Swam several times, took the ferry across the harbour to the island of Lukom. Tried the nudist beach there, I was looking forward to nude swimming but the beach was on harsh rocks that were too hot to lie on. There were no women there, and instead there were toned and tanned gay men. So I retreated to the woods and walked across the island. And had an excellent lunch of octopus and grilled veggies.
Back in Dubrovnik I took the cable car up to the old Napoleonic fort. I had gone to see the war photo exhibition about the shelling of Dubrovnik but I was enraptured by the panoramic view and I had a long, long coffee enjoying the view. The war exhibition was set in a series of five domed store rooms, lots of photos of the Serb shelling of Dobrovnik, incredible that they felt that they could do that given it's UNESCO status. But I was a bit war photoed out and preferred the view.
Had a nice place for my supper in Lapad but the food was nowhere near as good as the previous night at hotel. More ghastly crooners instead of jazz at night. last night, early start for the airport tomorrow. What a great holiday.
Swimming in the Adriatic, exploring the city, walking out to modern art gallery.
Had a relaxed start to the day with a fine swim from rocks at Lapad. The Adriatic is lovely to swim in, clear and warm.
I enjoyed walking around Dubrovnik and having long pauses for coffee at cafes with good views. This included a long view down one of the city streets and later on a view over the harbour. I visited the Franciscan monastery and looked at the old pharmacy, which was a rather static museum piece and needed a lot more explanation. The modern pharmacy just outside the monastery felt more alive with the various healing oils they were selling. I skipped the religious paintings and instead enjoyed sitting in the cloisters. Dubrovnik has an annual festival and this year strap line is "Walls of stone heart of Art". I felt as though I have experienced both.
In the afternoon I walked out to the modern art gallery, this was one of the galleries I had not seen on yesterday's museum blitz. I was almost the only visitor. The Croatian work was rather derivative, I could see quasi Renoir, Cezanne like works. Upstairs was a retrospective exhibition of a painter who is 90 and paints works that have a theatrical quality with figures interacting. His work was much easier to understand after seeing film about him. He had been to art college just after the war and was a member of the Russian academy of arts, a reminder of previous alliances.
In the evening I swam again and then had an excellent supper of sea bass with a mass of Swiss chard and potato at Hotel More in Lapad, recommended by Trip Advisor
The beauty of Dubrovnik as seen from its walls and the variety of life here in the museums.
I picked up a Dubrovnik 1-day card which was good for the walk around the walls as well as eight museums so I then had the challenge of finding and seeing all the museums.
The walk around the wall shows the beauty of Dubrovnik with the contrast between the white stone and the red tiles and beyond that the azure sea. I walked and photographed but was also glad to take a break in the maritime museum where the history of seafaring and Dubronik is displayed. They were very powerful in the 16-18 centuries but were then reluctant to embrace the new steam technology and so fell behind the other seafaring nations. They seemed to pick up at the end of the nineteenth century with the start of tourism here, so cruise ships have been around for a long time.
Dubrovnik took a huge hit from the 1992-3 war and apparently 83% houses were hit. What one can see now is that the red tiles are all very new and of the same age so indicating a massive repair programme. I rested at strategically placed cafes along my walk enjoying the views and rehydration.
In the afternoon I tracked down as many museums as I could. So I enjoyed the Renaissance architecture of the cultural historical museum, inspected the old cells and irons, chairs were big in this museum, with receptions rooms lined with elegant 19 c chairs and sofas and centrepieces of glass-sided sedans for getting around in the wet weather. Marin Drzic is billed as Croatia's Goethe and Shakespeare. His house was tiny and he risked execution for staging plays there in the town in the 16 century. The natural history museum was difficult to track down and initially looked very unpromising with ancient glass cases with stuffed birds. But they had used their money to create lively modern displays about sea life. The molluscs one was especially imaginative with shells hanging in clear plastic spheres in the centre of the room and looking like a piece of modern art. So I managed to see 6/8 museums and also have multiple coffee breaks in nice squares.
Back at the hotel I had a sunset swim and then enjoyed a jazz trio (sax, guitar, double bass) who were playing outside my hotel.
Dubrovnik feels lively, stylish with interesting shops and an interesting history because not colonised for significant period. Feels Adriatic and very different to Bosnia. And probably also inland Croatia.
Walked around Mostar and visited a Turkish house to see typical Mostar life. The house was arranged a courtyard with a well now turned in an art piece with water running over five coffee pots soldered together. The largest rooms were upstairs. Here the women wove rugs at a loom, there was a large sitting area , a small bedroom, but leading off the area was an elegant domed room, again for guests with fabulous views of the river and mountains. A nice place to receive guests and drink Bosnian coffee.
