Bosnia Herzegovina

What a fascinating day, because Wentz our tour leader, was born in Bosnia and the history was so interesting.
We backtracked today from Dubrovnik to get into Bosnia Herzegovina and we went past Otto's fruit stall again in the lush Neretva Valley, which is the fruit bowl of Croatia,but he wasn't there today!! Sad to see wildfires in the hills, so quite smoky and 30+ again today. The son of the family where we had dinner last night had been up all night, worried about his home in the hills.

There are three major ethnic groups here : Bosniac Muslims,Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats. It is a poor and religious country which once belonged to Yugoslavia and unemployment is apparently about 40%. Approximately 110,000 lost their lives in the war here, so some we saw some very full graveyards.
We drove up the Neretva Valley to Mostar, which had an interesting mix of Ottoman and modern architecture, with mosques and Turkish and Middle Eastern influences, as well as delapidated buildings, many badly pockmarked by shells. The shopping was amazing - like a Turkish bazaar with lots of jewellery, metalware, silver, glassware and war paraphernalia and cobbled streets again, but this time with stones set in concrete, so hard on the poor old feet again. Tobacco and wine are major products from this country. Mostar is renowned as the hottest city in Europe, often up to 45 degrees, but fortunately not today! A very cosmopolitan atmosphere with muezzins calling the people to prayer, local lads jumping off the famous Mostar Bridge for money and teeming with tourists.Sad to see gypsy women with babies begging in the street.(see photo and I did give her some money!)
From Mostar we had a very pretty drove to Sarajevo along the Nerevta River gorge with rocky sides, and the river an amazing green- blue colour.(see photo).Much more vegetation away from the coast.
Sarajevo also had an interesting history, having been a military garrison and is much more progressive than other cities here. Also tragically devastated in the 20th century (bombed four times in WW2) and gained International fame as the place where Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated, starting WW1, also the site of the Winter Olympics in 1984.It is a long narrow city 25 km long and 7 km wide, squeezed between hills and mountains with a population of 400,000. It was an interesting mix of ghastly concrete socialist flats, modern buildings and attractive homes in the hills. We drove up a street known as 'Snipers' Alley' because of civilian shootings.The population is predominantly Muslim and Jewish and the main mosque was stunning. The first time so far I have seen Moslem women with covered heads. I had to sneak the photo shown!