Stari Most

After a brief visit to Dundee and the present day yesterday, it's back to BiH (Herzegovina to be precise) and back in time -

Back 9 days to another wonderful walk above the a canyon, over it on rickety bridges, and down to the river for lunch, followed by an evening and night in Mostar.
It came down to a choice between blipping a spider orchid (I think - thought at first it was a bee orchid but it wasn't, and identifying creepy-crawlies is hard, never mind identifying flowers that look nothing like the creepy-crawlies they're named after) and this. Anyway it being quite a varied day I've put some pics from that day only on a blipfolio. Might do the same with some other days later.
Blipped this one because it's a different take on the usual Mostar bridge picture and the weather was dull next morning when we had a city tour.
This pic was taken from the restaurant terrace where we had dinner.

Back 9 years to when this bridge, the Stari Most - old bridge, now the new old bridge - was opened on 23 July 2004 after being destroyed in the war and then reconstructed exactly as it was before.

Back 20 years to the destruction of the bridge by a Croatian tank on 9 November 1993. Mostar suffered terribly in the war and the destruction of the bridge was part of the attempt to break its spirit. In this it failed, but this is still a divided city (Bosnian Croats one side of the river, Bosniaks - Bosnian Muslims - the other) with more buildings still in ruins than you see in Sarajevo.
We saw a video of the city at war and the destruction of the bridge - and the opening of the new one.
The war was different here - Sarajevo was besieged by Bosnian Serbs in pursuit of a greater Serbia; in Mostar the aggressors were Croats who wanted this part of the country for Croatia, and Serbs fought as mercenaries on both sides.

Back 447 years to when the original Stari Most was completed in 1566 after taking 9 years to build.

That's far enough back!
Beauty and heartbreak come together in this country, and especially in Mostar.