Reading about the Bosnian elections is inexplicably making me homesick for the Balkans. It's all the random pictures of Sarajevo and little mountain towns I guess. It's nice that something positive in politics might be happening somewhere in the world, anyway, for a change.
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This weekend I went to Mostar with Elizabeth and MB. We took the 0707 train from Sarajevo on Saturday morning. The pinky sunrise was softened by the already accumulated smog, which obscured our view from the train for at least thirty minutes before we finally crawled out of it in the mountains. The smog was still waiting on Sunday evening to greet us on our return. So.. it was a good idea to go away this weekend. Mostar was bright, clear, and less cold throughout. And the colour of that water!
Officially the train arrives into Mostar at 9am, but it was after 0930 when we got there. Between three of us we paid 46km (23EUR) for an apartment a hop and a skip away from the old town. Our hosts picked us up from the train station.
Mostar is small, and at least as battered by the war as Sarajevo if not more so. Abandoned buildings are striking.
We went to see the famous bridge of course, and had coffee looking over the river. We went to the Hammam museum (15 mins, 4km) and inside a mosque beside the river and up the minaret (12km), which was super cool. The Bridge Museum was closed. Old town is nice to wander around, but packed up pretty early. It's not tourist season I guess.
After a nap, we hiked up to the controversial cross on Hum Hill. Instead of taking a path or road around the back of the hill, we charged straight up the Mostar-side, which was rocky and steep and probably there weren't landmines but also it was a sniper stronghold so you know. Good views of town. We returned via the road, which took longer but was less perilous.
Veggie food was not easy to find. Nowhere even had krompirusa. It was on the menus (but spelled krompirača??), but nobody had it. One place managed to dredge up some vegetable mush and rice for me. I ate the apple part of a tufahija (baked apple) and the others ate the cream. Turkish delight and halva were abundant. This was a high sugar weekend. We also drank a lot of Bosnian coffee.
Except the next day! We headed to Teco, since it's listed on HappyCow (two other places are listed on HappyCow for Mostar; one we couldn't find and the other was clearly under new management and only had pizza). Teco is further out and by the university campus, so it was a bit of a walk. They had a vegan burger (ask for yoghurt to be excluded), three vegan cakes and a wide selection of smoothies, plus soya milk for coffee drinks. The have a glass-surround front which heated up like a greenhouse. We stayed for five hours soaking up the sun and reading. The music was also good.
Then we caught the train back to Sarajevo.
Train from Sarajevo to Mostar
12bam (€6.12)
In most places, it's a pit stop. In Bosnia it's a pita stop. An hour out of Sarajevo, and the bus driver needs burek.