Bosnia & Hercegovina Trip Part III - Mostar

Day 6 - July 6
We traveled from Banja Luka to Mostar by bus, a trip that took approximately six hours (including a quick bite for lunch). Matt had promised us that the five-hour trip would feature some breathtaking scenery, and what we saw did not disappoint, especially when we actually arrived in the city. 

Political Background - Skip ahead if you're just here for the pictures!

The last stop on our trip was Mostar, a city that gets its name from its famous bridge. More specifically, it gets its name from the soldiers who guarded that bridge under the Ottoman Empire, the "mostari," or bridge-keepers. The Neretva river cuts through the middle of the city, and there are a number of bridges all along the way, but the most famous is the Stari Most, which most people refer to as the "Old Bridge." It was built during the Ottoman Empire and for many years served as Bosnia and Herzegovina's primary symbol. Unfortunately, the original was destroyed during the Bosnian War in 1993. During this time the city was bitterly divided as Croats and Bosniaks turned on one another after President Tudjman of Croatia struck a deal with Slobodan Milosevic to carve up BiH after the war. As a result of fighting between all three groups, the city bears the dubious distinction of having suffered more destruction than any other city during the war. As I mentioned in a previous post, few sacred objects were left untouched, and the famous (Serb) Orthodox Church was destroyed by the Croat/Bosniak Federation.

Today the city is facing different challenges, including the inability of its local politicians to agree upon a local governance structure. This has resulted in Mostar's inability to form a city council, and the city has been acting under the sole leadership of its mayor, Ljubo Bešlić, since 2004.

I have to say though, looking around at the city now, you wouldn't know the challenges it was facing politically. Tourism is increasingly steadily each year, and it is the most visited travel destination in BiH, with over one million travelers each year. Many of them come from across Europe to see the undeniable progress the city has made since the war, which (perhaps most famously) includes the reconstruction of the bridge.

Stari Most, or the Old Bridge, is a beautiful symbol of the city's reconciliation.

The bridge itself is undoubtedly the city's claim to fame, and this beautiful reconstruction of the Ottoman-era original was celebrated locally and internationally when it was rebuilt over a decade ago. The hopes for the city moving past the gridlock of its past, however, were a bit lofty. As a result of infighting (which I won't go into, but which you can read about in-depth here), Mostar is a city of duplication, with two bus routes, two school systems, two of everything. The town divides along the front lines of the war, and while the bridge symbolizes the reconnecting between the predominant groups that inhabit the city (Croats and Bosniaks), the reality is that the mixed marriages and cosmopolitan atmosphere that made it a model of ethnic integration before the war has simply not re-materialized.

What has happened, however, is that the city has continued to make the best of the political gridlock, and the status quo has been for the city's mayor, Ljubo Bešlić, to continue to lead the city with a unified budget in the absence of a city council, which has not met since 2008. Those who had gone on the last trip with the delegation and returned this time noted that a great deal of investment has gone into reconstructing the war-torn buildings that stood along the main road that runs through the city, which served as the front lines during the war during the infighting of the Croats and Bosniaks.

Back to travel...

Challenges aside, Mostar is a beautiful city, and the first thing we wanted to do upon arrival (particularly since we would have to leave a day before the rest of the group) was go into the heart of the old city and see the famous bazaar that runs along the east side of the river, on the Bosniak side. Since the war, the bazaar has been beautifully restored, and the cobblestone streets provide a wonderful "foot massage," as one of our tour guides put it. After being dropped off at the bus station by Matt's wife, Irena, (herself a native of Mostar), we had a short (under a mile) walk to the bazaar.

The walk from the bus station was uneventful, but the scenery's dramatic change upon arrival in the actual old city went from the view above...

...to this! The cobblestone streets have been beautifully restored, and the shops have the feel of walking back in time (particularly if you pretend that the Ottomans had permitted Coca-Cola to be sold throughout their vast empire).

Once we hit the old town, we immediately bought some gelato, one of our favorites. I've mentioned it in previous posts, but the price of food is unbelievably low here, and it's hard to resist.

I love Mostar Gelato too.

Mostar is a Turkish Delight-lovers dream...

After satisfying our sweet tooth needs, we wandered into the Koski Mehmed-Pasha Mosque, which is a practicing mosque that is also open to visitors. For a small fee (about $6) you can go inside and walk all the way up to the top of the minaret, where you will undoubtedly have the best view of the bridge. We were lucky to be there on a clear night, and it was well worth the money and exercise.

The mosque from the outside.

From the inside.

At the top of the minaret, you have a beautiful 360 degree view of the city.

And a lovely view of the bridge.

If you don't feel like making the climb, you can also get a nice view from the ground, next to the cemetary.

After that we walked a little further into the bazaar, towards the Stari Most.

Along the way we found one of our new favorite artists, Alica Jakirovic. We bought our third piece of art in 20 minutes at this shop, and now have a small collection of Stari Most artwork. He has a small shop and has his desk situated inside (to the left of the door) so that he can look at and see the bridge.

The bridge is deceptively slippery, even when it's not wet. Definitely use the large steps...

At the other end of the bridge was a good reminder that this bridge is a reconstruction.

Mostar is famous for its craftsmen, many of whom sit outside and practice their trade, which adds to the charm of the bazaar.

We had to stop.

