Mostar, the BiH town with the most-est Mosts

I’m going to live in Mostar; or have a house here; or, at the least come back and vacation like Tito and Elizabeth Taylor used to, in this incredibly beautiful, warm town in Herzegovina. Fortuna Tours offers a number of different guided tours of Herzegovina, land of figs, pomegranates, wine, and visions, ranging from a few hours to a full day. One of the tours visits “the vicinity of Trebinje”, famous for its “karst caves Vjetrenica, explored for about 6100m. It is famous for its rare endemic species, like human fish.” I have to come back, for that.

I took the 3 hour train from Sarajevo south to Mostar, arriving at about 10 o’clock in the morning. I walked into the tour office near the train station to ask for help; the rather surly woman there showed me a map and told me where to go, and then took back the map. So, I went in the other direction, where I stumbled on a Fortuna tours office.

The women there were very helpful and kind, and ordered me espresso from the hotel next door. I joined a tour of Mostar comprised of elderly Brits, led by a gorgeous, young, tall (towering over her charges) Mostarian, who was fluent in several languages. She told me, while we were waiting for the bus, that she had learned Spanish from Mexican soap operas when she was young, and her English fluency was remarkable. One of the funniest moments of the tour was when three groups converged near the old mosque; one English, one Japanese, and one German — all with beautiful young tour guides who towered over their elderly, white-hatted, camera-toting charges. I tagged along to all the sights, seeing the old mosque, the traditional Turkish house, and ending in the beautiful old town, leading to Mostar’s famous “stari most”, the most beautiful and significant of its seven bridges over the River Neretva, which is designated as one of UNESCO’s world heritage sites.

The city of Mostar was more than 80% destroyed by the war; according to my tour guide, Ayja, who also mentioned a statistic that I hadn’t heard before — that Mostar had the highest percentage of mixed marriages – Croat, Muslim, Christian, Bosniak – of anywhere in the BiH; and that the people of Mostar were shocked that war could break out in the most balanced an multi-ethnic polulations in the whole of the former Yugoslavia. She also told me that the bridge that we were standing on, the Most Musala (I think) was a pre-war gathering place for the young people of Mostar. The girls would spend a great deal of time getting ready, and on weekend nights, they would stay on one side of the bridge, hoping that one of the boys on the other side would ask them to meet. Saturday nights, the young men from the local military academy, who had all been chosen for the school because of their height (over 6ft) and their straight white teeth, would come and the other boys in town would be jealous, and fights would break out. The bridge overlooked this hotel, now crumbling, where Elizabeth Taylor had stayed, and where people danced the rumba and the samba on the terraces over the river.

So, OK, I was taken in by the romance. What’s not to love? The town is beautiful; the weather is sunny; the people are generous and kind; the architecture is lovely; and there are bridge-jumpers, and rafting on the Neretva. Really — people (OK, tourists, mostly) — pay 30-40 Euros for young people to jump off the bridge, preferably doing an only-in-Mostar version of the swan dive, into the water 10meters below. Before the bridge was reconstructed, after the war, the divers rebuilt a platform, so they could keep diving; and there’s some extreme sports competition or other that’s regularly held here. I saw divers waiting; but didn’t have the chance to see it happen. My tour guide for the second half of my Mostar stay, Majo, said not to worry — there’s footage on the internet, and he showed me where all the cameras were, all tucked into the buildings alongside the old town and the bridge.

I had wanted to see Mostar and go to Medugorje, about 30 minutes away, where six teenagers had seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1981. So, Majo was hired to take me; but asked me if I wanted to see some other things first. With nothing but time, we stopped by a restaurant in Blagaj, by “one of the strongest karst springs in Europe”, and “by a house called dervish Tekia”, built around the turn of the 16th century, with a Muslim school. Majo told me that before there was a restaurant (where dozens of people had their feet dangling in the crystal clear water), when he was younger, he would come here, as his “special place”. I would’ve put in the picture of the house and school here, but it’s on the cover of Brandt’s Bosnia-Herzegovina guide book, so it’s been done. Plus, I had about a liter of Herzegovina’s white wine, which may have had something to do with the good feelings I have towards the Mostar region, and the not so great pictures, at least of Blagaj — but I’m not sure about that. We spent some time at the restaurant, where Mayo, who did not drink, told me about how he and his sister were sent to Germany when they were 16 & 17 not knowing anyone, when the war broke out; we talked about Paolo Coelho (“the Alchemist”) and about cultural differences; about housing prices and family and work and small towns; and about Los Angeles, the US, political correctness, and life after the war in Herzegovina; and of course about the Lakers.

We stopped at Mogorjelo, with archeological excavations from the 4th century (with a “pick your own eel” restaurant), as well as the Sahat Kula, a silo-shaped fort towering from the top of the hill in the town of Pocitelj (I think) — Illyrian, to Roman, to Ottoman, to Herzegovinian and Bosnian. I really don’t remember; too much history, too little time, so much beauty to try to take in. It was truly, spectacularly beautiful.

Majo told me he wanted to see his mother, who was visiting family nearby, so we stopped by; and I was treated to cava, a spongy cake with whipped cream and berries (like my mother used to make), and rose nectar lemonade, all homemade, of course. I’m still dreaming of the rose nectar lemonade.

And in case that wasn’t enough to inspire awe and wonder at the beauty of the world, and specifically Herzegovina, we stopped at Kravic Falls on the Trevizat river. Below is the classic tour guide photo:

but here’s the real deal:

Majo entertained me with stories of the pranks that he used to play; and showed me a picture on his cell phone, that a friend had taken of him climbing the trees about to jump into the water near the falls. A truly spectacular spot.

After I used my flip videocamera to tape the sound of the rushing water and ended up with a mock tourism ad for Mostar, and Kravic Falls with Majo as the spokesperson, we got back in the car and headed to Medugorje.

 

~ by mimi on June 25, 2008.