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Alone in summer 2015 - Part Four
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You can come back on the third part of this travelogue here.
Here are a few casual images without comments made in a relaxed, light tour through of the Mostar city, without any especially on my mind.
What kind of would a rail fan I bee if I would not find a railway station in Mostar.
That my wish in the Konjic town this morning was not too big, maybe the coincidence with a little help of blessing would help me to get to this city by railway, but not like as I already did. True, I would have been deprived of a bus ride adventure, the above described.
The bicycle has been repaired for 15 minutes at an acceptable price of 10KM (5 €).
It is time to solve the problem of staying for the next night. I intend to do it like in the Kresevo town.
So I shall come to the Franciscan monastery and ask the Friars for hospitality. They will say "no problem" will lead me to the room and that is it.
Well, that is not so, at least not here in the Mostar town.
The monastery is not difficult to find because the tower of the monastery church is the highest building in Mostar - a total of 107 meters.
The main entrance to the monastery is in the old building beside a newly built church. The entrance door is open. I press on the bell switch beside the entrance(I hear the bell somewhere inside !).
No one comes out!
I press on the bell switch again!
No one comes out again!
I press on the bell switch again!
No one comes out again!
.......................
After xx repetition, I realize the futility of my attempts.
Standing in front of the entrance to the monastery, I see the people who come out of the parked car and go to the church. They're going to the Mass. I look at the watch - 5.50 pm. So, the Mass is at 6 pm.
So, because I am presenting myself as a pilgrim, and therefore, I look for hospitality here, but also because I am in Mostar at 5.50 pm beside the church, I got a wish, a call to go to the Mass.
But, what about a bike !?
I dared to accomplish the idea which came to my mind a moment earlier. I took the bike to the small corridor behind the exterior door, took the wallet and the camera, and walked out and close the outside door behind which I left the bike. Well, if someone takes it, let it go!
I entered the church.
The mass just did not start, so I made a snapshot of the interior of the church.
I was unpleasantly surprised that it was just as unfinished as ten years ago when I was here. At the end of the mass, with nervous hurry, I went to the monastery entrance where I found my metal companion with all the luggage intact. Well, I am just a miserable man, so who would wish this old bicycle?
Ok, it is no longer important, am I a miserable man or not and whether my bicycle is stolen or not, let's solve the problem of staying overnight. And again, I press on the bell switch - nothing, I press on the bell switch - nothing, I press on the bell switch - nothing...
And as in exciting American movies, when we are already scared for the fate of the main hero, finally comes salvation. The announcement of that was the hurried steps I heard in the corridor behind the other doors. The door opened and the older Franciscan appeared which looked at me like he wanted to say, "Great, here is a total jam and without you!"I quickly pronounced my story with the help of the delivery of the paper, which he barely looked at. Even my ultra-short story he did not listen till the end.
I admit that he impressed me with his practicality and determination. Filtering irrelevant from my story he realized I was looking for an overnight stay and with "No problem!" he added to me to go with him. As we walked behind the church, he added that there was a wedding in the church and otherwise there was a big crowd in the monastery. He brought me to the room where I should stay over the night. Within the second and a half told me that there was some lecture, spiritual exercises or something similar, so when people come out, the room is mine. On my sincere, grateful "Thank you!", he just nodded barely noticeable, turned himself, and with the rapidity and grace of a young man he lost, not waiting for my greeting.
For a few moments, I was motionless staring into the empty space through which he had passed a moment before. An incredible liveliness, determination, and convenience for a man who has totally gray hair. These spiritual men a really impressive.
But where I am going to sleep tonight?
The entrance in the room is directly from the outside. The room was a combination of the classroom (there was a school bench with chairs) and a mini kitchen. Now whether to call it a kitchen or not, I do not know, because there was no stove or refrigerator, but there were those kitchen elements and sink with a boiler. The boiler I was not needed so much, it is enough to me that I have access to cold water from the pipe.
On the other side of the classroom on the floor, I found a place to prepare my dormitory.
I went into the room together with the bicycle. I dismantled the equipment from the bike and I stopped a while wondering what next. The problem was that there was no bathroom, and I should wash somehow. There is no other way than to repeat bathing like last night at Boračko Lake. I took off myself in shorts, took cold water into a big bowl, and walked out, and washed on the tiled surface along the sewer drain.
After the "shower", dinner is followed. The dinner was in the form of a soup I cooked on my gas stove in the sink. The sink is needed in case of a boiling soup will run out from the dish.
Before I fell asleep, I have filmed today's mileage. I have nothing to boast about the mileage - only 28 km. Still, it was a tough but especially interesting day today
THE FOURTHDAY OF THE JOURNEY
The map of the second day of the journey you can see here.
The pictures from the second day of this trip you can see here.
Just before 7 am I got out of my "dormitory". Although to the Medjugorje place, today's destination, I have only 40 kilometers, on that road I have one big uphill of a 3.5 km, so I was planning to climb that uphill as much as possible earlier.
