Cross Country Road Tripping
Trip date: March 9, 2017
After four nights in Split, it was time to hit the road again. Of course, the day that we left was the nicest weather that we had there! Our next destination was Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since you have to cross into BiH briefly when driving from Split to Dubrovnik anyways, we figured we would do a slight detour and check out Mostar as well. While Mostar is only a couple hours drive from Split, it took us the larger part of the day to get there since we stopped at a couple destinations along the way. It was one of the nicest days that we've had, as we got to see a lot of different sights that we all enjoyed a lot and it still felt like a chill and relaxing day as we just moseyed our way over to Mostar.
The first stop on our road trip was Brela in Croatia. It's a super tiny little town along the Dalmatia coast, with their biggest claim to fame being a tiny island (or a large rock really) that is very picturesque: Kamen Brela. The Adriatic Sea is so clear here, with beautiful hues of blue and green, and this rock with some trees growing on it just paints a beautiful picture.
We had a good time doing a photoshoot with Kamen Brela and exploring the beach - completely empty, though the water was too cold for a swim. We then headed into town for some lunch, though there weren't really many options. The town was pretty quiet, but we found 3 places that were open right around the waterfront. We ended up going to Restaurant Feral, which turned out to be the #1 rated place on TripAdvisor and one of our best meals in Croatia.
We essentially had the same meal that we had the night before in Split at Villa Spiza: truffle pasta and buzara! The buzara was a mixed buzara this time, with mussels, clams, warty Venus shells, shrimp, and two škampi. The seafood was all very fresh, but the sauce wasn't quite as good as Villa Spiza. Eric liked his truffle pasta better than the night before, as the flavors were cleaner without the ground pork. Overall, this was a delicious meal in a very nice setting. If you're road tripping along the coast in Croatia, make sure to stop by Brela and check it out!
After we filled our tummies in Brela, we were finally off and ready to head into Bosnia and Herzegovina! Shortly after crossing the border, we stopped at Kravica falls because, you know, we hadn't had enough of waterfalls yet.
Kravica falls was one big, wide waterfall - similar to Krka, but without as much of the side areas and nice paths to walk. Entrance was 4 BAM (Bosnian & Herzegovina Convertible Mark) per person and 2 BAM for parking, and then you can drive your car in, almost right up to the waterfall. It was a short walk further down to see the waterfall. Alternatively, you can walk from the entrance down to the waterfall; there's only one viewpoint though and not much else to see. We also hadn't had a chance to get BAM yet - luckily most places took Croatian Kuna at a 4:1 rate that is pretty close to the actual exchange rate.
Since the water volume was so high, it was super misty at Kravica and we got wet pretty quickly trying to take pictures. It looked like the path continued forward and there might be a shop or restaurant ahead, but it was closed in March and the path was flooded.
Side note, the public restroom at Kravica was ridiculously clean and totally unexpected. In general, public restrooms in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Croatia were all pretty clean, probably some of the cleanest we had seen in all of Europe!
After our Kravica shower, we headed to our final destination of the day before Mostar: Počitelj. We were recommended to visit this town by our zipline tour guides in Omiš and it was a great suggestion! I think Počitelj might have been my favorite place we visited in BiH!
Počitelj is a historic town from the Ottoman era that's situated along the Neretva River. The town is built into the hillside with a prominent mosque, as well as a fortress at the top. So of course, we ended up walking up through town (which was completely quiet and dead when we were there, btw) to the fortress where we got some beautiful views.
We clambered all over the fortress and were even able to climb the stairs up to the top of the turret. This was the first place where we'd been able to go all the way up in the tower. It seemed like it was a very 'do-as-you-please' attraction, as there weren't really any signs or any take of safety measures in place - works for me! There were a couple local kids hanging out there, climbing all over the place and chucking stones around (in a somewhat destructive way actually) so it definitely didn't feel like a preserved tourist destination at all. Most of the places we visited in BiH felt like this actually; there would be an admission charge usually (not at Počitelj though) and then the attraction/site is just there, without too much information or signage or maintenance. Seems like the tourist infrastructure in BiH is still developing as they recover from the Bosnian War - but more on that in the next post.
Since it was late afternoon by the time we had arrived in Počitelj, we ended up catching the sunset there too. It was some really beautiful lighting over the town and the river. As the sun went down, we got back on the road and finally made our way into Mostar. To be continued in our next post...
