Sarajevo to the sea

We left Sarajevo on a sunny day, riding along the river as far as we could go before we inevitably hit the main trunk road again (the same one we were on in the rain on the way into the city). It wasn't so bad this time with better weather and less traffic. Most of the day was uneventful, other than the usual burek stop, a lunch stop and a wee stop at a supermarket.

We arrived at the town of Konjic in good time to have a brief look around the town and find a hotel (there only seemed to be one). The town has a pretty Ottoman bridge (recently refurbished, funded by the Turkish government) and a few old mosques. The hotel seemed friendly, if a little expensive at 35 Euro, but turned out to be a nightmare.

Our first mistake was to pay for the hotel up front. We then found that there was no hot water and the guy looking after the place couldn't get the boiler working and he "couldn't give us a refund or discount" but he did find us a fan heater. We seemed to be the only guests in the hotel until we went to bed and heard a few people downstairs. Then the music started... The guy looking after the place had a load of his mates round for a party in the hotel lobby. We guess the beer was part-funded by what we had payed him. The music was loud, people kept trying to open our door (seemingly by mistake, because he had left the room next to ours unlocked for people to use the toilet, and perhaps the bed?). We lay half awake grumpily most of the night worrying about our bikes which were locked up in the lobby. The whole event ended in some kind of fight at about 4am, complete with the sound of shouting and breaking glass. There was no evidence of mess or corpses when we came downstairs in the morning and the bikes were thankfully unharmed!

We were happy to leave Konjic after such a terrible night's sleep and we were glad it was downhill. The ride turned out to be through a beautiful gorge, following a river all the way to Mostar in the sunshine. We stopped for an omlete at a posh roadside restaurant where we were a little confused about the time (is this a late breakfast or an early lunch?) until we realised that the clocks had gone back (breakfast it is then, our second one).

Mostar was very enjoyable. We arrived in time for a tasty late lunch of grilled trout and squid, sat by the river in the old town overlooking the famous Mostar bridge. We found a good little apartment next to the restaurant for 30 Euro per night. We enjoyed having a kitchen to cook our own food for a change (risotto, mmm) and williningly shared some of our excessive quantity of Rakia* with an American couple who were staying in the neighbouring apartment.

(* what is Rakia I hear you ask? See blog post about journey to Sarajevo for further details)

Our sight seeing day-and-a-half in Mostar included walking over the old bridge and around the mosques and markets. We were in desparate need of new brake-blocks and chains so we also spent a fair amount of time looking for bike shops. The first shop we visited was a motorbike dealer who, proudly showed Adrian around his new house and then explained where a bikeshop was. The "bikeshop" was a man in a shed in the city centre who didn't have any brakeblocks or chains, but he did have a second-hand bearing and some grease for Adrian's headset. The third shop we tried was an out-of-town homeware store which sold bikes but not parts. The shop assistant helpfully told us where a bike shop was, back in the town, and we ended up cycling in the dark (which was scary) only to find it closed. The next morning Adrian tried the fourth shop (3 men, in a slightly bigger shed this time). He struggling to communicate with the men in a strange mixture of Serb-Croat, German and English, but managed to have a pleasant chat and succeeded in buying 12 brakeblocks and 2 chains for 20 Euros - a bargain, even though the brake blocks do wear quite quickly.

In the process of bike-shop hunting, we found the front-line from the 1990's war. The shattered concrete and steel wrecked buildings were a stark contrast to the carefully restored "old" area of the city. At the start of the war the Serbs shelled the city (which was mostly Bosnian and Croat population) but later the Bosnians and Croats fought each other and blew up the old bridge in the process. The whole city, both old and new, was absolutely trashed by the end of the war. Now however, compared to the video and exhibits we saw in the Hercegovina museum, the city is generally in quite good shape. This is mostly due to the rebuilding work but nature has also played its part for some of the older buildings by desguising the war damage with ivy and shrubs.

From Mostar, we coninued with the sunny weather and downhill/flat riding all the way to the Bosnian coastline at the town of Neum. Owning to the crazy post-war borders, the main road from Mostar to Neum takes you into Croatia for 20km (so two border crossings). This can be avoided by going on a back-road, but this looked unneccesarilly hilly! Neum is a small seaside resort town, not very special except that it is Bosnia's only bit of coast (only about 15 km long). Nevertheless, we had a pleasant evening stroll around the town, stayed in a nice 25 Euro apartment, and had a tasty fish meal (the budget is taking a hammering, we really must stop eating in restaurants...)

Note to anyone planning to cycle in this area: The ride from Sarajevo to the sea via Mostar is very nice and comes highly recommended. However, riding in the opposite direction (from Mostar to Sarajevo) would be very hard going, almost constantly uphill for two days! Mostar clearly attracts a lot of visitors (even when we were there in October) and is perhaps best avoided in summer.