Ciao Mondo! : Mostar

We finally arrived in Mostar after some wrong turns. Up until this point the gps had been great! But, I think I had it set to go the shortest route instead of the quickest route. Anyway...I will explain more in a sec.

Briefly, the country is divided into three ethnic groups: Muslim Bosniaks (44%), Orthodox Serbs (31%) and Catholic Croats (17%). Due to its rough terrain, this region remained pagan for a longer time before finally converting to Christianity in the 9th century.

During the Ottoman Empire, it was a very important province in the Balkans and the capital, Sarajevo, had 100,000 people. During this time, a Slavic-speaking Muslim

community emerged as one of the largest ethno-religious groups. In 1878, it became a

province of Austria-Hungary when the Empire took over Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. In 1914 the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, were assassinated in Sarajevo, leading to World War I. From 1918 until 1992, until the fall of the Soviet Union, the country was a part of the former Yugoslavia. After a 3-year long war, Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaimed independence.

There is little danger in the area, except for the danger of crossing an anti-personnel mine if you stray off the road.

Which leads me back to the gps story...We did have some problems after leaving Medjugorje. My gps kept leading me to these weird dead end roads in the middle of nowhere. After another dead-end at a cemetery, some old German lady told us, in German, to go back a different way. Thankfully, I had taught myself some German when I was dating that German guy a couple of years ago. In German, she told me to go three kilometers and then turn right. I thanked her, and off we went. We finally arrived at Mostar.

Mary seemed kind of concerned about our safety. I knew we'd be fine. This obviously wasn't the touristy part of town that was our actual destination. Remnants were visible from the siege of 1993 when the Croatian Defense Council expelled the Bosniaks from the west side to the east side of the city where heavy shelling then occurred. The forces engaged in ethnic cleansing raping and killing thousands.

The graves of thousands of people, many my own age that were all killed in 1993.

Even babies were killed.

People eating out of the garbage can.

There were lots of old mosques in the area.

Shops in the old city.

First glimpse of what we drove there for: The Stari Most (Old Bridge). This bridge was originally constructed in the 16th century during Ottoman rule. It stood for 427 years until November 9, 1993 when it was destroyed by Croat forces during the Croat/Bosniak war.

Stari Most spanning the Neretva River. (I took this pic from on the bridge itself)

View of the old city from the middle of the bridge.

Diving off the bridge is a traditional annual competition that has been done 477 times as of 2013. The practice dates back to the time when the bridge was first built.

Inside one of the shops was a video playing depicting the siege of Mostar, including the destruction of the bridge. The bridge stood for 427 years until its destruction on November 8, 1993. It took more than 60 shells to destroy the bridge and many believe the Croats destroyed it simply to destroy their culture, since it had no real strategic importance.

This video partially depicts the destruction of the bridge. It was very emotional to see it get destroyed.

More emotional video of the reopening of the bridge in 2004, complete with doves being released and the return of the divers.