Beach Lovers Be Jealous!

Back after a few days without internet so it’s time to catch everyone up.  We left Mostar in the relatively early morning to start our drive to Dubrovnik.  I’ve noticed that as we moved from Bosnia to Croatia you still see these great mountain ranges but they get rockier and rockier as you move west.  Also, they’re less covered and when they are, it’s not with tall trees but with low bushes and grass – it seems like there are less places for things to put down roots.  There were three important things to note about the drive over.  First, the rain had stopped by the time we arrived at our final destination but not necessarily the intermediate ones.  Second, there is a tiny strip of Bosnian coast that separates Croatia.  Third, most of at least the second half of this drive had us winding along the coast.  On our way from Mostar to Dubrovnik we made two of our three scheduled stops.  First, we stopped at a Catholic church.  This church was built on the site of an miracle unrecognized by the Church.  Apparently, it has become a sort of pilgrimage site for Catholics all over Europe.  Unfortunately it was raining while we were there and very crowded so after taking a look at the church we took shelter in a nearby café for some hot chocolate and snack/lunch before piling back in the bus to the go see our next site.  It turned out that this one was an Orthodox monastery.  Although it was really pretty on the inside (and out) I was disappointed that the Muslim site we were also supposed to see with this one was closed for reconstruction.  After this it was just a hop, skip, and a thirty minute drive to the border.  This went smoothly, especially since we’re all pretty practiced with it at this point; the only news here is that I have a Croatian stamp in my passport too now.  Dubrovnik is in the part of Croatia that is separated from the rest by a strip of Bosnian coast.  This meant that there were two more technical crossings we had to go through, one to get back into Bosnia and another to get back into Croatia.  These turned out to be easy though, more like checkpoints than official crossings.  I suppose this makes sense since tons of cars must pass through all the time.  The drive up to and Dubrovnik itself are both beautiful – I can see why the tourists come here.  The water is more blue than the tropical blue green we’ve see and possibly even more breathtaking.  The view of the Adriatic Sea stretched out before us was amazing.  I’ll add some pictures so those beach lovers back home can be extra jealous.  Oh and did I mention that our hotel had a private beach?  So needless to say, with no meetings on our schedule we spent almost the entire time down at the water.  It was amazingly clear and warm, at least as warm as any pool back home and way warmer than the frigid New England Atlantic, and salty.  After extremely scientific testing – aka just holding our breath, not treading, and seeing what happened – we determined that you don’t float but you don’t sink either.  You do however bob along with your head half in and half out of the water in a way not conducive to breathing.  We were only in Dubrovnik for the weekend but I still got to spend plenty of time floating on the waves and enjoying the sun.  On one of our nights there it was a friend’s birthday so we went out to a nice dinner by the water and celebrated her and the other we went into Old Town and explored.  Almost every place here has an ‘old town’ and they’re all pretty.  This one was part of an old fort on the sea that used to protect the city.  This morning we once again piled in the bus this time bound for Split, Croatia.  The drive took a while so we arrived in late afternoon.  Some people headed into town or to the local beach (we’ve still been following the coast) but I’ve been using the time to catch up on some writing and attempting to upload pictures.  Hopefully this posts!