Three Countries and Four Border Crossings in 15 hours

Long day, so short post. There was not as much academic content today but we covered lots of miles. We started the day in lovely little Mostar, one of the Bosnian cities damaged so badly in "the last war." I'll post a picture of its rebuilt bridge.. truly a lovely location. One of the reasons the Croats blew it up is to separate the Muslims from the Catholic population (the Croats being the Catholics.) Just to confuse matters, we were in the Herzegovina region of Bosnia. I am told Herzegovina was not ever an independent entity but is kind of the "Texas of Bosnia" -- independent minded and larger than life.

Then the road trip began. It would have been infinitely better to spend 15 or so hours in the bus (minus one sightseeing stop and a couple of potty stops) had the air conditioning been REALLY working! It's a good thing our group all smelled alike...

Border crossings.. we crossed from Bosnia into Croatia.. then from Croatia back into another section of Bosnia; then back into Croatia and finally into Montenegro, or more properly, Crno Gora. (R can be a vowel depending on how it is used. Yahooo.)
Each border crossing was a two part process... leaving the first country required passport inspection, time, etc.. then entering the next. It was slow.

We made it to Dubrovnik in Croatia about 1 and were turned loose for 2 hours of exploring the old walled city, admiring the Adriatic, buying souvenirs, eating lunch, whatever we wanted. I explored mostly.. it's a beautiful place, lost in antiquity at one hand and totally the modern beach resort on the other. You heard a million languages, there were sunburned tourists off of the cruise ships and tons and tons of tour buses. It was a really neat experience, but I'm not sure I'd want to live there.

The Adriatic was our companion much of the day, either skirting the coast on its own level or high above it on GULP roads... or crossing a small part of it on a ferry, or just admiring it from where ever we could. Most the water is bright bright Buena blue, except for the shallowest near the shore, which was turquoise.

We drove. Not much more to say. We did some amazing hair pin roads with steep climbs and 7-9% downgrades. Our driver (new today) drove with elan and a determination to do it all quickly. I mostly prayed they'd had brakes and tires checked out recently.

And so it went. We got in to Podgorica (pod-gore-eet-sa), the capital of Montenegro/Crno Gora about 10 o'clock tonight. We ordered pizza, ate it in the breakfast room of the hotel and I am so ready to go to bed.

Tomorrow at 8 we take off for Albania in a new (bigger) bus with our Albanian tour guide after a brief meeting with the travel agency owner, who is named Elvis. How can we miss?

Tomorrow we have more academic content, so I will be back at work.. today was ---- laughingly -- described as a "rest" day... tomorrow haw a lot more miles and more content.

I shall add some scenic pictures and the kitties of the day.. the sleeping one is sleeping in a shop on top of some sandals. Even after I patted him, he just rolled over and went back to sleep. A good choice on a 90 degree day in Dubrovnik!