Dubrovnik Day 1-3

9 - 11 September 2013

Day 1: Arriving
The Bosnian border control seemed really easy and I don't think they even stamped me out. The Croatian border control was a bit harder but also quite strange:

Border cop: *looks at passport* Do you have a big bag in the storage area of the bus?
Me: Yep
Border cop: Ok, you'll have to hop off and grab it.
Me: *Only just jumped out of the bus*
Border cop: Do you have anything to declare?
Me: No (they haven't even seen my bag yet)
Border cop: Ok, get back on the bus

During the rest of the bus ride we crossed back into Bosnia and then back into Croatia again so that's a total of 6 checkpoints on one bus trip. The second checkpoint entering Croatia was super lazy and he didn't even bother walking to the back of the bus to check passports. The bus ride was made even more exciting by the fact that water was leaking from the overhead compartments in the back row and eventually the back four rows of speakers. I was sitting in the back row but I was lucky because there were free (dry) seats to move into.

Hill climb
I was organised this time and knew where to go for my hostel although I didn't bother to book it. As I was grabbing my bag I had a quick chat with an American couple who looked a bit lost and when they heard that I knew (roughly) where I was going they asked if they could follow. I warned them that it was about a 15 minute walk up a decent hill but they didn't seem to mind so the three of us set off. It all turned out ok in the end because there was a free bed for me at the hostel and although there wasn't space for the couple, the guy rang his mate down the road who did have a private room for them.

Evening
The place had a large balcony with a poorly equipped outdoor kitchen so after fumbling my way through making dinner with the minimum of utensils, I joined a group of English girls, some Sydney boys and a Kiwi girl at the table for a chat and to play cards (lucky I just bought those Uno cards).

Day 2: Proper hill climb
I spent the morning planning what to do during the day while I waited the rain out. Once the clouds disappeared I headed toward the top of a nearby hill. I still had to walk through a bit of the town before I reached the walking trail but it was good fun because there's lots of small, curvy alleys that cut between some interesting backyards.

Once I crossed over the main road that goes past the top of the town I was on the walking trail to the top of the hill. It was a fairly well maintained track that zigzagged its way to the top and gave some awesome views on the way. At the top I had a look around the castle remains and found a nice spot to have lunch.

Old town
From my perch on the top of the hill I could see the old town but it was about an hour before I made it down to the entrance to the walled city. I went for a bit of a wander through the city but it was very touristy and felt a lot like the Zadar old town. I had a lot of people recommend doing the walk around the wall and after some searching I found the stairs up onto the wall. They were right, the wall walk is pretty cool because you're well above the city so you get good views of the old town and the surrounding areas. Apparently Game of Thrones was filming on a nearby beach but all I could see from the city walls was a bunch of tents for the crew.

Back home
As the sun was starting to set I headed back to the hostel, with a stop at the supermarket for cheap beer and dinner supplies. I spent the night talking and playing cards with two French girls and whoever else decided to turn up on the balcony.

Day 3: Leaving
After a brekky of sausages, yoghurt and juice and a morning of blogging I walked down the hill toward the bus station. I was expecting a bus to be there in about 45 minutes but of course that bus didn't run on the day that I was there so instead I had to catch the bus that came a few hours later. In the few hours I had to kill I walked around and found a grassy area to sit and relax.

Panorama from the hostel balcony

Panorama from the top of the hill

Panorama over the old town from the highest point on the walls

Another panorama of the old town from the wall

Another panorama of the old town from the wall

Nice view from my hostel room's balcony (and that beer is worth about $3 AUD)

Part way up the walking trail, looking down at the old town

Looking out over Dubrovnik from the top of the hill

Taken on the city walls with the old town in the background

This cyclops/Power Rangers putty looking "Do not enter" dude is everywhere in Europe

