The way we arranged this trip was that we would generally alternate travel days with resting days. Today was one of the big travel days, so we got up early at 5:15 am to get started. We showered, packed up our suitcase and picked up our to-go breakfast from the empty hotel front desk. They had packed us some fruits – apples, nectarines and pears, some ham and cheese sandwiches, and a pack of crackers and some chocolates. On top of that we had the snacks we had bought at the market yesterday, so we were well-supplied for a long travel day. We left our room key with some kitchen staff in the back, and then went outside and found our taxi waiting. It was a very short ride to the train station, and we found that it was slightly busier than yesterday, but still pretty empty.
There was a short line at the ticket counter which we joined, and everybody looked a little anxious to get on the train. Behind us in line a very talkative British lady was telling travel stories to some other people that she just met – it was a lot of chatter for this early in the morning and she was relentless in sharing all the great places she had been this trip. Ahead of us three Chinese people came over and talked to a solo Chinese woman in line, and then they all left the line together and went towards the platform. Maybe they had an extra ticket and invited her to join them?
Just as we reached the front of the line the another station staff showed up and so the ticket seller went back to help them prepare, and ticket sales stopped until they finished. During this time we could feel the anxiety of the longer and longer line forming behind us, and some people came up and were investigating why nothing was happening. But finally we were able to get our handwritten paper tickets, and we walked to the platform. The train was already sitting there, with all the carriages locked. We lined up at one of the rear carriages, and I hoped that when we boarded that orderly affair rather than a free-for-all that we sometimes see in other countries.
After a while the conductor came and started unlocking train cars from the front of the train working backwards. When other cars were unlocked people in front of us ran to the open doors, but that just put us in the front of our line when the conductor unlocked our door. The seats were non-reserved, so we casually walked in and sat on the left side of the train, as advised by Gemini the AI bot, who insisted the scenery is much better from the left side window.
I had read online that the train never sells out and there are always spaces available, so I was surprised to see all the seats filling up. Some couples were separated into single seats, and some people heading to the back of the train had to go back to the front to look for seats. Eventually the conductor unlocked one more train car in the back and apparently the train was full. Glad we got there early!
We always like traveling by train wherever we go, and as it worked out this was the only train ride of this trip. The train runs south, stopping at the city of Mostar before going on – just a few trains a week. The train cars themselves were reasonable modern but a little dirty, the train locomotives on either end looked really old. It felt a little like when we rode the train in Morocco a few years ago.
Soon enough the train started rolling, and we enjoyed some of our breakfast while checking out the view. As usual the outskirts of the city were not so beautiful, with more trash and junk piles than anything. But once we got a little farther we saw more nature. As the train ran they piped in some interesting background music – I liked the selection and sometimes activated my music ID app to make a playlist later on when we get back. Occasionally we stopped at some really small stations, and there were some dramatic bridges to cross. If the windows weren’t so dirty we might have gotten some nice photos.
During the first half of the 2.5 hour train ride it seemed like the best scenery was on the right side, rather than the left. Were we mislead by AI? But in the second half the train started following a beautiful river, and the high mountains with dramatic cliffs combined with the river offered the best views to the left side. As we got closer to Mostar I even saw some fish farms in the river, so the water must have been quite clean.
Finally we reached Mostar station, and it was even more abandoned and spooky than Sarajevo station was. We had a fair journey in the heat to get to Mostar old town, but it was a long straight road and we decided to walk it. Kuniko helped us navigate and I pulled our suitcase along, hoping that the partially damaged wheel would hold up.
We found the old town of Mostar on our right, and then descended some steps to find that the road was historic cobblestone – the enemy of suitcases everywhere. So that was how we first saw the bridge at Mostar, with me carrying our suitcase through the hot summer morning, and freely sweating through my clothes. There were also a ton of people here as the tour buses from other places had already arrived by that time. I carried our suitcase over the historic bridge, and then we parked along the side of the busy tourist street to figure out our best strategy to move forward. We had a car scheduled to pick us up at 3 pm, and here we were at 11:00 am in Mostar.
For now Kuniko searched out a restaurant on the far side of the bridge that had a riverside terrace with a nice bridge view, and so we confirmed that it was OK to sit for drinks for a while. The staff were super-friendly and we got a table with a nice view in the shade. It felt good to cool down a bit – we had some local beer and wine, and let the sweat dry. A couple sat nearby with a tiny chihuahua, the man looked exactly like Michael Peña – a dead ringer!
As for the bridge it was one of the landmarks we both really wanted to see, but we felt like it was less impressive in person. Usually there are divers that stand at the bridge and encourage people to pay into a pot – when they reach a suitable amount they jump off. Nobody was diving on that day. Just a few days before there had been a Red Bull diving event – we had lucked out and missed it. If they had pro divers jumping off I doubt they’d let me carry our suitcase across.
