Place: Trebinje / Bosnia Hercegovina
Weather: Sunshine, 31°C
Activities: Journey from Dubrovnik to the border of Bosnia Hercegovina and from there to Trebinje
Special features: At first the trip leads from Dubrovnik to the south.
Partly 50 - 100m above sea-level with a spectacular view over Dubrovnik, the islands, and the ocean.
On the right side of the driveway it partly leads vertically to the ground. We couldn't avoid feeling a bit edgy driving along.
Approximately 10 km south of Dubrovnik there is a connecting road to the Bosnian Hercegovinan border. There were no signs leading to that road at all, which was quite surprising to us ( maybe that has still something to do with the terrible war between those two countries? ).
The border is just about 5 km away from the coast.
We felt a bit uneasy - since you didn't hear anything of the country Bosnia Hercegovina besides the horrible war between serbs, croatians and muslims.
And for the most part that took place at just this spot.
Leaving the country Croatia was without any problems ( we did not expect anything else ).
What stood out was a grumpy frontier guard.
1 km further at the border of Bosnia Hercegovina: a tiny crossing point and a barrier that had to be operated by hand. What seemed sympathetic to us where the blue and white colours.
As soon as the frontier guard saw our vehicle he stopped astonished. Then he slowly moved towards the drivers side.
He asked what that was with a broken english. He shook his head first after we told him a mobile home, then he nodded and then he smiled.
The ice was broken.
Everything else was a very short formality that took no more than 2 minutes and we crossed the border.
First positive experience in a completely foreign country.
We drove on until we reached the town of Trebinje ( about 20 km ).
Parked at the outskirts of the city and went on exploring by our feet.
Our result: We decided spontaneously to stay a day longer. The small town is quite pittoresque, doesn't give a poor impression, has a whole lot of cafes, pubs, restaurants and a pedestrian precinct with huge plane trees and the town is very lively. All just locals. We did not make out any other tourists ( besides us ).
We felt very comfortable after the masses of tourists in croatia. Very nice if it conitues like this.
And another highlight: Since today we are owners of the 'Mark' again.
Bosnia Hercegovina took over our former 'Mark' with a fixed exchange rate into € of 1:1,95.

Place: Stolac and Slap Kravica
Weather: Sunshine, sultry hot 32°C, at night thunder storms with lots of rain
Activities: Journey from 'Trebinje' to 'Stolac', passing lake 'Bilecko'. And further on to the waterfall 'Slap Kravica'
Special features: The driveway has a very beautiful natural setting.

Starting at Trebinje it leads continously uphill, till about 650m and then downhill again to about 40m.
Towards Storac it is more wild with lots of scrubland and rocks. From Stolac on, the nature is very fertile - lots of wine and vegetable agriculture.
Apparently Bosnia Hercegovina has  very good wine. There is no way around tasting that quickly in the following days.

Originally we wanted to stay over night at the artificial lake Bilecko. It is situated beautifully and shines in dark blue. The lake is supposed to have lots of fish as well. Unfortunately we couldn't find any possibility to park. And the only place where there was a road leading to, it was covered with garbage - so, in the end not all that clean at all.

In former times Storac must have been one of the most beautiful towns of Bosnia Hercegovina. Too sad that it got destroyed quite a bit during the war - and that you can still recognize every step you take through the town. That indeed put us off a little bit. The restructuring will still take many, many years.

So we decided to drive on to the waterfall 'Slap Kravica'. It is said to be the biggest and most beautiful waterfall of Bosnia Hercegovina ( 25m fall spread over 100m latitutde). We didn't check that, but it did seem a bit smaller to us. We wanted to spend the night at the waterfall. But the road that leads down steep was parked all over by vehicles and on the other side it partly goes down vertically. We drove along a bit and then someone ('from Poland') parked a bit too far into the middle of the road and there was no passing by. At the same time there were cars coming up. A few local (strong) men apparently lifted the polish car (in the blink of an eye) on to the side. But then  the road was then too narrow (and too dangerous) for us after all. So it went all the way uphill backwards  (passing a few parked cars). Your own fault was the right comment of my lovely Rita.

