Day 18: From Rogotin (Croatia) to Mostar (Bosnia) (65 km, 100 vm)

I had a bit of strange night. I woke up at around midnight to a strange recurring sound. It took me a while to figure out that there must be a cricket in my room. Half asleep I was looking for it but couldn’t find it. Always when I turned the light on it stopped making its “cricket-sound”. So I went back to bed and occasionally woke up to the sharp sound. A bit annoying and funny at the same time.

When I woke up in the morning, sure enough, the little bug was sitting on the shelf. I left him be, had breakfast and was on the bike at 6:15. There was slight rain but it stopped when I started riding. The road to the boarder along the river Neretva was flat and without much traffic. After about 20 kilometres I got to the boarder. And guess what, again no country sign. I took a picture of the traffic rules instead.

After I cycled for another 30 minutes I got to the bike route Ciro, an EU funded project. It is a bike route to Mostar along the old Austrian-Hungarian railway. Along the way you pass deserted and war torn railway stations. It is quite impressive. The route follows the river Neretva all the way to Mostar. While the main road zig zags up and down the mountain this route stays flat all the way. I nice change to all the vertical meters from the past weeks.

The landscape had changed drastically to the last days. This was intensified by the dark clouds today. Along the way I passed smaller villages with run down houses, broken down cars without licence plates just parked on the side of the street. It was a very different atmosphere compared to the touristic Croatian coastline.

About 15 kilometres before Mostar I stopped at a bridge where the river was feed by various karst streams. Quite an impressive view despite the trash you could see in this natural phenomenon. In the distance I heard thunder so I cycled on. Shortly before Mostar I got caught in heavy rain and lightning. I waited for the worst part to pass under a house front and then went in to old town.

Mostar is an impressive city. Despite the many tourists it has a very special charme to it. The old town is all rebuilt from the terrible war destruction. During the Bosnian war in the 90ies the city was split into a Croatian west and a Bosnian east side. The city’s landmark the old bridge was destroyed. If you leave the old town you still find many buildings marked by the distraction of this war.

In my tour through the old town I got to see a fairly new tradition. The jumping of the bridge. Some locals collect money and then one of them jumps of the bridge into the river 25 meters down. It is scary just watching it.

I am still trying to figure out my exact route for tomorrow. I need to head towards Montenegro and there are various options. Then one with the least traffic is probably back along the same bike route “Ciro” towards Dubrovnik. It is quite a bit longer though. The other routes can have quite some traffic. I will sleep over it.