BOSNIA · HERZEGOVINA
Old bridges, emerald rivers, the mountains behind.
Mostar’s Old Bridge, Sarajevo’s bazaars and siege streets, the Kravice falls and the wild mountains of the south. Day trips, city walks and the stories behind each one.
Only here
The three that belong to Bosnia alone.
Waterfalls and old towns turn up all over the Balkans. A bridge rebuilt stone by stone, a siege told by its survivors, and a dervish house at a river’s source belong to this country and nowhere else.
Mostar
The Old Bridge and its divers
Stari Most has vaulted the Neretva since 1566. Shelling brought it down in 1993, and it was raised again stone by Ottoman stone, each one cut to the old pattern and lowered back into place. For more than 450 years the town’s divers have leapt the twenty-one metres into the cold green river below, and on a summer afternoon you can still watch them go.
- 1 From Dubrovnik: Mostar and Kravica Waterfall Day Trip
- 2 Dubrovnik: Kravica Waterfalls, Mostar and Pocitelj Day Trip
- 3 Sarajevo: Mostar, Konjic, Blagaj Tekke, Pocitelj & Waterfall
Sarajevo
The siege, by those who lived it
Sarajevo held out through the longest siege of a capital in modern history, nearly four years ringed by the hills. Guides who were here walk you through the Tunnel of Hope dug under the airport, the pockmarked façades and the scarlet Sarajevo Roses set into the pavement. A few streets away, the Latin Bridge marks where one shot in 1914 lit the First World War.
- 1 Fall of Yugoslavia, Sarajevo War Tour with Tunnel of Hope Museum and Frontlines
- 2 ROSES OF SARAJEVO (Official WAR + CITY tour)- Story of a Survivor
- 3 Tunnel Museum: Bosnian & Yugoslav Wars Tour with War Veteran
Blagaj
A dervish house at a river’s source
At Blagaj the Buna does not trickle from a spring. It pours full-grown out of a cliff cave in a cold emerald flood, and built onto the rock beside it is a tekija, a white Ottoman dervish house some six hundred years old. You drink coffee on the terrace with the river roaring out of the mountain a few metres away.
- 1 Sarajevo: Mostar, Konjic, Blagaj Tekke, Pocitelj & Waterfall
- 2 Herzegovina Day Tour from Mostar: Blagaj, Pocitej, Kravice falls (Join Us! :D)
- 3 Mostar,Kravica Waterfall,Blagaj,Počitelj – Day Tour from Sarajevo
Start here
The day trip everyone books first.
If you only do one thing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this is the one most travellers choose.
The classics
Bosnia’s Most Popular Tours
Mostar and the Old Bridge, the Kravice falls, Sarajevo’s old town and the siege tunnel. The days most people come for.
Where to begin
The experiences a Bosnia trip is built around.
Mostar and the Old Bridge, Sarajevo’s siege history, the Herzegovina waterfalls, the high mountain villages, the food and the rivers. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The big day trip
How to see Mostar.
It is the trip nearly everyone takes, and where you start changes the whole day. Three ways to reach the Old Bridge and the Herzegovina waterfalls, depending on your base and the time you have.
Sarajevo
Where the call to prayer meets the church bell.
Walk the Baščaršija and within a few hundred metres an Ottoman bazaar gives way to Austro-Hungarian boulevards, a mosque to a cathedral to an Orthodox church to a synagogue. A line set in the pavement marks the spot where East meets West, and a short walk on, the Latin Bridge is where a single morning in 1914 set the century alight.
Read the guide: the best walking tours in Sarajevo →The high country
Olympic peaks and the last highland villages.
Half an hour from Sarajevo the Dinaric Alps climb into the ranges that held the 1984 Winter Olympics. A cable car runs up Trebević past the abandoned bobsled track, trails cross Bjelašnica to Lukomir, the highest and most remote village in the country, where stone houses and shepherds keep a rhythm older than the borders. Further south, Sutjeska guards one of the last primeval forests in Europe.
See the mountain tours →The rivers
Water so clear you can count the stones.
Herzegovina runs on cold, green water. The Neretva cuts under the Old Bridge at Mostar, the Buna boils straight out of a cliff at Blagaj, and the Trebižat spills over the wide travertine steps of Kravice, where on a hot day half the country is swimming under the falls.
Waterfalls & river trips →Food & coffee
Ćevapi, burek, and coffee that takes an hour.
Bosnian food is grilled, baked and slow. Ćevapi off the charcoal in a fold of warm somun, burek coiled and dripping, and a coffee ritual the Ottomans left behind: a copper džezva, a cube of sugar, a square of rahat lokum, and no reason to rush. Food tours work the Baščaršija stalls and the coppersmith lanes around them.
- 1 Private Walking Tour, Food Tasting and Bosnian Coffee in Sarajevo
- 2 Sarajevo: 4-Hour Food And Craft Tour
- 3 Delicious Sarajevo: Eat, Walk & Discover City Tour
By pace
Pick your day, by pace.
Bosnia runs at any speed. A slow morning over coffee and old bridges, a long climb to a highland village, or whitewater through the deepest canyon in Europe.
Take it slow
Old towns and slow coffee.Mostar’s bridge at dawn, Sarajevo’s bazaar, a swim under the Kravice falls and a coffee that refuses to be hurried.
Get outdoors
High villages and green rivers.The trail across Bjelašnica to Lukomir, kayaks on the Neretva, and the cable car up Trebević above Sarajevo.
Full throttle
Whitewater and cold canyons.Rafting the Tara, the deepest river canyon in Europe, and the Neretva’s rapids through the Rakitnica gorge.
The Neretva & the Tara
Whitewater through the deepest canyon in Europe.
The Tara carves the deepest river canyon on the continent, more than 1,300 metres of limestone, and the rafts run its rapids on the Montenegrin border. Closer to Mostar, the Neretva and its tributary the Rakitnica drop through gorges made for kayaks. Cold, loud, and the clearest water you will ever fall into.
See all 7 river trips →By place
Pick a corner of Bosnia.
Sarajevo for the bazaars and the history. Mostar for the Old Bridge. Kravice for the falls. Blagaj for the dervish house. Travnik and Jajce for the viziers’ towns. Lukomir for the last of the highland life.
By activity
Pick how to spend the day.
Walk the old towns. Climb to a highland village. Drive the back roads. Kayak the Neretva. Or trace the siege streets with someone who lived through them.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
Never been? Here is a long weekend that takes in the bridges, the history and the mountains without a wasted hour.
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