Coastal Warmth!

Hey folks,
Am ensconced in s warm hostel in Skopje, finally updating this, checking email, etc etc. We got here this afternoon from Prishtina, Kosovo, which we arrived at from Montenegro and Croatia. We've gone from the icy bitter cold of Sarajevo, to the blinding sun and pleasant warmth of Mostar, to the rain of Split, Dubrovnik, and Kotor, and then back to the cold and ice of Zabljak. Skopje is still chilly, as it's inland, but luckily not hat-and-scarf weather.
A whirlwind update from last time:
Mostar is charming; it may be our favorite town on the whole trip. It was a little quiet, nice and warm, and we stayed with this wonderful couple who brought us fresh homemade cake and tea in bed. Life was great.
From Mostar, we daytripped to Medugorje, Roman Catholic pilgrimmage site since the early 1980s, when 6 teenagers first saw an image of the Virgin Mary. It was beautiful; they've built a massive church, lots of areas for devotions and rosaries and ways of the cross all over and around the town. It was, however, very strange: the town is clearly set up for receiving thousands of tourists a day, which it does get in the summer. But I think we were the only 2 tourists in town. We had the church, and Apparition Hill almost entirely to ourselves, and the restaurant where we grabbed lunch opened just for us. We really appreciated the town, but both agreed we'd really dislike it in summer: we saw photos, and it's absolutely wall-to-wall pilgrims. As it was, it was incredibly peaceful and contemplative, and we had a great day there.
Next up was Split, where we saw the old walled city in the rain. It's the site of Emperor Diocletian's retirement palace, and the city was kind of built up inside the old palace. It's incredibly picturesque and fronts the Adriatic. We just spent an afternoon there, before heading on to Dubrovnic, which was a little similar setup, a walled city on the Adriatic. Both Split and Dubrovnik were so fun to just stroll around and appreciate. The not fun part for us was that Croatia is more developed and threfore much more expensive than everywhere else we'd been. Still, we were able to stay with a family in Dubrovnik, who shared their homemade carob liqueur and told stories of their travelling days.
From Croatia, we headed to Montenegro, first to Kotor, which was gorgeously set on the water, surrounded by mountains on 3 sides. In the morning the fog and coulds kind of rolled over the mountains towards the city, it was incredibly picturesque.
From Kotor, we caught a bus to Podgorica, and then on to Zabljak, which is in Durmitor National Park. During that bus ride, we switched from balmy if damp warm Adriatic weather to cold mountain air; it was a bit of a surprise getting off the bus to snow again. At Zabljak, we went skiing, as one does when one is in Zabljak. It was adventuresome; I'll write more later of course, but suffice to say we got more stories from our day skiing than any other day on our trip.
From Zabljak, we headed to Kosovo, where, due to a ridiculously fast bus and fast customs, we arrived at 2:30 this morning. Arriving at a bus station at 2:30am when one was not planning on grabbing a hotel is not fun; luckily the security guard let us into the bus station, which actually had couches, and the bus station cafe opened at 4:30, so we could collapse into chairs with tea and books. We went through Prishtina, the capital of the Kosovo region, pretty quickly as it's a smallish town. It's also a fun town: to get to the city center we took Bil Klinton Bulevard until it met up with Mother Theresa Street. I enjoyed Prishtina.
We then hopped a bus to Skopje, where we've pretty much done nothing but relax so far; we'll see the town tomorrow before heading Istanbulward. It's been quite an adventure, and we're entering the home stretch...

kib,
-R