I took a few more pictures of the bridge before we left, and then we settled up for the drinks and went to go find a place for lunch. I had found a couple of possible restaurants in advance, and we had to again carry the suitcase around while looking for one of them. At one point I rested in the shade while Kuniko did the detective work, and finally we found Restaurant Sadrvan, with tables under a shady arbor and misters that blew cold mist into the hot air intermittently. We snagged a table (without permission) and that turned out to be a great idea because the place was about to get really busy.
The food was a little more touristy than I had hoped. We had japkra and domas, and the red wine that we ordered arrived at a rather warm temperature – the one time that I wouldn’t mind chilled red. While we ate we enjoyed the mist, and watched all the activity around us. The place was busy – the staff had to wear some pretty traditional costumes – the women looked like they were not really happy wearing their version of the uniform. Occasionally a lost dog with a collar would run in looking for something familiar, and run back out again looking somewhere else. When I looked back at the restaurant entrance there was a big line of people waiting for tables.
Despite the arbor and the mist it was really hot – and we couldn’t stay there forever. The restaurant’s women’s bathroom had a broken door that didn’t offer privacy so we decided to make our move. I was able to contact the driver and arrange an earlier pickup – we were done with the crowds and heat of Mostar.
As fate would have it near our meeting point was a drinking hole so we sat in the shade and had some drinks, used the clean bathroom, and waited for Sandi, our driver. The owner of the place was super-chill and didn’t mind us hanging out. Across the way Kuniko spotted a Hilton hotel that was either getting ready to open or recently abandoned.
Finally the driver came – the first time he drove by he missed us, but the second time we got it right and we jumped into his air conditioned car. It was about 1 pm, luckily he was cool with an early pickup and he told us that it would make crossing the border into Croatia easier. There are buses that run from Mostar to Croatia, but they take a really long time, especially at the border crossing. Having the driver was a good solution to this problem – worth the extra money for the flexibility and guidance.
Sandi was really nice, he spoke English well, and was really helpful. We had booked a stop at a monastery along the way that makes wine. He suggested a friend that had a winery where we could do some wine tasting, but it sounded like it might add significant time to our trip and we politely declined. From Mostar to the monastery it was a 2.5 hour drive, so we leaned back and enjoyed the scenery.
While not as dramatic as the train view the valleys and fields we drove through were pretty. There were mountains off in the distance, quite a few vineyards, and lots of fruit trees. As we got closer to the monastery there were big fields full of broken white rocks, and lots of empty space that reminded me of Read Dead Redemption. Sandi stopped once to run in and grab a bite to eat, but he rushed through it and we made good time.
We arrived at the monastery – it appeared suddenly and seemed to be surrounded by empty space. There were vineyards on the grounds, but not much space devoted to grape growing. Sandi asked if we wanted an escort into the grounds, but we said we’d do it ourselves and walked in. There were signs pointing towards buildings, the one pointing to a winery seemed to lead towards a big building under construction, so they may have been undergoing some modernization upgrades.
We sort of followed the path until we came upon a group of people who seemed to be taking a tour inside a church on the grounds – the language was not English, so we stepped back outside the building and continued looking for some kind of tasting room. The grounds themselves were quite beautiful and well-maintained. It was just hard to understand what to do.
While Kuniko waited in the shade I followed the group around the path to see if they were heading into some kind of main building, but instead they went into a cemetery. Just as I decided to give up on the group and head back to Kuniko they all suddenly broke into song, and given the location it gave me a weird vibe. So we decided that we’d head back to the car and move on. On the way to the car we popped into the gift shop, and they had about 70% religious goods and 30% products made at the monastery, including wine. We tossed around the idea of buying a bottle for our hotel room that night, but in the end we decided not to. Sandi was a little surprised that we were ready to leave so quickly, but soon enough we were off.
From there it was quite close to the border to Croatia. We approached and there was a very short line of cars. Sandi said that he has seen much, much longer lines and thanks to our early departure from Mostar we were missing that. While leaving Bosnia we were entering the EU, so the border crossing involved a photo of each person in the car – we had to step out one by one and get our picture taken.
Once we had entered Croatia we had a very short ride along the coast to get to Dubrovnik. The approach to the old city was quite beautiful, as we came over the mountain we looked down on the orange tile roofs in the old city surrounded by tall walls. It was instantly recognizable from Game of Thrones, and later we saw plenty of shops inside selling GoT goods to take advantage of this. The road we were traveling on was just two lanes and quite narrow on the side of the mountain, and I was interested to see that wherever there was a turnout they had put up boards to block the view of the city below. I imagined they blocked the view to avoid cars gathering there with people taking pictures and causing gridlock.
It took two passes for our driver to find our hotel, it was part of a restaurant called Urban&Veggie, so it wasn’t really clear on the first pass. But he dropped us off close, and we thanked him for all his help. It was a good experience and we really liked Sandi.
