bosnia: mostar

I've never rented a car before in another country, which pretty much guaranteed an adventure no matter what else we saw or did during the rest of the trip.

Our last morning in Sarajevo we packed up and checked out, then put our stuff in the car. We went to a bakery to stock up before hitting the road, because a road trip practically guarantees the need for snacks.

Our end goal for the day was Mostar. Getting out of Sarajevo was the first adventure, as many of the roads in the city center are one way, and I didn't always have much warning about any turns I needed to make. 

Once we got on the highway we were pretty stoked, as the speed limit was fast, and the views were great.

The fast speed limit didn't last long, unfortunately. It turned out we were on a highway requiring a toll, and after getting off that highway, the next one was not so great. The next one was just two lanes, and very twisty.

Since I hadn't driven in a while, and it had been even longer in a country where I couldn't read the signs, and didn't know the rules of the road, I was nervous.

I saw quite a few places where I wanted to pull the car over and take a photo of the scenery, but I only actually did so a handful of times. Bosnia is relatively unknown in the travel world, especially because it is in Europe, but absolutely gorgeous.

As we got closer to Mostar there were people passing me regularly, even on blind curves, which I find to be incredibly stupid, no matter how well you know the roads. They passed while we were in tunnels too, eeeeek. I was mostly terrified there would be a huge crash in front of me, thank goodness that didn't happen.

Once we got to Mostar it took a while to find our accomodation. The way it is labeled on google maps and yandex maps is wrong, and makes it look as if it's on one street, but it isn't. Our room was actually in a guesthouse tucked into the very back of a courtyard. We loved the room though, it even had a skylight. Our landlady spoke German, so Bo was able to do all our communicating, which was awesome.

Mostar is supposed to have been named for the people who guarded its bridges, called mostari.

The Neretva River goes right through the city, (which currently has almost 115,000 residents,) and the bridges over the river have been around as long as the city itself. Like Sarajevo, Mostar is in a valley, though the surrounding hills aren't as big as those around Sarajevo.

There is evidence of human habitation in the area of Mostar even in prehistoric times. Archaeologists have found remains of life from Roman times under the current city. Wikipedia tells me the first written mention of Mostar is in a document from 1474, when the area was under Ottoman rule. 

The bridge that everyone thinks of in Mostar was first built as a wooden bridge, and redone in stone in 1566.

Austria-Hungary took control of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, ruling all the way through the end of WW1, in 1918. At that point it became the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, followed by Yugoslavia. Wikipedia tells me Mostar was the unofficial capital for a while, but it doesn't say why, nor does it say what the official capital was at the time.

Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1992, which was basically the start of the war in the 1990s. What followed were at least three years of fighting, much of which completely confuses me. There were more than two sides in the war, I'm not sure what all each one of them wanted.

In 1993 the famous bridge was destroyed, it was 400+ years old at the time. It took a three year rebuild before being opened again in 2004. One series of postcards I saw showed how much the bridge changed from the 80s till now, whoa. 

The bridge was one of the first sights we saw in the city, after walking along the river for a bit. The area around the bridge is filled with stalls selling all kinds of tourist knick knacks. I suppose they're just a modern version of the market that once filled the area, but they definitely take away from the atmosphere.

I have to admit that being on the bridge wasn't that amazing, but the view of the bridge from a couple other spots in town was amazing. There are lots of people trying to take photos on the bridge, but I don't think you get a good photo on the bridge. 

Unless you're the only one on the bridge, and your photographer is standing in a place that shows the entire bridge.

Since I wanted photos of the bridge, we figured out how to get to one of the viewpoints of the entire bridge. Getting there meant following a couple very narrow walkways that weren't obvious, but there were plenty of people down closer to the river, so there must be a more obvious way to get there. Anywho. Some of those people had clearly been waiting for quite a while to get their perfect photo. 

One of the things locals like to do is jump off the bridge. Sometimes they stand on the edge for a long while, waiting for a big enough crowd to gather before jumping. We saw two people waiting to jump, but they still hadn't jumped a full ten minutes later, so we stopped waiting and started walking.

Our next stop was another traditional home from the Ottoman era. Called the Katjaz house, it was formerly the home of a judge, so it was quite nice. We were the only visitors at the time, which made us love it even before walking around. 

The owner/manager gave us some of the history of the house and era, then let us wander around on our own.

The intricate wood carving was amazing. The carpets were amazing. The way the second level had so many windows was amazing. The whole thing was amazing. Wow, just wow. The owner told us it used to be twice as big, which made us appreciate it even more, because it still felt quite big. I don't know how many people were in the judge's family, that would make a big difference in how spacious it felt at the time. 

We walked back in the general direction of our accomodation to get to one of the war sights of the city, the so-called Snipers Tower. It was probably going to be an apartment building, but it wasn't finished. The stairs go all the way up I think, but there are no exterior walls. Being anywhere in view of the building during the war was a massive risk.

There is graffiti all over the building, both 'inside' and out. There is a fence all the way around, but if you really wanted to it wouldn't be that hard to get inside and go up to the top. Fascinating, in a morbid way.

We also took a look at two buildings close to the Snipers Tower. One of them had Moorish architecture, I read the sign out front to figure out it was a local school. Really impressive architecture for a school.

The school was right next to the other building, which was fascinating because it was abandoned and falling apart. Trees and vines growing up through the floors, the walls had already collapsed. I love abandoned buildings, but I didn't go much past the front porch because I didn't want to fall into a basement and get stuck.

The next morning we drove out of town to do a day trip around the area.

The second morning we stopped at a spomenik before heading out of town. It was related to WW2, from Italy I think. It was smaller than many of the spomeniks around the country, but it was still worth seeing.

I'd love to go back to Mostar, as it is very pretty. That being said, I'm not sure how much more there would be for me to see.