Day 43 Mostar

We went to pick up a hire car for the day and the girl in the office said she sees lots of young Australians visiting because of the comedy duo of Hamish and Andy. Apparently they jumped from the bridge on their TV show and as it was on YouTube that encouraged others to visit.

Our first stop was the Dervish monastery at Blagaj on the banks of a mini horseshoe waterfall which is a very pretty spot full of restaurants. 

We then drove onto Medugorje which is a Catholic pilgrimage spot complete with a statue of Jesus that weeps from the right knee. We did witness the weeping and the lines of people with folded paper soaking it up and kissing it.

We went via the Kravica waterfalls for lunch right on the edge of the lake and although it was very hot we didn't swim as we had read that even on hot days the water is freezing, we had braced ourselves for crowds and having to compete with tourist buses wherever we went but there weren't really crowds anywhere, it was all easy and manageable.

As we still had the car for the rest of the afternoon we decided to make use of it and drive to Neum which is the tiny strip of coastal land on the Dalmatian Coast that Croatia gave to Bosnia many years ago so it had access to the sea. What we hadn't banked on was the long windy drive through the mountains on a narrow, poorly maintained road with a few hard to follow detours as well. We finally arrived at Neum where you can see both borders, north and south to Croatia. We decided to find a better alternative route to go back, but as the only better route went through Croatia and we didn't have our passports with us we had no option but to take the mountain route back to Mostar.

When we arrived back into the old town the difference in tourist numbers was notable, where had everyone gone? When we asked we were told that today was an unusual day, it's not normal for Mostar to be this quiet at this time of year.