I wandered through Mostar and saw the damage from the 1992-3 war between Serbs and Bosnians . The town was heavily damaged and although a lot of repair work has been done I walked along one street with a 19 c Hungarian facade clearly about to collapse. The destruction of the bridge was an iconic event . There is a film about the destruction and the rebuilding of the bridge, the early material of the old bridge is all in grainy film archive material, one then sees the soldiers of the bridge and the explosions that destroyed it. The bridge was later rebuilt and reopened with international celebrations and boys again dive from it, now for the tourists. In one of the guard houses I looked at a collection of war photos by a German photographer Wade Giddard. These black and white photos captured the different aspects of war and again were very moving. I wished that I could have stayed longer in Mostar.
We then had a 2 hour delay at the Bosnian-Croatian border because there were too few guards to process the papers of the coaches and lorries, one chap ahead of us had been questioned. We then saw a 4km queue on the Croatian side of cars waiting to enter Bosnia.That made our wait seem short.
We lunched at small promotory of Bosnian territory that reaches down to the Croatian coast.
When we reached Dubrovnik I raced into it with Joanna, Lori and Marikje. We sat in the main square drinking coffee and people watching. Dubronik looks like Venice with stone instead of canals, there are vast cathedrals with marble altars and baroque houses everywhere. The tourists were smart and affluent, such a contrast to Mostar .
Mostar was full of war but is also recovering, Dubrovnik feels very Mediterranean and touristy, but also a nice place to hang out for a few days.
We started with an hour long transfer past the village built for the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics. Samir is very proud of these Bosnian landmarks.
Our walk started next to a group of old wooden mills driven by water.
We walked through the beech forest and then came to the edge of a canyon, then up and along a ridge to a small ancient village. The village had been there since the 14 c, outside the village were typical ancient tomb stones, these date back to pre-Ottoman times here and are pentagonal in cross section and weigh about 2.5 tons and nobody knows how they are made or what the represented. They are typical of the Bosnian, Serbian Croatian region and may yet be granted UNESCO protected status. The village comprised about 30 stone houses with wooden shingle roofs, but now many of the roofs are protected with tin instead and this is rusting and lacks the beauty of the wood. The houses are very simple inside, one woman cooked us lunch of a typical potato and cheese filed filo pastry like pie. we also drank coffee from tiny cups. The village is now abandoned in winter and the inhabitants move-down to stay with children who live in the outskirts of Sarajevo. I wonder what the children make of the move and how they cope with the arrival of sheep and hens. The village still feels very self-sufficient, there were potato patches, sheep grazing and hens pecking around. The women knit socks and I bought a pair of multi coloured socks with a geometric pattern on them which I can show off in winter. The men carve wooden items. The village is growing in different ways, some new houses are being built, a bar has opened and the mosque is being repaired and there were about 20 people there on the building site , inside and beyond the building was a working prayer hall with a mirab, green pulpit and carpets facing Mecca. The village is opposite an area of heavy forests but also quite inaccessible. We then drove back over the bleak rocky landscape. it was also v hot., it has been the first day when it has not rained.
In the evening we then walked down to Sarajevo for an excellent supper in an old brewery where the beer was better than anywhere else so far; it has been very bland and I also enjoyed a dark beer, the only one I have seen in Bosnia. Also had nicer beer than before. We ended the evening with Sarajevan ice cream.
Today’s contrasts were between the socialist architecture of the 1960s Olympic village and the stone buildings in Lukor. This village had the timelessness of high mountain locations. It was especially interesting to see this village because there were no villages in the Sujtska national park.
We left the beautiful rocks and forest of the Sutkksa park, drove through a Middle European landscape with small villages and farms to awards Sarajevo. The many rocky canyons also illustrate the mountainous terrain. Sarajevo is bigger than I expected and lies in a valley; we had fine views of the red roofs of the houses the old centre of the town feels Turkish in the centre, with large mosques and old caravanserais. We also went round the ottoman library. A notice outside said that this had been destroyed in the 1993-5 war by Serbian criminals and 2 million documents destroyed and it has just been rebuilt with exquisite decorations but sadly no books. I also visited the spot where Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated with an old fashioned museum but I understand the event better and learnt that there were several potential assassins.
As one walks along the main Street in Sarajevo one can turn at one point and the vista changes from being Turkish to 19c Austro-Hungarian with high stuccoed buildings, shops, boutiques and both orthodox and catholic cathedrals. I also saw the synagogue.
