One of the best things to do as the crowd descends on Dubrovnik is to get the hell out of there. Luckily, the place is surrounded by beautiful stretches of coast and several other countries - one of which is Bosnia and Herzegovina, not too far within the borders of which from Dubrovnik is Mostar.
Famed for its medieval bridge, the Stari Most, this is a fascinating and tragic town. Historically divided into Muslim and Christian precincts by the river, the bridge holds a huge symbolism for the town - which made it all the more potent a symbol during the 1990s conflicts which tore the region apart, for with Mostar proved a flashpoint. It was after the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army, whose shelling had decimated the town and destroyed many historic buildings (including, according to Wikipedia, a library of 50,000 historic texts) that the Christian Croatian forces, who had fought to remove the Yugoslavs, began the campaign of ethnic cleansing against their Muslim Bozniak neighbours which stains the history of this area so terribly, and as can be seen below, still visibly, with bullet holes and shell craters marking many buildings throughout the town.
The future of Mostar is far brighter than its recent past. Now reconstructed, the town and its bridge attracts thousands of tourists to a town which is fast being restored. In the old centre, the markets, mosques and churches built from local grey stone climb up the walls of the gorge, and from the bridge spanning it divers jump almost 25 metres in a local street (or bridge) performance. In all it was truly on of the highlights of the whole trip, all the more so because of its unexpectedness - eye-opening in lots of ways.
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