Absorbing the scenery on the six-hour bus ride from to Dubrovnik, Croatia, I notice that on the outskirts of Sarajevo there is a larger presence of thoroughly modern looking buildings, though they are still scattered among the numerous incomplete, perhaps abandoned, traditional residential construction sites that are everywhere.
The route south follows the river through steep and craggy mountainous terrain. At several points, I spy what I think are fish farms on the river. Though we cross the river in two different locations in Mostar, I do not catch a glimpse of the famous “Old Bridge”. The further we go, the more the mountains become rounded, reminding me of the scenery around the Salinas Valley. As we continued south from Mostar, steeples quickly replace minarets, as the area is predominately Catholic and Croat.
Getting closer to the coast of the Adriatic, citrus trees replace vineyards, and the temperature is noticeably warmer than when I could see my breath this morning walking to the Sarajevo bus station. We have to go through passport checks three times in the space of an hour, as we cross into Croatia, back into the sliver of shoreline of Bosnia, and back again into Croatia. I notice that some of the place name signs, which are printed in both Latin and Cyrillic, have been altered so that the Cyrillic is painted out…obviously there’s no love lost for Serbs in Croatia.
Sorry, no photos, the bus windows were hazy. Oh, almost forgot: all along the coastal highway, they have wild boar crossing signs like our deer crossing signs.
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