Mljet

 We escaped to Mljet Island after a day and a half in Dubrovnik, and it was everything we were hoping for from Croatia.  We had a beach-front apartment with a kitchenette and a beautiful national park to explore by bike, canoe, foot and swimmins.  

We're not the first to be taken in by Mljet -- Illyrian pirates used the island's isolated bay to lure Roman merchant vessels.  The amphorae from the sunken vessels are regularly recovered from the sea floor around Mljet.  Even Odysseus may have spent some time here -- 7 years to be more precise -- when he was lured in by the sorceress Circe. 

Dubrovnik

We left Mostar in Hercegovina on the bus and entered Dubrovnik which is techinally in Croatia, but we never got our passports stamped either way- so who knows what country it really is and what will happen when we try to leave Croatia in a few days! Anyway- Dubrovnik looked amazing from the brochures and a couple of Sweds recommended it, so we were pretty excited to get there.

Our first half day was nice- just hanging out on the beach, eatin some calamari and our room was right next to the bus station so that was very convenient. But- man, the old town was a tourist trap! So crowded and expensive for nothing all that great. Granted, it's home to one of the oldest pharmacies in the world and the wall surrounding it is pretty impressive, we still left for an island as soon as possible! 



Mostar

Mostar, named so for Stari Most (Old Bridge), is another Ottoman site almost entirely destroyed in the mid-90s.  Even the historic bridge that makes Mostar famous was shelled to nothing by the Serbs, though now it is rebuilt to the former specs.  Here even more than in Sarajevo, we felt the results of the war amongst the many unrepaired buildings and homes in the area.

 

The Writing on the Wall: Belgrade to Mostar

Sarajevo

Compared to the happy, party atmosphere of Belgrade, Sarajevo is a sobering reminder of the very recent past. Much of the city has been repaired, but any building that hasn't been re-plastered is still covered with bullet and shrapnel holes. Once known throughout the Roman and Ottoman empires as a paradise of flowing fountains, the name Sarajevo is now synonymous with brutal ethnic conflict, from the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the ensuing destruction of the first world war to the 1994 siege by Bosnian Serbs. Still, Bosnia-Hercegovina is more than ready for tourists. We wished we had passed through when it was a little warmer to enjoy the beautiful nature and bucolic villages.

A very confrontational version of Christianity:

Sarajevska brewery!

Beograd

The guidebook warned us that Belgrade was not a pretty city, but after a couple days of wandering we thought it was one of the prettier cities we'd seen. There are several pedestrian streets, big parks, numerous galleries and museums, and a large fortress complex. Even better, the city was ready to sell itself -- we had so many free maps and guides that we (briefly) considered staying longer.

Do you see a tiny sign on the balcony 6 floors up for our hostel?

Neither did we. Fortunately there was a man near the train station who knew where it was.

Our first stop was the Nicola Tesla museum, a small and understated tribute and final resting place of the inventor who almost led humanity through 2 great revolutions in science. Before the man shut him down!
Tesla's remains:

Wireless transmission of energy!

Mesta, Pirgi, Emporios

There are 2 medieval cities on the island of Xios: Mesta and Pirgi. Mesta is a tight maze of narrow streets -- some so narrow you have to turn sideways to fit through. Well, I did at least. Unfortunately, our pictures don't capture the experience very well:

Pirgi is a similar town with a less-impressive layout, but it makes up for it with the crazy designs etched into the plaster on the buildings:

To cap off our tour, we went to a black stone beach in the nearby city of Emporios. It was so nice we had to come back a second day:

We left Xios regretfully at 2:30 the next night on a ferry bound for Thessaloniki. How romantic!

Or so we thought. At 8:30 the next morning, after being told to move several times through the night by a cast of unpleasant ferry personnel, we seemed to be arriving a couple hours ahead of schedule. I asked a worker if we were in Thessaloniki, and he said, ''No, Mytillini. Thessaloniki 10:30 in evening.'' I collapsed in shock back onto the undersized couch i had been sleeping on The worker said, ''No sleep now. 2 pm you can sleep.''