Mostar & Herzegovina: the back story

Herzegovina’s story is written in stone arches and running water. From Mostar’s bridge to the spring at Blagaj, its finest places sit where builders met the Neretva and its tributaries.

A bridge and its bazaar

Mostar grew around a single arch. Stari Most, completed in 1566 and rebuilt in 2004 with the original techniques, still carries the town across the Neretva, and in summer divers launch themselves from its crown. On the east bank, the old goldsmiths’ lane of Kujundžiluk climbs towards it, while the minaret of the Koski Mehmed-paša Mosque, built in 1618–19, gives the view everyone remembers.

Towns of stone

Downriver, Počitelj stacks its houses, mosque, madrasa and hammam up a hillside towards a medieval tower. Upriver, Konjic keeps a six-arched bridge of 1682 and a craft tradition in woodcarving. Back in Mostar, Muslibegović House shows how an Ottoman family lived, with courtyards and carved ceilings, and Hotel Neretva, a landmark of 1892, has been restored on the riverbank.

Where the water rises

At Blagaj, the Buna bursts from a cave beneath a 200-metre cliff, and a dervish house stands at its edge. South-west of Mostar, the Trebižat falls some 25 metres over travertine at Kravice, and to the north the Neretva fills the long, turquoise Jablanica lake before cutting through deep gorges, a journey the Talgo train from Sarajevo follows all the way.

Stari Most was completed in 1566 and rebuilt in 2004 using the original methods.

Our advice: take the train down from Sarajevo, then hire a car in Mostar for Blagaj, Počitelj and Kravice.