A few hours in Mostar, Herzegovina
The past week has flitted by so quickly I've barely had a moment to think, let alone bash out a blog post or two. Anyway, Friday is here, the sun is shining (despite it being a little chilly), and I'm looking forward to a weekend up in sunny Birkenhead to see the in-laws. I was scrolling through my photos recently and realised I never shared my little trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina during my Croatian holiday in September. I booked a little day trip before we went as I thought it would be fascinating to see how different it is from Croatia. While the landscape is largely similar and there are a lot of Croatians living in this part of Herzegovina, it has a distinctly Turkish feel.
We hopped on a coach and shot through the winding countryside roads, admiring the vineyards, oyster farms and turquoise glimpses of the ocean. Eventually we arrived in Mostar,
The 16th century bridge in the old town was built by the Ottomans, and is considered to be one of the most exquisite examples of Islamic architecture in the Balkans. The famous traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote in the 17th century that: "the bridge is like a rainbow arch soaring up to the skies, extending from one cliff to the other. ...I, a poor and miserable slave of Allah, have passed through 16 countries, but I have never seen such a high bridge. It is thrown from rock to rock as high as the sky."
The bridge that stands today is an exact replica of the original, which was tragically bombed during a 1992-3 siege following Bosnia and Herzegovina's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia. Local men wow tourists by jumping off the bridge into the water (once they've collected enough money of course!) We were lucky enough to spot someone just as he leapt off. It looked terrifying!
Our tour guide explained how the Muslim community had originally laid the cobbled stones throughout Mostar due to cleanliness. Because hygiene is so important for Muslims when they go to the mosque, traipsing through mud roads wasn't ideal, so they placed thousands of stones into the mud to create a walkway. Over time these hardened into cobbled roads, which take a lot of concentration to walk on. The tour guide also told us another theory - that the stones were laid so local women would be concentrating so hard on where they were stepping that they wouldn't be eyeing up men other than their husbands!
One of my favourite things about Mostar was seeing Christians, Jews and Muslims living together harmoniously. The town has several mosques and churches, and a spot where they're currently building a synagogue. The Jewish community had donated their synagogue to the people of the town so it could be used as a puppet theatre, so the town had offered them a piece of land in return so they could build a new place of worship.
We popped into one of the mosques and I loved the beautiful brightly coloured woven rugs that littered the floor.
We stopped for lunch in Mostar, where Frank ordered a local dish called Ćevapi (Bosnian kebabs). These are small grilled meat sausages made of a mix of lamb and beef, served with onions, sour cream, ajvar and Bosnian pita bread. I ordered something similar, although the meat had been flattened into a patty. It was possibly the best (and cheapest) food we had the whole time we were on holiday. It goes without saying that this was all washed down with an ice cold local beer!
Having finished our tour and dashed around the street sellers to buy some souvenirs (needless to say I wanted everyone but didn't have enough suitcase room - boo!), we boarded the coach and headed back to Dubrovnik, feeling very snoozy and tired by the time we got home. For anyone thinking of going to this part of the world, I can thoroughly recommend a trip to Mostar. Culturally it was a stark change to Croatia and I'm itching to go back! We booked our trip through Viator. You can find the tour here.
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