On top they were working on laying out a (private) parking lot and the owner is a former immigrant worker (from Stuttgart). So once again we could listen to foreign swabian and had lots of fun. We were even allowed to pick the most beautifull spot - with a view on to the waterfalls from above.

Place: Slap Kravica
Weather: Cloudy, sultry, a bit windy, 22°C; in the afternoon some rainfall.
Activities: Hiking at the waterfall
Special features: We were really excited about going for a hiking-tour at the waterfall and along the river 'Trebizat' - and maybe taking a bath as well.
Unfortunately there are barely any paths. And it was too cool to go for a swim. The waterfall disappointed us a bit - the only reason for that was that we saw the extremely beautiful falls 'Plitvicer' and 'Krka' just a little bit of time ago. Otherwise the 'Kravica' fall would have been quite impressive, too. We got back 2 hours later and workes on our fotographs and did some writing for the homepage.
It kept on raining all afternoon.

Place: Blagaj
Weather: Rain and 18°C
Activities: Drive passing Podgorice to Blagaj
Special features: Rain over and over again throughout the entire day. The route leads along the river 'Neretva' ( the biggest and most important river of Bosnia Hercegovina ).
Our first destination was 'Pocitelj'. This fully oriental village got completely destroyed during the war. And is by now entirely built up again. Meanwhile it is listed for UNESCO world cultural heritage.
It sort of is a turkish settlement in Bosnia Hercegovina from the 16th century. Too sad that it was pouring with rain.
Our next destination was Blagaj at the river Buna.
Here as well there are lots of turkish sights. Besides fount Buna which is extruding 40 000 litres per minute (the most powerful spring in Europe).
We wanted to stay here for one day but couldn't find a suitable location to stay for the night and the rain as well forced us to head towards Mostar.
Eventually we will return to Blagaj later on.
It is only 7km to Mostar and our first aim was an adequate spot to camp.
There are hardly any camping sites in Bosnia Hercegovina yet.
Next to the Franciscan Church we found a big bus parking lot and for a fee of 10,-€ per night we were aloud to camp here for the night - just 5 minutes away from the heart of the Old Town.

Place: Mostar

Weather: Cloudy, partly sunny, 21°C
Activities: Visitation of Mostar

Special features: Mostar is a gorgeous city where occident meets orient since centuries and it all gets mixed, too. The muslims from here are quite profane. The majority of the population are bosnian muslims ('bosnjaci'), a part are croats (catholics) and the other part serbs ( christian orthodox ). Over many centuries living side by side worked out fine.
Sadly, national ( and unfortunately religious as well ) interests were used, between 1990 and 1992, to establish new border-lines. In Mostar the three religions were clashing vehemently. All cultural treasures got destroyed senseless and people were banished.
Nice to see that a lot is reconstructed by now - including the wonderful ( famous ) turkish bridge.
We are not really able to estimate though to what extent the three religions are able to live together next to each other.
But Mostar itself is worth seeing for sure.

Place: Podvelez (close to Mostar)
Weather: Sunny in the morning, rain and thunder-storms in the afternoon, 20°C
Activities: Journey from Mostar (100m above sea-level) to Podvelez (770m above zero)

Special features: The passage of about 35km is from Blagaj on very beautiful. The route leads the Velez Mountains up and you get a marvelous view into the Neretva Valley.
Podvelez is situated 700m high on a plateau and is bordered north-eastern by the Velez mountain-range (1800m).
This tableland is inhabited exclusively by muslims, who live of stock farming (cows, sheep, goats), spread over lots little villages.
Very slowly they start doing a little bit of ecotourism. It is an ideal area for hiking and mountaineering.
This high plateau was arean of evil fights between the religions during the balcan war. Out of 3000 inhabitants 150 died here. A lot of houses are still destroyed.
We stayed over night at the village square, besides the mosque, the war memorial, and a Motel.
The Motel supplied us with good food and the owner is a tour-guide as well, guide for herb tours, and so on. We found quite a few very friendly and nice people here.

