3 Days in Mostar

Start the way Mostar does: slowly, with a džezva, the small copper pot that Bosnian coffee is brewed and served in. It arrives with a cube of sugar or a piece of Turkish delight, a small cup and a glass of water. Pour from the pot into the cup, let the grounds settle and don't stir. Locals will tell you it isn't Turkish coffee.

The lanes around Rade Bitange street and the river bank are full of terraces over the water. Pick one half-full of locals, not the one with a hostess outside.

The Old Bridge is a single stone arch about 30 m long and 4 m wide, 24 m above the Neretva. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent commissioned it in 1557 to replace a wooden bridge on chains that swayed so much that people crossed it, in the words of one Ottoman writer, in mortal fear. The architect, Mimar Hayruddin, was a student of the great Sinan, and the story goes that he prepared for his own funeral on the day the scaffolding came down. It stood for over four centuries. Two fortified towers guard the ends, the Tara and the Halebija.

Cross it, then go down to the water: the best views are from the banks, not from the top. The bridge you see was rebuilt with Ottoman techniques and local limestone, and army divers recovered some of the original stones from the river. Day two tells the story of 1993.

The museum sits in the Tara tower, an old Ottoman ammunition store at the east end of the bridge. It opened in 2006, two years after the reconstruction: exhibits on the bridge's history, a film on how it was rebuilt, the excavations below and a panoramic view from the top, straight along the arch. The Halebija opposite served as a prison and a lookout, and one listing says the ticket covers it too. Ask at the desk.

Kujundžiluk runs up from the east end of the bridge and is named after the goldsmiths who once worked here. It sells copper coffee sets, engraved trays, paintings and carvings of the bridge, pomegranates (the symbol of Herzegovina) and models of the stećci, the medieval tombstones of the Bosnian hills.

It is the most touristy street in Mostar and it knows it. Walk it once, look at the copper being worked rather than at the mass-produced magnets, and haggle gently. A džezva set is the one souvenir you'll actually use at home.

Jumping from the Old Bridge is a local tradition, and a formal competition has been held every summer since 1968, in the last days of July. The rest of the year there is no timetable: a diver stands on the parapet, collects money from the crowd, and jumps once enough has come in. A club member told Visit BiH the jumps run from March to the beginning of winter, so a November jump is possible but not guaranteed.

The river is around 10-12°C and the jump is no stunt. Watch from the bank below the bridge, and give the diver a few marks afterwards: that's how most of them earn their season. Some divers will take a paying visitor for a jump, but reports of the price range from 20 to 50 EUR or more and the club doesn't publish one. Ask the divers.

Terraces on the river side of Jusovina and Kurluk streets look straight at the arch, and Hindin Han and Kulluk are two long-listed ones. The view is a fair trade for slightly higher prices. Order a plate of mixed grilled meat or a bosanski lonac, the slow-cooked Bosnian pot, with a glass of Žilavka, the local white.

To spend less, eat ćevapi in a plain grill house two minutes away and take your coffee on a terrace instead.

After dark the arch is lit and the old town goes quiet: the tour buses have left, the shops are closing and the call to prayer carries over the river. In November, with sunset around 4:30 pm, you get this early. Stand in the middle of the bridge and look down at the water.

This is the small mosque with the big view, on a lane just above the Neretva. It was built in 1618, destroyed in the war and rebuilt with Turkish financial support. The prayer hall is small, but you pay for the minaret: a narrow spiral of steep steps, with a view straight down the arch of the Old Bridge and over the roofs of both banks.

It's the best photograph in town. Climb in the morning, when the light is on the bridge. If you're claustrophobic, skip it: the steps are tight and two-way traffic is a squeeze. Just below, the little Kriva Ćuprija (Crooked Bridge) of 1558 is a miniature of the big one over the Radobolja stream.

Ten minutes up the lane is the central mosque of Mostar, completed in 1557-1558, with a large dome and a minaret about 34 m tall. It was badly damaged in the early 1990s and reopened after repairs in July 2004, the same month as the bridge.

Next to it is a small cemetery that was a park until 1993. When the war made the other cemeteries unreachable, the dead were buried here. It is quiet, and a good preparation for what comes next.

Ottoman Mostar wasn't only mosques. The Muslibegović family house, from the second half of the 18th century and close to the Karađoz Bey Mosque, is often called the most beautiful Ottoman house in the Balkans. It shows how a rich family lived: a men's courtyard for guests (selamluk), a women's courtyard (haremluk), a double-arched entrance and four storeys built around the center.

