Mostar

Mostar is a Bosnian city of about 105,000 people in the Herzegovina region, two hours south of Sarajevo and 2.5 hours northeast of Dubrovnik. The city's name comes from the bridge-keepers (mostari) who once guarded the old Ottoman crossing of the Neretva River — that bridge, Stari Most ('the Old Bridge'), built in 1566 by the Ottoman architect Mimar Hayruddin, is the city's defining symbol and a UNESCO World Heritage Site (added in 2005). The original bridge stood for 427 years before being deliberately destroyed by Croat artillery shelling on November 9, 1993, during the Bosnian War. The reconstructed bridge — built with stone from the same Tenelija quarry and using the same Ottoman techniques — opened in 2004, and the surrounding Old Town was restored in parallel.

Walking the bridge today involves crossing a 30-meter stone arch that rises 24 meters above the Neretva's emerald-green water. Local divers — the Mostari, formally trained and operating under the Mostar Diving Club — leap from the parapet for tip-collecting crowds (a continuous tradition since the bridge was built; the divers train for years to safely execute the entry). On either bank, the Old Town's cobblestone streets are lined with Ottoman-era shops selling copper coffee pots, Bosnian carpets, and the famous chess sets ground from local Mostar stone. The Karadjoz-bey Mosque (1557) and Koski Mehmet Pasha Mosque (1617) are both open to non-Muslim visitors for entry plus minaret climb (the latter gives the best bridge photograph).

What gives Mostar context beyond the bridge is the 1992-95 war heritage. Bullet holes still pock many buildings; the Sniper Tower (a never-completed bank building used by snipers during the siege) stands as an unrestored monument; the front-line streets that divided Croat-controlled west from Bosniak-controlled east are marked by quiet memorials. Bosnia's complicated coexistence — three constituent peoples (Bosniak, Croat, Serb) and one of Europe's most diverse religious landscapes — is more visible in Mostar than anywhere else outside Sarajevo. Day trips reach Blagaj Tekija (a 16th-century Sufi monastery built into the cliff at the source spring of the Buna River, 12 km southeast), the Kravice Waterfalls (40 minutes south), and the Ottoman village of Pocitelj (40 min south). Two to three nights covers Mostar; many travelers visit on a day trip from Dubrovnik but the city deserves longer.