Place: Podvelez
Weather: In the morning sunshine and in the afternoon thunderstorms, 22°C
Activities: Hiking

Special features: In the morning we visited some villages and in the afternoon the owner of the motel took us for a herb-tour. 
We collected the following herbs:

* wild sage
* wild mint
* nettle
* something undefinable
* lavender

The communication was quite a challenge, specially the definition of the herbs. By using the translating program we were able to figure out almost everything though.

In the afternoon rain and thunderstorms = some rest for the other half of the day.

Place: Podvelez
Weather: Cloudy, frequent rainfalls and thunderstorms, in between some sun, 18 - 20°C
Activities: A hiking-tour and resting

Special features: Today we decided to drive on.  Due to that I am feeling quite a bit worse since Hvar we want to get to the coast as fast as possible. And maybe stay at one place for a longer period of time and relax completely ( by just doing nothing at all ).
After I felt better and better I might have overdone it with my activities ( specially on the island Hvar ).
Riding the motor-bike on bad terrain and mountain-biking was apparently too much. Now sitting gives me a lot more pain again.
We now want to take the shortest route to the greek coast.
That is from Mostar passing Montenegro and Albania to the Ohridlake and from there on towards Greece. Should be around 600 and 700km.
We will visit Sarajevo later on.

Place: Trebinje
Weather: Partly cloudy, partly wet, partly sunny, 20°C
Activities: Trip from Podvelez to Trebinje

Special features: From Stolac on we took the southern route. Leads along the border to Croatia and is scenically very beautiful. Looks to some extent like the loess mountains of China ( of course here no loess, but karst instead ).
The valleys are very fertile and you can overlook from high above the orchards, the vine and the vegetable fields.
In Trebinje we stayed overnight. This time behind the town hall.
At the time we arrived there was one car parked there. Which belonged to a gypsy couple, who where running the ( profitable ) business of begging.
We expected a very calm night.
After we had dinner ( pasta with vegetables and ham and a very juicy and sweet melon for dessert ) the parking-lot started to fill up.
An hour later even our vehicle was blocked in completely by parked cars. We would have never been able to drive off.
But, we did not want to anyways, so we got ourselves up for the centre.
With all the people here, there must be something going on.
We found them all around, inside and in front of the Orthodox Church. Including at least 8 priests.
Rita became very enthusiastic, one was more beautiful than the other.
Mainly the beards - reaching to their knees. How fortunate that they all aren't allowed to get married, otherwise Rita would have stayed.
Apparently today and tomorrow were big Orthodox holidays. 
We mingled with the locals and managed to get some good coffee, too.
And whom did we meet again - the gypsy-beggar-family.
They were glowing as well - they had a bombastic day.
So people, when things go wrong - begging is an alternative.
By the way, only the wife was begging. The 'Mr' drove her to 'work' with a big Ford station wagon.
At night at about 23:00 / 0:30 all church visitors drove back home. And for whom that noise was not enough yet - that was added by some howling cheers of a muslim wedding that was taking place in the town hall.
Despite all that we slept 'well'.

Place: Dubrovnik
Weather: Sunny and partly cloudy, 26°C - it is getting better.
Activities: Journey from Trebinje to Dubrovnik

Special features: Again we made new plans. According to the information we got, the road-conditions in Albania are very bad, or more a disaster. I really don't want to do that to my back at the moment.
We found a way to get to Greece by ferry over Bari.
The distance is almost the same and by far more comfortable. And assuming maybe 40km per hour that are possible to drive in Albania, the gas-usage would be so high that it wouldn't really make that much of a difference in costs.
Tomorrow we are heading to Bari.

Place: Bari
Weather: Sunny and warm, 29°C
Activities: Ferry and finding a parking-spot in Bari

Special features: We are back in Dubrovnik and are waiting for the ferry to Bari (Italy).
Starting with a very precise customs declaration. ( The customs officer expected a tour through our vehicle as well ).
Then finally onto an ancient, albanian ferry. We did not feel all that well on this rusty, poor barge.
Besides us there were maybe 15 cars in the inside of the boat and about 40 passengers on board ( the quite big ferry was practically empty ).
We had a cabin in which only one person was able to stand up at a time, the other had to stay lying.
The crew was nowhere to be found after they had given out the food, even on the bridge there was nobody to be seen.
We were happy when we arrived Bari and got our tires back onto solid ground.