Looking up at the castle on the hill from the old town

The old town walls taken from on the wall

A cannon that is almost aiming at the ship

Another cannon but this one is more on target

The leaky bus

Mostar Day 1-4

6 - 9 September 2013

Day 1: Split to Mostar
I'm back in Split now, just off the ferry from Hvar and on the way to the bus station I got a bit distracted; I bought a (super cheap) pack of Uno cards, a little further on a pair of sunnies then I made it a bit further before getting a chevap sandwich. I bought the bus ticket without any hassle and the bus was coming in 45 minutes so I thought "great, not long to wait" but the bus didn't show up. After a bunch of confusing and unhelpful conversations with bus drivers, I headed back to the ticket office and had the ticket exchanged for the next bus (only 30 minutes later) and as a bonus, this bus was about half the price, WINNING! This bus actually showed up and I jumped on with 3 Belgians that I met in all the confusion with the earlier bus. It sucked that the bus ride was at night because the views when we were leaving Croatia and later, when we were entering Mostar would've been awesome.

Where to stay
I didn't have a hostel booked so the plan was to try a few that I had marked on my map but because we arrived fairly late at night, I decided it would be easier to follow the 3 Belgian guys who already had something booked (and knew where it was). They were staying in a pension that was run by an Albanian family who was a little bit weird; the father, who ran the place, had a bit of a creepy vibe about him and one of the young boys was obsessed with my tablet but I guess it's fair enough because I was too and that's why I bought it. Anyway, I ended up staying at this place mainly because it seemed to hard to go find somewhere else and it turned out to be comfortable enough.

Beer
After we'd dumped our bags we headed out to have a look around the town and find a beer. The old town in Mostar is pretty small so we pretty much walked from one side to the other in about 10 minutes and we settled on a bar that was down by the river with a nice view of the bridge. While we were there we watched another table of guys get more and more drunk on Rakia until they thought it was a good idea to go for a swim in the freezing river!

Day 2: Lazy morning
The Belgian guys were moving fast on their holiday so they were off to the next city in the morning. That left me to go find another hostel, which turned out to be really easy because I stumbled across one just down the road right after I'd said goodbye to the Belgians. After I'd dumped my stuff I went for a walk around the town during the day and spent the afternoon relaxing in the room.

Dinner
The hostel had a bit of a kitchen so using my Bear Grylls skills I managed to make something. The dishes didn't seem all that clean but I didn't die so I'm not worried.

New roomies
I had two room mates who rocked up in the evening. They were two Bosian friends who were travelling to raise money for another friend's operation and they were really nice guys. One of them spoke a little English and the other didn't speak any but they insisted that I go out for a drink with them that night. We started at a small pub that had tables out on the main street before heading over to what was possibly the only club in town. This club was interesting because there was a tiny area inside that had the bar but pretty much everyone was outside around the tables listening to a DJ blasting music of all sorts. There wasn't a fence or anything, in fact we were almost standing on the road and had to keep moving to avoid the cars that were driving past. There were also A LOT of hot girls and I have no idea where they came from because you sure don't see them during the day or even get the feeling that anyone with disposable income lives there.

Snoring
It was a good night out but as I found out, one of the Bosnian guys had a tendency to snore when he was drunk. Unfortunately it wasn't light snoring and to have any chance of sleeping I had to chuck earphones in and play music at a decent volume.

Day 3: Nothing
I did nothing noteworthy today unless blogging or watching TV shows is interesting.

Day 4: Off to Dubrovnik
After breakfast I wandered over to the bus station and managed to finally buy a ticket after a bunch of locals pushed in front of me. Then there was a fair bit of waiting because the bus was over an hour late but when you're only paying a couple of dollars for a ticket to another country, you can't really complain.

Thoughts on Mostar

• The city has a bit of a run down feel about it. Some building look fine while others have bullet holes or are completely destroyed from bombs
• The cobblestones in the old town are both harsh and hard to walk on
• The bridge is REALLY high and you'd have to be crazy to jump off it (I didn't see anyone do it while I was there)

One of the building with bullet holes

My first view of the bridge

The view of the bridge from the other side where we found the pub

A panorama out over Mostar from the bridge

A run down building with cool looking panels on it. No idea what it was

The university?