Obviously, it will be very hot today as yesterday and day a day before.
But I don't have to hurry so much.
I can take a little time off for an additional tour of the Mostar city this summer morning.
The Franciscan church, located right next to the monastery, was built after the last war and seems to me to be still unfinished, albeit monumental.
Now, while I write this lines, I surfing by the Internet, and I find a snapshot of the church and monastery on the site of the city of Mostar some hundred years ago when beside the monastery was passing the narrow gauge railway. Now, on the track of that railway is a wide street.
On the internet tourist sites of the city of Mostar, I found that the Ottomans helped build the Catholic Church in 1866. The church was damaged in the war in 1992, and in 2000 a new church of the larger dimensions was built in the same place. The monastery boasts a library of 50,000 old writings, Western and Eastern, and it is the largest of such features throughout the whole of Herzegovina. In the monastery building, there is also an important collection of paintings by Italian masters from the 16th and 17th centuries.
And ten years ago, when I was last in this town, Mostar was an example of the real, basic impression of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a lot of opposites, those extreme, located so close. This impression, mostly, I feel now again.
There are still here the ruins from the past war, though it has been twenty years since.
But next to these ruins, or just a little further, the real architectural beauties are located. One of these beauties is, without doubt, the Mostar gymnasium renewed and decorated that couldn't be better.
According to Wikipedia, the Gymnasium in Mostar was founded in 1893 and started working on Luka (a settlement in the Mostar city). There was a gymnasium until 1898 when one wing of today's building was built, according to a Czech architect František Blažek's draft. In 1902, the second wing was erected and the building got its present appearance. The pseudo-mauristic style building was decorated with numerous ornaments inspired by the Alhambra Palace in Spain.
Gymnasium Aleksa Šantić, named in honor of the well-known Mostar poet Aleksa Šantić, was one of the first and most advanced school institutions in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (before II world war).
The building of an international elementary school, together with the environment, looks just like was teleported from some different space and time.
On the web site ism.internationalschool.ba I learn that the International Elementary School in Mostar is a project of the Bosna Sema company, which has been operating in Bosnia since 1996. In the International Elementary School, special care is taken on the attendants and their parents, with whom works practically 24 hours a day. Pupils do not have to bring books and other equipment at school because everything they need is in the classroom, and for pupils and staff breakfast and lunch has prepared every day. Food will not be cooked in the school premises but will be delivered from quality restaurants.
So as I already said, as if from some other time and space.
The City Hall of the city of Mostar is followed.
It was built in 1900. It was a first elementary school, and after the Second World War, there was also a gymnasium for a short time. As you can see in the old photograph, the narrow gauge railroad was passed near it, which the building was on the right side when that railway traveled to the sea.
By the route of that railway, on which today is a wide city street, I started to the south, something behind 7.30 am.
Upon leaving the city, the field on which is the Mostar town expanded, so that the road is flat as an arrow. There were even a place and goodwill, so the trail was placed and even it was asphalted. Initially, I had appropriated it as a bicycle path, but after I overpassed the morning jogger, the track got universally using.
Whatever that path was, separate from the main road, it was a special pleasure to ride my bike without care.
Everything that is nice, it lasts for a short time, no matter how long it lasts, so that is the case with this cycling-jogger trail.
On the left is the Buna river, which, pulling through under the bridge of this main road on which I ride, flows into the Neretva river.
This field is stretched till this bridge, and then again narrow and winding valley/canyon of the Neretva again, where the main road was squeezed to the left side of the river, and the normal gauge railway on the right side.
After it was pulling through under the bridge, and before joining the Neretva river, the Buna river spread all over as much as it could. It had created such a weird blend of crystal clear water and bushes of lush green grass around which it was flowing lazy and slow. This morning, until the sun had not yet to show its fierceness, the place of enjoyment has found - ducks.
Looking up, I saw a narrow bridge across the Neretva river, so the curiosity attracted me to look closely it. Bridge bridges the flow of the Neretva river, which here, like some thick book, which is literally reduced to the last page with two letters. The coarse dry riverbed testifies that there are times of the year when the Neretva river becomes rampant and spread all over the side. Obviously now, when I am here, it is not that time, because the Neretva river squeezed into a mini canyon of 3-4 meters in width and depth about one meter and a half to the surface of the water through which it was running one hundred per hour.
Like the ducklings abandoned by the mammy duck, the Buna river, subdivided into countless small waterfalls, was falling down of the vertical cliff of the mini canyon. As soon as the Buna river's water fell to the Neretva river mainstream, it has been quickly pulled into turbulent flow, and for a second, two was far away from me.
Those little waterfalls were just before the bridge where I watched this surprising uniqueness of nature, as well as after the bridge.
I was completely surprised and enthralled by the scene. I listened to the sound of the small waterfalls and watched the dynamics and the vividness of such inanimate substance like water.