When we entered the restaurant to check-in to the hotel, the staff seemed like they were not really happy to see us. Maybe because they are restaurant workers that are doing hotel jobs in addition to their regular jobs? They had trouble finding the key, the heavily accented English they used made it unclear what our room number was, and so we couldn’t quite find the right room and knocked on a few other doors first. Eventually we got it figured out and we entered our room. It was small but good enough for our purposes – we would be leaving early tomorrow morning.
We hurried off to go look at Dubrovnik and get some dinner. We had to leave by a special side door that opened into a sort of suspicious alleyway, but once we figured out the locking mechanism we were free. Unfortunately during all this travel my phone was running low on juice, so Kuniko offered to use her phone and GPS to guide us to the historic walls and old town. Basically the sun was getting low enough that we could find shade to walk in, but it was still quite hot. We started up a long hill, making good time. Near the top of the hill something felt off to me, and so we checked again and realized we were going a different direction than where we wanted to go. We backtracked closer to a busy street, and bought some water in a shop to cool down. From there I used my phone to call an Uber, and the (bad) driver took us to just outside the old town gates. Just as the Uber dropped us off and drove away my phone battery officially died – luckily timing, I guess – Kuniko didn’t have the Uber app.
With my phone dead we entered the city without some key items. I was basically using my phone for photos, to refer to a list of sightseeing spots that I wanted to check out, and a map with saved restaurants that I wanted to try. I couldn’t do anything about the map or restaurants, but I did have my point-and-shoot camera with me to take pictures.
The city itself is beautiful. The walls surround the city and the buildings are made of old stone that has been smoothed over the ages. We had been to Croatia before exactly 10 years ago, but at that time we didn’t make it to this city and instead went to Zadar. I remember being so impressed with Zadar as the architecture is very similar – just a smaller version of Dubrovnik. Because of this, tonight’s visit to the city made less of an impression. It almost felt like we had been here before.
We walked down a long street, descending steps until we reached a main square, and it was fairly crowded with tourists like us. We poked around, took some photos of some of the more dramatic buildings, and then went out to the wharf and around to the side. Young people had gathered, some swimming in the water while others lounged in the setting sun drying off.
From there we made an attempt to go up to the city walls and see the view from there, but in a blatant money grab the city was charging 40 euros a person to walk on the city walls. That means all of the city walls, and they had built little booths everywhere the walls had an entrance to make sure tourists were paying. We were definitely not going to get 80 Euros of enjoyment out of that and decided instead to invest that in a good meal somewhere.
There were restaurants everywhere in the city – down every little street and alley there were tables, and most restaurants had touts outside to try to get customers. We were getting hungry but we kept finding Italian restaurants – I was hoping for something more traditional, and we wanted to eat some seafood as we were right next to the ocean. No pizza or pasta necessary. The first place we considered I vetoed because it clearly said Italian restaurant on the menu. The second place we found had a seafood section, and I was so focused on that information that I missed that it was also an Italian restaurant. I told Kuniko that we should try this place, and we sat down – Kuniko slightly confused why we were eating at an Italian place after all. We talked about it and I realized my mistake, but we decided since we had been seated and they did have seafood that we’d make a go of it.
I ordered a tuna steak, Kuniko ordered a grilled fish fillet, and when they came we were really disappointed. They were both super simple, overly salted, and served with a mountain of french fries. I had a big beer which was fine, but Kuniko’s white wine was a little tart and not pleasant to drink. I was really bummed out – here we were in Dubrovnik, one night only, and we just wasted a meal on generic tourist fare. Next to us a Chinese family was scarfing through pasta – the server even said “Welcome back!”to them so they apparently liked it here. To top it all off the staff said that they couldn’t accept credit cards (!) because their machine doesn’t connect sometimes, so we had to burn some of our precious Euros that we had prepared for use in Montenegro and Kosovo.
After we left I swung by the menu and was surprised to see that there was no restaurant name at all. Later I looked online and there was nothing listed in that location. We had walked into the very definition of a tourist trap. I was seriously bummed out but Kuniko was not about to let our evening end like this. Earlier while walking around we had seen a cute little restaurant down an alley and had filed away that info – we went back and had a second dinner there. This place was actually quite good, called the Renaissance Art Restaurant, and we ordered shrimp carpaccio with onions, Adriatic shrimp ravioli and two glasses of white wine that were excellent. This was more like it.
After (second) dinner we walked around and found a keychain that we liked, and then walked back up the steps (still hot, even in the evening) and caught a taxi back to our hotel. My Uber app was unavailable so we did it the old fashioned way. The driver was really nice and got us where we needed to go.
Before retiring we took a walk along the waterfront – our hotel was on the harbor itself – passing boats big and small moored for the night. One boat was in party mode with flashing disco lights on the deck. We scoped out the likely location for tomorrow’s ferry to Montenegro, and then went back to our hotel to call it a night. Outside our windows there was outdoor dining for the restaurant, and we fell asleep to the sounds of forks and knives on plates.
That was a big travel day! We have some more traveling to do tomorrow and then things should settle into a more regular rhythm.