The afternoon was sobering because I visited the gallery 11/07/95 which is a gallery devoted to remembering the Srebrenica massacre and the siege of Sarajevo. The Srebrenica massacre took place in 1995 and was done in a town that the UN had designated a safe area but the Dutch peacekeepers were unable to protect the people and the Serbs separated out the men and massacred 8000 with Ratko Mladic saying this was to avenge a previous Serbian defeat. There was a very powerful film showing the events leading up to the massacre mixing film footage and comments by people who lost relatives in the massacre. The task of identifying the dead is only partially done and despite even decades of work will never be finished. The photos of the events are in black and white and are high quality and well curated and create a powerful and saddening story.
I came out feeling sombre and sat in a cafe wondering how further massacres can be prevented. In am sure there are going to be massacres in Iraq.
In the evening we were sans guide for our meal so I found a cafe in the Turkish quarter that could take 13 and suggested to everyone that we went there, it avoided the problem of a large group being unable to decide where to eat. Sarajevo is heaving with people out enjoying themselves on a Sat night, maybe even more because of Ramadan. After enjoying an excellent ice cream in the throng we sat at an open air bar drinking beer and feeling as though we were in Vienna.
It was a day of contrasts, the Ottoman versus Austro- Hungarian aspects of Sarajevo, the horror of Srebrenica and festive throng on the streets of Sarajevo.
This was the big hike, 9 hours circuit round M Maglic in Sutjeska Park. The omens were not good because we woke up to thick mist in the park and then drove up to the starting point. As we set off there was no sign of the peak we were ascending. We walked for an hour or so through scrubby forest. Then we started to ascend and had a long climb up. This also involved doing hand to hand climbing over rocks and three pieces holding onto a wire cable. Joann and I were right at the end, both struggling. When we reached the point below the summit we were in thick fog, so we let the others go up for a peak view of cloud. I knew that I needed to conserve my energy for the next six hours walking and I wanted to avoid any further climbing.
We then descended across rock and grass, with beautiful clumps of alpine flowers . After an hour's descent we stopped for lunch and the mist cleared to reveal a stunning view of high mountains with stone valleys, patches of snow and a steep drop down to a green lake. It was magical to have this suddenly revealed. We then had a very difficult descent across the scree, first time for me using two sticks and not a good place to learn, I also felt cautious and ended up dropping right back to the end of the group with Sujan, the other guide. The descent seemed very, very long, endless jumping over stones. We rested by the lake which is used as a summer residence by locals staying there fishing and living off the land. We then walked up and had another long descent, this time through forest, and came out at a sunlit valley but also full of mosquitoes. We crossed and climbed slowly out for the ninth hour of the walk which ended with a 45 min ascent . We were rewarded with stunning views of the light breaking up through clouds onto other mountains. Shafts of light piercing the clouds and illuminated the rocks and trees. Then had a hour slow bus journey back to the park hotel, I really could have done without that long transfer.
We had supper in a local restaurant, again a disappointing veggie option, same veggies as the main course with three slices of cheese and a semolina cone.
This was the biggest walk many of us had done and people are saying it will be their benchmark walk. The other long one I have done is the Larig Ghru through the Cairngorms but that was easier without these technical sections.
Pleasant group of people to walk with, though we don't encourage each other much, all a bit too individualistic. The youngest is a Dutch doctor who lives in London and is about to start training as a haematologist. There are many retired people.
The weather here is very variable, but there had been a pattern even from Berlin. The morning is bright and warm, then the cloud builds up and there is a storm and the evening is then cleared.
Our transfer took us up through the mountains through areas of rocky landscape with only short Mediterranean oaks trees as vegetation. The landscape flattened out into plains where sheep and goats grazed.
We stopped at the national park hotel, a large building from the socialist era. We drove on for an hour into the first meeting a logger (possibly illegal) coming down which required pretty good reversing skills by our driver.
We then set off on our walk and started through trees, mixed types we then crossed meadows full of Alpine flowers pinks, yellows, blues. We climbed up a ridge to a peak from which we had amazing views of the landscape, mountains, beautiful rocks sediments visible, walked along the ridge to the point where we had a close view of mount Maglić and also views of the forest, rivers that start up here and other mountains. It is a beautiful landscape, it is very deserted, very little evidence of human habitation. No nomads. Got drenched by a ferocious thunderstorm that penetrated most of our waterproofs.
Had a nice walk back across the meadow and then fantastic views of the ridge which we had just walked on.
5 hours walking
Took a taxi to the airport and saw the vastness of new Zagreb with endless socialist flats and more being built.
Zagreb airport is tiny. I had beautiful views of the Dalmatian coast with azure blue sea small cluster of red roofed house and long peninsulas. I could also see how rocky the ground was.
