Moday, 23 May, 2016 – Blagaj to Mostar to Perash, Montenegro

We are awakened at 5:00 AM by a “call to prayer” song outside. We go down for breakfast and there is a young guy, seemingly overworked as he helped us with our bags when we arrived, then was on night duty last night and then morning duty today. For Breakfast, there was no buffet and no menu, I cannot recall what we ordered. Could not have been bacon or ham as we are on the Muslim side of the river.

We check out of the Hotel, putting our luggage in the van. We then walk up the road to the mouth of the Buna river. There are lots of market stalls along the way, mostly empty that time of day. We also looked across the river to see some of the restaurants alongside under water from the flooding Buna.

Andrew, Jan and I elect not to do the tour of the house and settle into seats outside of it.

The girls that go on the tour are required to cover up for religious reasons. Some of Julie’s photos.

Meanwhile, us below are watching rock climbers on the face of the mountain behind us.

We walk back to the Hotel past the still mostly empty stalls.

We are met at the Hotel by Alma and Ermen. They have arrived in their specially renovated car – a Jugo I think. Boris and Ermen had talked about it at length last night and Boris decided that he wanted a drive.

We say goodbye to Ermen and Bonnie and join Alma on the bus to Mostar. We find a parking lot, it will later be totally full like everywhere else around. Alma is to lead us on a tour of the old town. Andrew and I decide to skip the tour and settle in to the afternoon’s restaurant for a drink.

Some of Julie’s photos from the tour.

Alma and the team return after a while. It is decided that we will visit a coffee shop run by her Son. Julie decides to prance around the top of the city.

Alma’s Son explains how to use the stuff delivered on the tray to make the perfect drinking coffee. Very interesting. Julie misses the whole presentation, which was a pity. She does show up eventually.

We then walk back to the restaurant for lunch. It is now quie crowded, another reflection of tourists everywhere.

We have had said goodbye to Alma who will get a ride back from her Son or something else. We walk back to the Van. On the way is a large, old shell of a building that is being converted into a Hilton Hotel. Should be impressive when completed.

We are then on the road out of Bosnia to enter Montenegro. There is a lot of driving, probably nearly 8 hours on the day including stops. I don’t recall a long hold-up at the border so it must not have been too bad. We actually get quite close to Dubrovnik, our next destination after this. We end up in the seaside town of Perast which unlike most of the towns on the Dalmatian Coast is not incredibly crowded with tourists – this is not to say that there were none, but it is nice by comparison.

I have tagged this Post with Duck but we did not eat it.

That’s it for the night.

For you avid readers it is 8 days later and we are about to depart for the long flight back to Australia. An estimated 36 hours door to door. The rest of the Blog will be finished at home with a real computer.