It's seasonal. One listing gives 15 April to 15 October, 11am to 5pm, so in November the door may be shut. If so, the small Bišćević house on Bišćevića street shows a few upstairs rooms for a few marks, and the Museum of Herzegovina (check its hours) has photographs of old Mostar and a film on the bridge.

Walk twenty minutes to Bulevar, the avenue along the front line when Mostar was split in 1993, and on to Spanish Square. Most visitors skip this part, and it explains the rest. The war came in two phases: in 1992 the Yugoslav army and Serb forces besieged the town, then in 1993 the Croat Defence Council (HVO) and the Bosnian Army fought each other for it. The city ended up divided into a mostly Croat west and a mostly Bosniak east. Around 2,000 people died in Mostar in the war.

What you see is blunt: roofless blocks with bullet-pocked walls, next to new banks and shops. On 9 November 1993 HVO forces shelled the Old Bridge, which the Bosnian Army was using as a supply line. The international tribunal in The Hague ruled in 2017 that it was a legitimate military target, while some scholars call the destruction a deliberate attack on shared heritage. People in Mostar hold different views, so listen more than you talk. The 2004 reconstruction, paid for by many countries, was meant to help reunite the city.

Take the lift up the bell tower next to the Catholic church of Saints Peter and Paul. It's visible from almost everywhere in Mostar, and the view looks back the other way from the minaret: the Old Bridge small in the distance, the old town on one side and the modern west bank on the other. A minaret and a bell tower in one day is the quickest way to read this city.

An aščinica is the old-style canteen restaurant: pots behind a glass counter, no long menu, you point at what you want. Aščinica Saray on Karađozbegova street, near the Karađoz Bey Mosque, was listed in 2023 with big meals for 5-12 BAM. Check it's open. Look for begova čorba, dolma, klepe and bosanski lonac, and finish with hurmašice and a coffee.

OKC Abrašević is a youth and culture center on the former front line, with a bar, alternative concerts, art events and a small book exchange upstairs. The program changes, so look at the posters on the door. Even with no event on, the bar beats the old town's tourist terraces.

A tekke is a Sufi lodge, and this one is built into the foot of a cliff where the Buna river pours out of a cave, one of the largest springs in Europe. Blagaj is 14 km from Mostar, about 20 minutes by road. The lodge probably dates from soon after the Ottomans arrived, around 1520 at the latest, and the guest house was rebuilt in 1851. Inside are the rooms where dervishes prayed and received guests, and a mausoleum.

Take off your shoes, cover shoulders and knees, and women cover their heads (scarves are usually lent at the door). Spend most of your time outside, by the river.

Trout is farmed in the cold, clear Buna and several restaurants serve it on terraces over the water. Order a whole pastrmka, grilled or fried, with potatoes and salad, and a glass of Žilavka. Ask the price per portion before you order.

Počitelj is a walled town stacked up a hillside over the Neretva, about 30 km south of Mostar. It was probably built by the Bosnian king Tvrtko I in 1383, held a Hungarian garrison until the Ottomans took it in 1471, and stayed Ottoman until 1878. After that it lost its strategic role and slowly decayed, which is why the old town survived in its original form. It was badly damaged in the 1990s war.

Climb the steep stone lanes to the fortress at the top for the view of the river and hills. It's quiet, with a few small cafés and fruit stalls.

Međugorje is a village that became a pilgrimage site. Since 24 June 1981 six local children, now adults, have reported that the Virgin Mary appears to them, and more than a million pilgrims a year come. The Vatican allowed official pilgrimages in 2019 and in 2024 endorsed prudent devotion without declaring the apparitions real. What you see is a large Catholic complex around the church of St. James, with shops and hotels, and Križevac hill with its big cross.

You don't need to be a pilgrim to stop. Look into the church, walk the grounds and move on. If you're short of time, skip it: Kravica needs the last good light.

Kravica is a wide curtain of tufa cascades on the Trebižat river, about 25 m high, with a lake at its foot. In summer it's one of the most popular swimming and picnic spots in Herzegovina, and the car park fills up. In November the water is cold and nobody swims, but the falls are fuller in the wetter months and you get the place nearly to yourself. The official site says swimming is at your own risk.

The official ticket is 20 BAM for adults and includes the smaller Koćuša waterfall and the museum at the Humac monastery. Winter hours are 7am to 5pm.

Back in town, finish with Herzegovina's wine. Žilavka is the native white grape, grown around Mostar and Čitluk, fresh and a little nutty, and Blatina is the main red. Ask for both by the glass, with cheese and kajmak. Then walk to the bridge one last time.