The next 7 kilometers on my right was the Neretva, and on the left side was a hill. The wind was mild, the shade from the hill to the left was still present, so with ease and feeling of comfort, and quite before I expected, I came on the turn to the Žitomislići village. After turning off the main road, I stopped on a bridge across the Neretva river and filmed a sunlit hill and a zig-zag road on it, by which I have to climb.
Prior to that uphill, I visited the train station in the Žitomislići village and the church on the opposite side of the railway station.
And now it was 3.5 km uphill in front of me. The problem again was the sun. Although it was only 9.30 am, it was already warm. The road was on the east side of the hill, so it is sunny already in the early morning. There are no tall trees actually, so will be a problem to find the shade. This is why I was in the hurry this morning. I wished to pass to this ascent as soon as possible.
The only shade I found was at one serpentine that was partially cut into the hill, and that cutting made the shade. Of course, I used it for a longer rest, preparing the spirit and body for the final "battle" with the uphill.
From that resting place somewhere down there I saw the bridge across the Neretva river, as well as the Žitomislići village railway station.
I moved my sight to the right of the station and saw the Neretva river valley together with the main road and the railway.
Just a little bit before the summit of the pass I greeted to the Neretva river, looking from where I came from, and where I would go if I have stayed along the river.
After the summit of the pass, I came up to a plateau with a mild and small uphills and downhills. It started to be hot, so I rushed to Medjugorje village. I arrived in it a little before noon, with 40 kilometers traveled. The arrival time shows the cell phone because my watch stopped (yet another mark in the collection of misfortunes and troubles of this journey).
In the camp in the Medjugorje village - madness. Tomorrow is the Feast of Our Lady, so today is August 14th. Otherwise, this place is known in all world as the destination of pilgrims, and especially for that day.
At the entrance to the auto camp, there are a lot of caravans, at the reception is crowd, a man by the man. I do not see any meaningful queue, so when I met with the sight of the too busy owner of the auto camp, I said to him, while I have been giving to him my personal card "Everything is one, one tent, one bicycle, one man, one night!" He paused for a moment, watching personal card, and me. After a moment of thinking, he returned me my personal card with a comment: "Well, when everything is one, you do not have to pay anything!"
And so I come back from the reception to my bicycle with a blissful smile of the satisfaction. So, human compassion and warmness can be found when you least hope. A moment later I remembered that I had another proof of human compassion of the owner of this auto camp. When I was here with the companion ten years ago, the owner was fascinated by the trip we crossed by the bike, so he did not charge us anything. And we stayed for two nights!
First I unpacked the equipment up and pitched the tent. I was very sweaty while I have been doing that. Not because of fatigue, not because of the hard work, but because of the heat. Though the camp is in a thick, really thick shade, although breeze is blowing, the breeze is so hot, so its effect is more heating than chilling. In one word it was hot, very hot.
For some time I was cooled after showering, real showering with shower cabins and with hot water (ah, finally!). In fact, I did not need warm water, because of the current luxury of the summer.
The lunch is followed. I did not want to circumambulate by the restaurants this time, so I wanted to prepare something by myself. At a nearby store, I bought pasta, full-fat cheese, and canned goulash and started the cooking.
Something like concrete blocks is left for free use to campers. It was nice to me and cute. Although it does not look like on the following pictures, in the camp was a big crowd.
After an abundant lunch, for which I do not know that was so delicious for me because I was very hungry, or it was well-prepared, or because I prepared it by myself, I went to the sanitary ware for dishwashing. On that road, I met two puppies for which I cannot decide which one was cuter.
An abundant part of the afternoon was left to me for resting, up to seven when I should go on the Mass, which will be outdoors (when I was already in the Medjugorje village).
How to spend it !?
I leaned the sleeping pad on the tree beside the tent, took a pencil and crosswords, I laid down on that sleeping pad and slowly dealing with the enigmatic. However, even though my metabolism was at a minimum, after a while of recumbency, I felt that I sweat. This sweating has become more intense as soon as I make any move with the body. Simply put, hot, hot, hot.
Finally, there was 7 pm, so I went out to the outdoor Mass.
Considering that tomorrow is exactly the half of August (the Feast of Our Lady), the timing of the Mass for seven in the evening proved a very good move. According to the blur of the above images, it can be concluded that sun radiation finally decreased, and hence the heat as a result. For this reason, that unpleasant, hot breeze, which blew over the day, now transforms into something that is refreshing and pleasant. When the night comes, this refreshing pleasure has evolved into an irresistible enjoyment.
For a while, for that reason, I stayed a while walking outside around the church, as well as in the city with lots of people. When my body and spirit were finally cooled and calmed down I went to the camp for sleeping. Tomorrow is waiting for me over 60 km to the Imotski town, and it will not be less hot than it is today, so it would be wise to sleep well and get up early in the morning.
You can view the continuation of this travelogue here.
Post je objavljen 05.05.2019. u 19:34 sati.