Across the border into Croatia today for a trip to Dubrovnik. Our tour guide said that today we would also get a local guide, but that he would not speak as slowly as the one from yes-ter-day!
He was actually very good, although he took the instruction to speed it along quite seriously, and so some of his anecdotes got a bit confusing.
We stopped at a statue where there was a queue of tourists waiting to hold the nose of a statue.
He said that from 2008 people started doing this, and he had no idea why. He seemed very disappointed with the tourist's conduct and even showed us a photo of the statue before it had a shiny nose.
We waited until after he had finished and went back to take our own photo.
He also told us about a great almost secret viewpoint, and pointed down an alleyway, so we went back to find it and he wasn't wrong.
And a final panorama on the way up to the bus.
Then across another border into Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to the little town of Medjugorje.
This is where we stayed the night, and in 1981 an apparition of the Virgin Mary appeared to six school children on a nearby hill.
Our hotel appeared to be in the middle of a field, but we walked for about five minutes into the town, and suddenly there was thousands of people walking around.
The high street was as busy as Oxford Street in the run up to Christmas, and all of the shops were full of religious souvenirs and millions rosary beads.
Amid the throng were nuns and monks and inside the church it was completely rammed with people. All of the pews were full and people standing in the aisles.
Astonished, we left and headed to one of the many restaurants which was also full. We grabbed one of the last tables by the door and watched as many, many pilgrims headed to the church in the pouring rain.
No comments:
Post a Comment