My two Bosnian mates

With an 'a' is water, with an 'o' is beer :D

Hvar Day 1-3

4 - 6 September 2013

Day 1: Ferry to the island
In case I haven't mentioned it enough, Hvar is a small island just off the coast of the Croatian mainland and to get there, we caught the high speed ferry. There wasn't a lot to see on the ferry ride so instead I started watching a TV series called The Wire and I got hooked on it. The ferrys aren't as big as the ones in Greece but then the islands are also a lot closer so it all works out and the ride was quite pleasant.

Finding the apartment
We (I'm still with my Belgian friend) were a sort of prepared when it came to finding the place we were staying at, with the help of Google Maps, but we still ended up wandering around for a while because the streets weren't very well signed. We had a helpful guy who stopped his car (while other cars were waiting to get past) next to us and asked if we needed help. It turns out he was trying to get us to stay at his place and told us that the place we'd booked was closed, nice try. We found it in the end but woke the lady who runs it up, whoops.

Dinner
We went out for a quick swim before grabbing supplies from the supermarket. Dinner was fish sticks (cue South Park joke) and some cheap wine that unlike Australian goon, is actually quite drinkable.

Exploring
After dinner we went for a walk into town where we found a few bars that were decked out as clubs complete with loud music but there were hardly any people in them. At one point I looked up and realised that this was probably the first time I'd seen stars in the northern hemisphere because up until now, I'd spent all my time in large cities. After we reached the edge of town we headed back, grabbed a beer from a convenience store and joined the other cheapos that were drinking in the park.

Day 2: Bike ride
Today was a good day; I had cereal for breakfast!! It doesn't sound like much but I was getting withdrawals because I was having it every day before I left. We spent the morning trying to find a place that would hire kayaks or bicycles and finally settled on a bike because kayaks were only available for tours which we didn't want to do. The start of the ride was the hard bit because we had a constant uphill climb for 5km (and we averaged 5.5km/h) but at the top we could see out over a lot of the island. We stopped for lunch where we had a view out over Stari Grad and then continued onto the downhill section until we saw a sign that said we were entering the extreme trail. We were hoping it didn't mean extreme uphill, and it didn't, but it did mean a decent downhill section that was covered in huge rocks and it certainly gave the arms a workout, even with suspension. As we neared the bottom of the hill we went through a tunnel and past a couple that we suspect were getting it on until we interrupted.

Beach
At the bottom of the hill was a beach so we locked the bikes up and spent a couple of hours swimming and relaxing. The beach was ok but not as good as Omiš because it had the dreaded big rocks instead of small pebbles.

Heading back
We were hoping that the last bit of the ride wasn't on the main road or uphill but it was both of those things. There wasn't a lot to see on the way back so it was just heads down, avoiding cars and trying not to swallow the flying bugs. We were a little bit late bringing the bikes back but the rental place didn't mind so we ended up having a day's rental for a great price.

Dinner
We grabbed supplies from the supermarket again and headed home to cook up chicken parmigianas and some veggies. Considering anyone watching the cooking process would be surprised the result was edible, I think the end result was actually really nice although not as good as the parmies in the pubs back home.

Staying in
Instead of going out we had some drinks with an Englishman who was staying there and talked about all sorts from the usual travel questions to jobs and as normally happens when you're pretty drunk, we moved on the deep philosophical topics like the meaning of life. I had a really good time.

Day 3: Back to Split
It was a bit of a slow morning but the lady who runs the place, Vinka, was really nice and she let us have a late checkout at midday. We didn't achieve much else other than getting lunch from the supermarket and making it to the ferry on time.

Looking pretty excited after getting near the top of our 5km uphill ride and seeing a nice view

Coming downhill through a small town

Still going downhill but on the "extreme" section now (this was an easier bit so I grabbed a photo)

An abandoned village (apart from one barking dog) near the bottom of the hill

A giant ship in the port

A panorama taken from about 4.5kms into the ride

My Belgian mate and the bikes

Looking out over Brač

Where we stopped for lunch

The parmi!

Some mini-segways we spotted.