Day Twentysix - Jun 23, 2017

Mostar, Bosnia

High Point: A terrace, green water, and two hours of watching the Old Bridge from progressively lazier chairs.

Low Point: Vertical ambition, killed on contact with ninety-four degrees.

Miles By Foot: 7

Today's Antiquities: Stari Most, Kriva Ćuprija, the Kujundžiluk bazaar, the cross on Hum Hill, the DON'T FORGET / BUT DO FORGIVE stone

Today's Weather: 94º and sunny. Hot

Tonight's Lodging: Our apartment on the banks of the Neretva River

Touristic Events: Morning along the Neretva, reading the walls of old Mostar, the climb up through the bazaar, hours on the terrace over the Old Bridge, Bosnian grill at Tima Irma, an evening loop with everything lit

Travel Tip: When it's 94 and the climb wins, that isn't defeat, it's a terrace with a view.

Daily Didactic

Day twenty-six was Mostar at ninety-four degrees, which the field card calls "hot" and which we, as Alaskans, are not really built to argue with. We started slow on the Neretva, that absurdly green water running right under our apartment, then wandered the old town and read whatever we could off the walls. Mostar walls have opinions: spray-painted Cyrillic, a stenciled "ALL GAVE SOME, SOME GAVE ALL," the carved "DON'T FORGET / BUT DO FORGIVE" stone at the foot of the bridge. The town does not let you skip 1993, and we did not try to. Across the valley the cross still sits up on Hum Hill, in case you forgot whose side of the river you were looking from.

We pointed ourselves uphill past our neighborhood minaret, photographed from every angle we had not yet used, and finally bothered to look down at the fish-scale cobblestones we had been walking over for two days. There was a coffee and a little baklava to fuel the climb, copper shops and old sewing machines stacked in the bazaar, and the predictable verdict that the heat won. So we did the honest thing and surrendered to a terrace above the river, watching people walk the arch of the Old Bridge for a couple of hours from progressively lazier chairs. Lunch was the Bosnian grill at Tima Irma — meat on bread with a salad bigger than the bread, and a 2015 certificate on the menu it has clearly earned. Theresa found a cooking show on a café TV; Brian found a Fanta. We walked it all off after dark, the bridge and the minaret lit, the courtyard cafés full. Seven miles, no cars, ambition mostly melted.