I took a taxi to Trebinje, our first town. More beautiful views, first of Dubrovnik and the bay, then of the landscape here, vineyards on the valley floors, small trees, dominated by bare mountains with their lines of sediment visible.
Trebinje is a lovely town which shows off the different styles of Bosnian architecture, there are old Ottoman gates, a bridge , an old town with a mosque, small houses , two churches and then a modern gate that leads into the Austria Hungarian part of the town with larger houses, and cafes around a plane tree filled square. In the evening this was filled with Bosnians with 80s music playing.
I had the afternoon to myself because I arrived ahead of the group. I really appreciated this and wandered around the town by myself enjoying the cafes.
The group arrived about 6.00; 16 of us and we seem a typical Exodus mix with a couple of couples and an abundance of single women. The oldest is a wiry man who lived in Islington all his life and moved out to St Albans and now comes back to London the whole time.
In Trebinje one could also see the socialist style buildings, I found a large medical outpatients and a very light airy modern post office.
Bosnia is visibly poorer than Croatia with poorer quality goods and not such a range, lots of local produce especially water melons.
Nice guide Samir who has been doing this tour for some time.
Surprised to see Cyrillic script on the road signs and hotel.
I walked all over Zagreb, getting the feel of the town. It has a nice 19 c Austria Hungarian centre, lots of cafes and all the museums were closed on a Monday.
The cathedral is rebuilt neo-gothic , not very exciting, The other church has an amazing tiled roof with the Croatian coat of arms. I enjoyed the coffee and the cafes and bars were full of people meeting and talking. They are quite stylish but not aggressively so. I ended the evening in a fine open air jazz bar terrace and with hundreds of night lights on a wall and easy chairs for sitting. A young woman sang jazz classics accompanied by a key board player. Very relaxed.
I visited the Museum of Broken Relationships which is an extraordinary collection of objects that people have donated to mark the ending of various relationships. Romantic love and betrayal dominated and the objects which ranged from bits of pottery to magazines, a setting of the components of an Amstrad 64 to an axe. All had their stories. Many around the theme of love that initially seemed wonderful but then was not sustained, others of women betrayed by their husbands after decades of marriage, the axe belonged to someone who on being betrayed had chopped the betrayer’s furniture up into small pieces and handed it over. It was a strange sad collection, love is a universal phenomenon, betrayal is common, the stories were touching, sometimes the briefer notes were more poignant, one vase had by it: a business relationship that developed into an amorous one and both failed. In others the anger was still very palpable and the museum perhaps allowed people to dump their anger. I liked the philosophical exploration of the museum and was sad that it did not explore relationships between broken Balkan states for instance.
Interesting if rather mournful way to spend the afternoon
Started with a fast taxi ride across Berlin to reach the Berlin Sudkreuz station where I picked up the Prague train. I then found that this was the sleeper from Amsterdam and I slipped into a vacated compartment, stretched out and slept for 3 hours so catching up on my lost sleep from my very early start.
From Prague I was sharing a compartment with a Japanese music critic who lived in Vienna and a family from Montreal: a young couple who had an adopted Chinese girl. They were on their first trip to Europe. We all used our electronic gadgets; the critic was enjoying classical music on his phone and three of us had iPads. The Canadians were visiting friends and had brought caseloads of maple syrup. I enjoyed the very varied forest outside Prague and I remembered the steep and endless hills of Bohemia from cycling there in 1990. I enjoyed getting out at Prague and photographing the station. The scenery after Prague then flattened out into the Danube flood plain with huge wheat fields, all with ripe yellow plants.
I changed trains at an uninspired modern interchange, Vienna does have a huge new hauptbahnhof which looked like Reading station. But the train to Zagreb was elderly and looked as though it had been doing the Vienna Zagreb run for decades. Here I shared a compartment with 3 Americans and 2 Austrians, one a young chiropractor who got down at Graz and a middle aged woman who got down at Leibnitz. The scenery on the Vienna Graz section was breath-taking, we climbed up through forest with Alpine rocks and peaks, mountain cows grazed at impossible angles on the slope. We then had interesting views of rivers and churches in Slovenia.
The Americans were a couple and a young friend who were using all their holiday for a European trip. They were staying in hostels and moving on couple of days. The two men were engineers working on building gas and oil pipe lines and clearly loved their work.
The last two hours to Zagreb were very long and we had our tickets checked endlessly. Very glad to get here and to have a nice hotel to check into. The World Cup final was in the last stages as I arrived but I was too tired to watch but I did later wake up and had to check the score.
