Last updated: October 2026
During the programme the two Camilas, Cami C and Cami M, and I went on a day trip from Dubrovnik to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The tour picked us up at the hotel, we crossed the border and the first stop was Mostar.
We had a guided walk from where the bus parks to the old centre, with a bit of history of a very old, very picturesque place. And then the bridge, the Stari Most, the symbol of Mostar. I thought it had been destroyed in the Second World War. It was not: it fell on 9 November 1993, during the Bosnian war, after days of shelling. It was rebuilt between 1999 and 2004 in a project led by UNESCO and the World Bank with international donors, and since 2005 the Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar is a World Heritage Site.
The guide explained how divided the city was: broadly, the east is Bosniak and Muslim and the west Croat and Catholic, and for years people on one side did not cross to the other. Today they live together. What struck me most was hearing, for the first time in person, the call to prayer, the ezan: it is made five times a day from the minarets of the mosques, and with the loudspeakers it fills the whole city.
We ate at a restaurant and had a local beer, and it was very cheap. Then we understood we were living the two extremes: Dubrovnik, or worse, the islands in front of it, is among the most expensive places in Europe, and Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the cheapest.
The second stop was the Kravice waterfalls, on the Trebižat river, about seven kilometres from Ljubuški: a semicircle of waterfalls some 25 to 28 metres high falling into a natural pool about 120 metres across.
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