Bosnia – 14 September 2010

Woken by the bora wind, we set off early to make sure we could, finally, fit a visit to Mostar into our day.

Bosnia is not a country we would ever have imagined visiting a few years ago, a bit like contemplating a holiday in Bagdad today! Signs of the war were everywhere, with derelict buildings, and pock-marked buildings and pavements.


All the bridges across the Neretva River were blown up by the Croats in 1993, and unfortunately this included the 479 year old Stari Most (Old Bridge). Now meticulously rebuilt, exactly as it was before, the Mostar Old Bridge is now a UNESCO listed monument. We watched a video showing it's deterioration during the war years, until it was eventually totally destroyed.

The east bank of the river is the Muslim side, with more mosques, and a cemetery which is a very sad reminder of the war, all the dates of death seemed to be 1994. The west bank is the Catholic side, and we walked to see the Catholic church, which almost appears to be rivalling the mosques in the height of its tower. The main road running in front of it was the front line during the war.

From Mostar we retraced our route to Croatia stopping briefly to look at Pocitelj as this is supposedly the most traditional village in Bosnia, full of 15th century buildings. Once back across the border we continued up the coast to Split. The old town with its Diocletian Palace, is also UNESCO listed. In fact, we have seen more UNESCO listed towns on this holiday, than any other and the stunning old towns make Croatia undeniably beautiful.

Arriving in Split, we had time for a couple of hours looking around the old town, but will need to save the Diocletian Palace for tomorrow. As the day died we retired back to the campsite, once again on the coast, for a delicious dinner, in their restaurant at the end of a peninsular overlooking the sea: a brilliant end to a busy day.

Korcula – 13 September 2010

Korcula is only a 15 minute ferry ride from Orebic, and is therefore the easiest way to visit one of the islands off the Dalmatian Coast. Korcula is a wonderful medieval town, built on a headland jutting out into the sea, and probably very similar to the time when Marco Polo set sail to explore the world.

We walked around the sea walls, and climbed the tower of his house, all of which would have been very familiar to Marco. The rest of his house is a ruin, but the tower is quite intact, and we looked out to sea, as I'm sure he and his family also did in the 13th century.

Once again we postponed the afternoon drive to Mostar, and instead opted for a relaxing afternoon on the beach, as it was such a beautiful summer's day. This time we stayed at Prapratno, a short distance from Ston. After swimming and sunbathing, we again did the wall walk, but this time all the way to Mali Ston. This took about 45 minutes, and gave a greater appreciation of this amazing structure. Ston is reputedly the gastronomical highlight of Croatia and the number of mussel farms in the bay around meant that mussels prepared in the local way featured on every menu and were thus a must-try. Unfortunately they were gritty, overly salty, tough and underdone – a thoroughly under-whelming experience.

Peljesac Peninsular - 12 September 2010

Breakfast coffee in Budva was a real treat, sitting on wicker-cane suite on the sea-front in the sunshine, admiring the old town. As the sun was now in the right place to photograph Sveti Stefan, we drove the short distance to admire it in the sunlight before tackling the long drive around the inlets and back to Croatia.

Our plan for the day was to head a short distance into Bosnia to see the famous Mostar Bridge. But the drive back took longer than expected, so we decided on a total change of plan, inspired by the amazing walls protecting the towns of Ston and Mali Ston, which we could see on the other side of the water, on the Peljesac Peninsular.

This three mile wall, complete with 41 towers, seven bastions and two forts, was the the largest fortification built in Europe in the 14th century. It's purpose was to protect these two salt producing towns. Salt was often equal to its weight in gold, and hence the walls. We were able to walk on the repaired walls (bombed in 1991 & damaged by an earthquake in 1996), and could have walked on the walls from one town to the other. Considering the terraine, it was a brilliant feat.

From here, we drove to the far end of the peninsular, to Orebic where the ferries leave for Korcula, the town in an island of the same name, where Marco Polo was born. We found a fabulous 4 star camp ground, and were able to get the last seafront campsite. The water was warm, crystal clear and very inviting.

Montenegro - 11 September 2010

Sunshine returned to Croatia this morning, and we made the most of being on the spot, to walk the city walls in the early morning. This is the most popular tourist activity in Dubrovnik, which is not surprising, as they are considered the best city walls in the world. We certainly agreed, and enjoyed walking the 2km complete circle, ahead of the throngs of tourists descending on the city in their bus loads. The medieval builders, who spent so much time and effort building the walls would be astounded to know that the result of their toil was now attracting rather than repelling the invading foreigners.

Then it was time to cross the nearby border into Montenegro. We had mentally planned to do this, after watching James Bond race around a stunning city in Montenegro, in 'Casino Royale', only to find out the filming actually took place in Loket, Czech Republic. Despite knowing this, we wanted to see the UNESCO region around Kotor, and the fishing village of Sveti Stefan.

Kotor is reached by driving alongside a huge inlet from the Adriatic that has at its peak a narrow channel leading to another large inlet comprised of two triangular bays that look somewhat like a bikini top thrown carelessly on the floor and despite appearing to be almost landlocked, the water is crystal clear. Not far, as the fish swims, from the top of the narrows is Perast but it is quite a drive to get there and at that point you are not even half-way to Kotor.

