone came up with their own. We were laughing and joking so long the waiter gave us sideway glances of “planning to leave anytime soon so I can clean the table?” 

All in all, the last 14 days were amazing with the Aussies, Louise, and Zejko. We saw 6 countries, learned about the 1991 war that mostly impacted 3 countries, found out how 25 million people feel about a Dictator, ate some yummy and not so yummy food, and got to know each other so that we are now an aloof, but welcoming family group. 

The all around beauty of Sarajevo

Sarajevo is a wonderful city. The people smile and say hello, help you with directions when lost, and are happy to answer most questions. You wouldn’t know that this city was bombed consistently for over 4 years, including a day when 2.5 bombs dropped a minute, from the outward appearance of the people. 300,000 citizens lived in Sarajevo at the start of 1992 and by 1996, at the end of the war, 110,000 had been killed via bombs, sniper fire, fire fire, and at the hands of men. 

The war started after the death of Tito, the dictator of Yugoslavia. He self proclaimed himself the ruler of Yugoslavia - 6 countries and 2 providences, inhabited by 25 million people in the 1940’s. For over 40 years, he was a pretty benevolent ruler. He allowed freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Everyone had jobs and was taken care of. He just demanded that no one spoke ill of him or his region, otherwise his secret police would pay you a visit and ensure you loved Tito as much as everyone else. 

In 1980 he died without a successor, so 8 presidents were elected from the various places (6 federations: Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, and 2 provinces: Kosovo and Vojvodina) that were former Yugoslavia and a power struggle ensued. After small fights broke out amongst the different religious sects and countries, the Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, dubbed “Little Tito” (since everyone believed he acted similar to the real Tito), was elected to give a speech to bring the people together. It was immediately clear that after his first few words, he was anything, but Tito. 

Slobodan Milosevic speech can be summed up by saying that he believed the Serbs were the superior people, being Orthodox, and they would fight to ensure that Serbia came out on top of all the former Yugoslavian countries. This started the segregation of the Serbs from the others in Yugoslavia and an ethnic cleansing of the Serbian Muslims in Bosnia, known as Bosniaks, by the Bosnian Serbs and Serbians. The 4 year war that terrorized Bosnia and Herzegovina citizens ended in One day, after the signing of the Dayton Agreement forced upon the presidents of BiH, Serbia, and Croatia by US President Bill Clinton, France President Jacque Chirac, and various other countries. Croatia was also fighting with Serbia, but it was  over their independence from the rest of the Yugoslavian countries.

The agreement is said by the Bosniaks to have came about after a video leaked of United Nations soldiers working alongside Serbia soldiers illuminating Bosniak civilians being separated into women and men only lines. It is said, that the men and boys were then driven into the woods by the Serbian army, forced to strip naked while they dug their own graves, and shot dead. It took 6 days for the international community to do anything about the estimated 8000 men and boys that were killed after the video leaked. These people were hiding in Srebrenica, a city that the UN turned into a safe zone, after making the Bosniak’s 28th military division vacate. During the entire war, the 28th had managed to protect the city from siege and were considered the most powerful Bosniak army group in the country. According to the Serbians that we talked to, it is believed the war ended after the Serbians proved to the French President that more than 5,000 Serbians had been killed (they gathered any bodies they found as proof). 

The Aussies and us all learned our history of the Bosnian War from different BiH tour guides in Sarajevo, so the history was a bit one-sided. Zejko, a through and through Serbian, tried to set us straight with his version, but I believe each interpretation is in the eye of the beholder. In both version lots of people died, it just varies on how the war started and ended. 

We learned most of this history after going on a tour of the Tunnel of Hope. Since the Bosniaks were surrounded on all sides, the U.N. took over the Bosnian airport and helped the BiH citizens built a tunnel from the dangerous section to the free territories that stretched into the surrounding mountains. Anyone was allowed to transverse the 800 meter long tunnel that was only 1.6 meters high and 1 meter wide. A person could only go one direction in the tunnel at a time, and the direction changed every 2 hours. It took 4 months and 4 days to build the tunnel.

I had asked why people, who had to leave the safety of their homes, travel 12kms from the center of town, through sniper alley (yes, assholes shooting people), and avoid bombs, wouldn’t just stay in the free territories, but apparently there were Serbs hiding out there as well and the further people went into the mountains, the closer they came to being unwelcome by the Croatian army. So essentially, Bosniaks risked their lives several times a week or month to visit the black market sellers in the free territories so they could pay 3x the price for food and basic necessities before heading back into the fray of their beloved city. The currency of the war was not money, but cigarettes. Since everyone here smokes, I still can’t figure out how they didn’t light up all their “cash” before they had time to trade it. 

But people survived and they are now thriving. The town looks amazing; modern buildings are sprouting up all over to mix with the 1800’s looking brick and mortar and daily life is continuing - people go to work, kids go to school, there’s laughter in the cafes and chatting on cell phones in the streets. If it wasn’t for the brown paint on the buildings covering bomb holes (left intentionally as a reminder), the glaringly obvious bullet holes shot through most buildings, or the Sarajevo Roses (red paint on the ground highlighting spots where missiles killed people), you would think Sarajevo a quaint little city with whimsical neighborhoods and gothic architecture. 

Robby and I could have stayed there at least another day or two. We really only had one day to explore and we made the most of it. Did the walking tour in the morning which was overshadowed by an eerie wind, repercussions of the hurricane in Croatia the day before and Global Warming messing with the weather, so we spent most of the tour in a coffee house learning how to properly drink Bosnian coffee (like Turkish, but without cardamon). Apparently all of Europe was hit with strange weather and it went from 88 degrees to about 55, with our one day being raining, cold, and windy. But since we’re adventurers, we put on our rain gear and visited the Sephardic Jewish Museum, an 18 century home that had a film crew working in half of it, the newly built city library/antiquities museum, the Tunnel of Life, and we walked up a ton of steps to ride the newly reopened Cable Car to the top of Mount Trebević. We could’ve seen an amazing panoramic of the whole town had it not been covered in a layer of fog. 

At the top, we got a little turned around before finding the abandoned 1984 Olympic Bobsleigh track nestled amongst over grown bushes and shading trees. The giant slabs of concrete lay discarded, their glory days long forgotten, broken in pieces by war or nature reclaiming her land, but the curving tracks, now covered in vibrant graffiti, lives on in 1001 Instagram photos and videos. History never really dies, it just evolves. 

Robby and I had the whole track to ourselves as the stormy weather chased all the sightseers away. Apparently the track can get so swamped with selfie stick, photo clicking yuppies, you can never get a clean image. We did however manage to scare a family in a car as we walked out of the trees down the middle of the track that rose above the road they were driving on. I thought it was funny, not so sure about the parents. 

With more rain approaching and the sun setting, we bid adieu to the deserted history and headed to meet the rest of our tour group for a nice dinner at the local brewery. They produce Sarajevska beers, really delicious ales that have a minute sweetness to them and are similar to blonds and ambers. After dinner, Mary, Ann, Robby, and I wandered a bit before finding the waffle shop we’d seen earlier. We ordered decadent waffles slathered in Nutella, apple pie filling, cream, chocolate bits, ice cream, and various other things that probably jumped our glucose dangerously close to diabetes. All in all, it was a sweet ending to a fulfilling day.