Day 6--Don't always listen to the locals

First, a bit of catch up.  Our drive from Sarajevo to Mostar was pleasant and uneventful.  Again, nice scenery.  A great Mediterranean climate.  Both big and small farms and gardens.  No farm machinery though.  Just lots of hard work to cultivate and harvest the crops.
 

                        

Mostar is much smaller than Sarajevo, more rural with more contrasts.  Let me explain.  When Bosnia was rebuilt after the Homeland War, most of the money that wasn't skimmed off the top by the government officials went to Sarajevo.  The smaller similarly devastated communities stumbled on along with less world-wide attention and money.  Mostar is a good example.

Most buildings are rebuilt, but many are not.  Abandoned with nature taking over both inside and out.  Eventually, these abandoned buildings will almost disappear with trees and undergrowth, at least in the summer when they are leafed out.

Different owners, different results.  The first floor has been renovated in these
two buildings, not the 2nd floor! 

A bank owned the building on the left.  It went out of business
during the war.

No records of who owned this building.  Amazing to realize that almost all of the
buildings of Mostar looked like this just 25 years ago

Another tragedy and triumph is the Stari Most bridge.  This Ottoman 16th century bridge rivalled any in Venice Italy.  Both in beauty, utility and age.  As the Serbians systematically bombed Mostar, primarily because it had a majority Muslim population, it especially focused on all the bridges.  All seven of them.  The one they wanted to destroy the most and fell the last was the Stari Most bridge.  Well built 452 years ago. But indeed, with enough explosives and bombs, it finally collapsed.

The rebuilt Stari Most bridge.

Many of the cobblestones are original.  You are looking at over 450 years of wear

After the war, however, the Stari Most bridge became a rallying point for the country to rebuild not only it but the country as well.  It took $12 million and longer to rebuild it than it took to construct it originally, but they and we felt it was worth it!  It is a beautiful bridge, and if not bombed again, should last for another 500 years.

Speaking of the 'next time', our Airbnb host who was 17 during the war, sighed that about every 40 years Bosnia has another war and needs to be rebuilt.  Hmm, WW II, Homeland War, what will happen in 2035?  Only 17 years from now.

A beautiful Airbnb, a short walking distance to Old Town and an amazing Bosnian dinner meal.  Now today, day 6.  I am actually writing this in the car waiting to pass through the border between Bosnia and Croatia.  Our Airbnb host told us of a 'special' way to miss the eternally long border crossing between the two countries. He even put it in my phone.  We started out and 2 hours later after we spent way too much time on dirt roads between farms (!), we ended up at a practically abandoned boarder crossing with no cars and one sleepy official in the guard house.  The only problem was, this crossing was for Croatian or Bosnians only!!!

We were surprised that Google even knew about this road!!

We had to turn around, wind our way through the same farms and the same dirt roads to end up in line with 30 other cars to creep through the 'official' border crossing.  It is now 7pm, we were expecting to be at the border at 4pm.  A late dinner tonight with the locals.