Our 15 Minutes in Bosnia …
Posted on November 12, 2008
Filed Under Call us tourists | Leave a Comment
Posted by Daria
If you had told us that we were going to visit Bosnia & Herzegovina, a country that in the U.S. is usually preceded by the adjective “war-torn,” I’d have wondered what the heck you were talking about. Yet, there we were at the Bosnia-Herzegovina border, handing a Sydney Greenstreet look-alike our passports.
We were on our way to Dubrovnik, Croatia, from Split, Croatia, taking one of the world’s most beautiful drives along the Adriatic coast. Suddenly there was a border crossing. Stan swerved between lanes, not sure where we were supposed to stop. “Passport,” said the stern guard, who was wearing a blue uniform complete with beret-type cap. He scanned them, meanwhile jerking his thumb at the Croatian cars going by to let them pass through.
He handed them back to us and said, “Ciao.” We drove for about 15 minutes along the Bosnian coast, through Neum, a resort town. Then we were welcomed back to Croatia.
It seems that when Yugoslavia was broken up in the 1990s, Bosnia & Herzegovina wanted a strip of coastline. They got a tiny, very pretty strip. So in order to get from Split to Dubrovnik you have to pay a quick visit to B & H. We only wish they had stamped our passports.
* Update: Journalist Evan Rail told me that Bosnia actually had a coastline long before the Yugoslavian breakup. According to Encyclopedia Brittanica Online, they got it in the 1300s, during the reign of Tvrtko I.
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