Together with 10 participants I arrived to Split airport before lunch of 20th April.
People from Sweden and the U.K waited for the last two arriving at lunch and looked at some old barracks close to the airport while we waited.
Saturday 20th
After a check on the three rental cars we set off towards Bosnia-Herzegovina and Mostar. There were some minor problems with the locking and remote key on one of the cars but we didn’t think more about that at this stage, something we would have to get back on for tomorrow!
Almost deserted highways took us over the border and into Mostar for two nights. The clear instructions from the hotel was to take a left on the main road in old Mostar town, ignore the one-way street sign and head into the backstreets of the old town to reach the hotel.
But before settling at the hotel one object was on our list, the mountain hangar (shelter) close to the Mostar airport. After exploring that for about 45 minutes we also had time to explore what had been a military airport close by, probably with a taxi way to the now international airport. This was also one of the places that was transferred to a concentration camp during the ethnic cleansing of Mostar.
After installation at the hotel we explored some parts of Mostar town and had a dinner.
Sunday 21st
started with a good breakfast and a scheduled 09:50 start. I did a walk in the eastern, Muslim, part before breakfast looking at derelict buildings and other remains from the civil war in the early 1990’s.
As we all was ready well before 09:50 and wanted to explore we decided to head up to the Millenium Cross on the western side before heading north to the main object for the day. The driver of one of the cars bulled started his car, pulled out of the parking but as the two other cars weren’t ready he stopped his car – and when the others were ready he couldn’t get the car to start again. Was it the black cat from yesterday ?!?. Now we had around 1h30min to solve this before being late to our guided tour. With the tremendous help from Hotel Villa Meydan and later the car rental company we could get a replacement car for the day – on a Sunday! and head north to the small town of Konjic. A very pleasent drive through Bosnian rocky countryside had us entering town and the ticket office just 5 minutes late.
This was the main object of the day and for some the main object for the trip – Tito’s war headquarters that continued its use well after his death. Built into a massive mountain structure on the eastern side of a small river in a deep gorge it would have been very difficult to bomb the entrances with precision. There are two main entrances to a horse-shoe shaped structure inside with many hundred rooms along the corridor and in the chambers connecting the ring. At the end of the structure, in the two main conference rooms the range of the protected mountain is said to be at least 200 meters.
This visit was a bit of a struggle to get as I wanted – a longer tour with at least the double time as a normal tour. This proved to be impossible when talking to the tour operator that handled tickets. There was only tours at 09, 12 and 15 and they were 1,5h each. Period!
So my option was to book two 1,5h tour, the one at 12 and after a lunch-break again at 15.
When we pulled up at the bunker we saw over 50 people waiting to get into the 12:00 tour and our hopes for a tour of our own was quickly disappearing. After gathering the group our guide approached us and asked me if it would be alright to start after the 50+ people had entered and then take as much time as we wanted on one tour instead. Mission accomplished and we headed into the mountain for almost three hours.
After a late lunch we headed back towards Mostar. I had contact with the rental car agencies both in Mostar and Split to sort out the transport for tomorrow if we couldn’t get the 3rd car to start. As this was in Bosnia outside the EU around 10 SMS and some data communication costed over €60. When arriving into Mostar me and the friends in my car said that we’ll try and find a battery at a larger petrol station. We found a bit smaller in size and in Wh but I bought that so we could try anyway.
After a short visit to the Millenium Cross we swapped batteries in our 3rd car and it restarted without any problems. Before dinner I got help from a colleague to drive the 4th car back to the rental office.
Monday 22st
After another good breakfast we said goodby to the friendly Hotel and Bosnia and headed into Croatia again and the region around the newly built bridge from the mainland to the Prizdrina peninsula to avoid the need to enter Bosnia (non-EU) to travel between Split and Dubrovnik.
In this region Jugoslavia built three boat shelters during the Cold War. All had the same basic design but when looking at all three within a few hours many differences could be noticed as well.
These three objects were the main stops for the day. Our goal for the afternoon was a 18:30 departure of the ferry from Split to the island of Vis. As we had time left we drove the coast road towards Split and had a stop at the abandoned Makarska retirement home/hotel along the coast.
The ferry took us to Vis town, followed by a 10 min walk to the huge Hotel Issa for two nights. A bear in the bar and soon everyone was in bed, some listening to the sound of a Euroasian Scops Owl in the trees outside.
Tuesday 23rd
A slow start with a 09 departure had some of us exploring the surroundings before entering a minibus for a transfer to the town of Komiža where we had a short introduction to our Quads for the day. The group of 11 had 6 bikes with one guide from Quad Safari Vis. As a senior instructor on 4×4 and Quads I had found a tour guide that had what we were looking for – machines that could do the job transporting us and also being so easy to use so anyone could drive the some 60km that the full day would be.
Just after 09 we set off through town, heading south on the main road before exploring dirt roads towards the southwestern peak of Stupišće. Here we explored a Cold War costal battery with tunnels connecting the guns and observation platforms and close by the protection tunnel and storage area for the rocket (missile) battery.
After a quick stop on the highest peak on the island, with views of the Navy surveilance station, we ended up at the main command bunker on Vis. Said to be either a command or communication centre it has a strange structure with a looong corridor with only a few rooms on each side but multiple exits and shafts towards the surface. At the end a room that probably was a communication hub.
One main staicase to the surface was found, doing a rotation in a square upwards to the surface with three exists and machinegun nest under a pansar cupola.
Before heading to the northeast side we stopped at two war memorial places and had our packed lunch at the 2WW Allied air-field. Note that after Jugoslavia ended, Croatia altered the memorial to fit their purposes better.
After a longer Quad ride we ended up on the northeastern side with another costal battery and a boat tunnel.
Wednesday 24th
We managed to get a early breakfast so we could embark the Catamaran back to Split at 07:00. Most of us woke up even earlier due to a thunderstorm and massive rain. A few took the bus directly out to the airport to secure check-in but half the group wondered around in the old town of Split for a few hours before heading home.
