South Slav Exploring: Bosnia & Herzegovina

We left Dubrovnik and Croatia relatively early in the morning and headed inland via a scenic back road into Herzegovina (the southern province of Bosnia & Herzegovina). We’re not entirely sure what the difference is between Croatia and Bosnia but it certainly did feel and look different. The best we can come up with is a feeling of “rustic” to describe the country and we mean that in the best possible way! It‘s is a truly fascinating country and one we both really loved. Lots of very green countryside (seems to be where smoke bushes come from!), amazingly friendly locals, little villages, lots of wonderful fruit and veges, stone roofs and walls and through it all the reminders of the recent wars with many abandoned villages and ruins, shrapnel and bullet holes and signs for land mines. This country and the inland parts of Croatia certainly leave a distinct impression – it’s an odd feeling – you can’t really imagine what it would have been like for the people here less than 20 years ago and yet it’s amazingly uplifting as to how they have recovered from tragedy. Mostar itself is the pinnacle of tribute to that and what we saw there gave us hope about what we may see in Christchurch in years to come. Ljubljana in Slovenia also suffered a devastating earthquake in the 1895 and again it was so very uplifting to see how beautiful it is today – but that’s for another blog entry!

Not long after the border we entered the town of Trebinje (pronounced Tre-been-yeh) with a lovely old walled town centre and church on a hill. Actually, lovely old towns with churches on hills are extremely common over in this part of the world but as this was our first one we very much enjoyed it! All the towns also seem to have really excellent produce markets which are great to wander in.

Market in Trebinje.

Trebinje from across the local vineyards.

Leaving Trebinje we headed north towards Mostar through the very beautiful and wild countryside and some other very lovely towns – Ljubinje (Lyoo-bin-yeh) and Stolac (Sto-lats) – before we headed to Blagaj (Bla-gai) and the Buna resurgence and Monastery. This is all limestone country for miles around this part of Europe so there are many caves, sinkholes, rocky outcrops and underground rivers.

Turkish Monastery at the Buna resurgence, Blagaj.

We had booked in at a little B&B called Shangri La right near the famous Stari Most (Old Bridge) of Mostar. We would thoroughly recommend it- very good value (50 euro), perfect location, amazingly friendly hosts, clean rooms with a great view and all you can eat breakfast with personal service. Our accommodation was right next to an impressive old building that had been left as is after the war. Quite a number of buildings have been left in ruins following the war – in fact, many buildings have been redone but with parts left in ruins and with bullet holes all over them. We guess it’s part of the their way of remembering and it’s actually very striking and not depressing as you might think. The Stari Most is absolutely beautiful – so glad they restored it. We spent the evening wandering around the old town and along the river. The water is a stunning aquamarine. There are many mosques in Mostar as it is the cross-roads of many different cultures and religions (one of the main reasons the war was so violent here) but not many calls to prayer (not like we heard in Egypt and Jordan anyway!).

The next morning we headed off again back into Croatia and the coast.