It is possible to take a ferry across the narrow channel, but the scenic drive around the entire coast-line is well worth the detour. We stopped at Perast, another picturesque old town before arriving at Kotor, situated down a long bay “dangling” from the second triangle, about as far from the open sea as possible. Despite that, there were cruise ships tied up in the harbour, this is obviously on the cruise ships itinerary, along with Dubrovnik.

The town is the typical warren of narrow streets, squares and the Orthodox churches had wonderful gold altar screens and icons. The walls here with regular towers, were quite an amazing feat of engineering, extending way up a bluff to the top of San Giovanni mountain.

From Kotor we went overland until we got back to the Adriatic coast and then along to Budva, one of Montenegro's most popular towns. Before exploring it, we drove 5km further along the coast to Sveti Stefan. This former fishing village island, has just re-opened as a 5 star resort. But we were able to walk along their paved path for a closer look. Sadly, the renovations with crisp mono-tonal orange tile roofs, has lost the mellow look of earlier photos we had seen,

As we wanted to catch the island in the morning sun, we decided to spend the night at the nearby camp ground. There was a very smart illuminated sign on the roadside, which indicated a good standard of camp. The appearance of the owners should have warned us of the state of the amenities. They could have stood in for the inn owners in Les Miserables, and would probably received an Oscar for their excellent performances. He looked seedy and extremely dodgy type of character, she was the grasping/greedy type, who obviously didn't trust him with money. That didn't seem promising, and after viewing the state and standard of the amenities (whose floor area was probably smaller the the square footage of the sign!), we decided to drive back to Budva.

After enjoying dinner and a walk around the old town, where the shops were still open for business on Saturday night, we retired to our tent for the night. The guide book described Budva as having a lively night life. What this means for tired campers, is music playing at the local gig until 4am, interspersed with a large nearby dog barking at regular intervals and other campers returning from the 'lively night scene' at regular intervals!

Dubrovnik – 10 September 2010

Gatwick airport was a breeze on a Friday, and we were there by train, checked in and drinking coffee 2.5 hours from walking out our front door. While 2.5 hours from door to check in seems remarkable for Londoners, it was only another 2.5 hours until we touched down in Dubrovnik.

We left cloudy London and swapped it for cloudy/showery Dubrovnik. But apart from that similarity, they are worlds apart. We had booked an apartment near the central area of the old town, and after checking in with the mother of the owner, set off to explore the walled town.

We found it quite captivating, no wonder it is a UNESCO protected town. From the marble central main road (all pedestrianised), to the two old monasteries, everything is crisp, clean and well restored. They had a huge restoration job after a major battle in 1991. We saw canon holes in one of the monastery walls, and the unfortunate miss-match of roof tile colour, is a grim reminder of how much must have been destroyed. That said, an amazing effort has been made to restore the town to its former glory.

The old town has many wonderful buildings – including churches, art galleries, two historic monasteries and an idyllic harbour. Of course food choices are too numerous to make a decision easy, but as Italian fare is the most common, we opted for this at Tony's spaghetteria and each enjoyed delicious pasta.

MG's & Aircraft – 5 September 2010

The MG Y Type Club had an extra outing this year, to the annual flying day at the Shuttleworth Collection.

We met at Woburn, and set out on a driving tour, which turned out to be more tricky than usual. It is always important to keep a careful check on the next instruction on these excursions, but we first ran into trouble a couple of miles from the start, when a Road Closed sign appeared on the road we were supposed to take. This caused rather a detour, and we were able to work out when we had resumed the route, only to be stumped a short time later, by the printers omitting an entire page from the instructions!! The organiser kindly led us through the missing instructions, until we could resume following the printed instructions again. This all added to the fun, and we enjoyed the picturesque villages on the route.

The Shuttleworth Collection is a unique collection of mainly early planes, many from the two World Wars.

Despite being rather windy, most planes were able to take part in the displays, and we enjoyed the wide variety of small planes from a tri-plane to a recently built old-time kitset plane. The MG's owners enjoyed the view from reserved parking as close to the flight-line as was possible even though we arrived well after most of the other spectators.

Thameside – 4 September 2010

We had signed up for one of the infrequent Saturday openings of an original 'Arts & Crafts' house on the banks of the Thames at Hammersmith. This was a fascinating look at a house which has remained unchanged for about 150 years. It was decorated in the 1920's, by Emery Walker, a friend an neighbour of William Morris, the whole house was full of handmade items/paintings by various famous names of the era, absolutely delightful.

We were reminded that this weekend may be our last chance to enjoy the summer, so decided to follow the Thames out of London, around the Windsor area. There are still areas relatively close to London, which are new to us. We found the largest area of lowland heathland in England on Cobham Common. The heather was still in bloom, and we were able to enjoy a walk in the sun.

Much of the land around Windsor Castle belongs to the Crown, and there are many pleasant drives through forests, and beside lakes and on one of these roads, beside Virginia Water, we came across the remains of a Roman Temple. Apparently it was shipped back from the Roman city of Leptis Magna in Libya in 1816 and given to the Prince Regent.

We ended the day at Bray, another Thames-side town This delightful town is home to anomalies such as the Fishmongers Jesus Hospital and two Michelin Star restaurants. We didn't venture into either.