Waking back home you could see buildings that were obviously waiting to be demolished standing next to new ones, juxtaposing the progress made with the challenges the city still faces.

The city also has some of the best graffiti I've ever seen, but more on that later...

We got back in time for dinner at Hotel Mostar, which is the brand new hotel we were staying in. The food was delicious and the hotel was amazing. I don't think I've stayed in this nice of a hotel, in part because we typically do B&Bs, and partly because we usually can't afford such fancy accommodations.

The appetizer...

The blatina wine, which is probably my favorite. Blatina is the type of wine, not the brand. That's about the extent of my wine knowledge.

Dinner was delicious. Veal and potatoes.

After that we weren't quite finished exploring, so we went back into town. We asked Matt for a recommendation on bars along the river, and he said they were all good. We picked one and bought a bottle of blatina, which was too much for us to finish. Luckily a table of students who were visiting from Vienna was next to us, and it was a good excuse to start a long conversation about BiH and American politics. Interestingly, three of them were Serbs from Banja Luka, and one was from Mexico. It was a great discussion and gave us some insights into the politics of the country and a better understanding of what remains. The biggest take-away I had was that their response to my question about what is the greatest obstacle keeping the country from moving past the Dayton Accords and creating its own constitution was "the divided education system."

Day 7 - July 7th

The second day began by traveling to the City Hall, where we had a meeting with city officials. It was an insightful meeting, although other than my public administration class members I'm not sure many will find it all that exciting. I was impressed though, particularly with their strategic planning. In terms of outcomes, we agreed to try and set up a student exchange, and I'm hoping to help start one centered on internships between my school and a local company.

Mayor Whaley and Commissioner Joseph (right) with the mayor and his staff.

There was quite the gaggle of press after the meeting. You can find the press release about our visit here.

After the meeting we were taken on a walking tour of the city, which was a lot of fun. The tour guide was from Fortuna Tours, which I'd recommend if you're visiting Mostar.

Our tour guide was knowledgeable and funny, two of the most important qualities in a guide.

The Spanish Square was just next to the university and along our walk into town. It honors the Spanish soldiers from the UN who were killed in Mostar during the war.

On our way our guide pointed out this mosque, which was built by Mostar tanners during the Ottoman era. The tanners were often unwelcome in other mosques because tanning is pretty nasty, so they built their own so they wouldn't have to suffer the disapproval of their peers.

We stopped at the bridge again, but this time down below it, next to the water. This time the divers were out... locals who dive into the river for tips. We helped them get up to the 50KM they needed to dive in and enjoyed the show!

Lunch was along the river at the Labirint, which was delicious.

This was one of our last cevapcicis, plus some chicken, steak, and liver. I'm not a huge liver fan, but the rest was delicious. Plus I think if you like liver it would probably be really good.

We went on a tour of the bridge next, learning about the original and its reconstruction.

Up next was some more shopping, our last chance before we headed out the next day.

After shopping, we went back to the water to dip our toes in.

Walking back up, we found Hunt and Anne sitting at little bar and joined them for drinks.

What goes around comes around.

Hunt, Amanda and I were walking back to the hotel and had some time to kill, so we decided to check out the old glass bank building, which served as a sniper tower during the war. They are hoping to have some investment in the area and tear it down, although while it stands it serves as a Mecca for graffiti artists. The draw was too great, so Hunt, Amanda, and I had to climb to the top. Below are some of my favorite pieces!

The old glass bank building. Below are some of my favorite graffiti pieces from the tower.

Took us a while to figure out how to get to the very top, but we found this ladder just past the bathrooms.

The view from the top was second only to the Pasha Mosque.

The obligatory "we made it to the top" selfie.

True.

This is what the stairs are like... if you end up going, be careful and don't fall. It's a long way down.

A good reminder.

Up next was dinner. We had a short walk from Hotel Mostar to Restoran Radobolja, a up-scale traditional restaurant that we all loved.

We had an assortment of fish for dinner, including eel, which I've never had before, but was surprisingly good.

Dinner was delicious, although the die-hard soccer fans among us couldn't be without the France game.

The nutella-filled crepes and ice cream were the perfect dessert.

The gift exchanges were next, and we had a couple things from Dayton to give the mayor.

Hunt presented him with a Buckeye pen, which we gave to each of the mayors on behalf of the sister city committee.

We were all very grateful to the mayor for his hospitality. After dinner we left for the hotel to start our final day in Mostar.

Day 8 - July 8th

Our final day began with a bit of delegation business, visiting Intera Technology Park, a local entrepreneurs center that has a great deal of programming aimed at helping bring jobs to Mostar and train their local workforce. They actually had a similar mission as my school, and I'm hoping to be able to start a student internship program between our school and the park, so stay tuned!

Intera Technology Park

On the first floor there's a beautiful showroom that showcases many of the products made locally.

There's also a training center for high-tech machining on the first floor.

Upstairs there are a number of businesses, as Intera also serves as an incubators to startups.

Before leaving we were treated to a presentation about the company and about tourism in Hercegovina. It was a great presentation and I hope to be able to partner with them for an internship!

After we visited the park, the rest of the day (our last) was full of sightseeing. Our first stop was the Orthodox church that was destroyed during the war. We were given a tour of it by the local priest, followed by a tour of the old, original church, and both have an interesting story.

The view of the old, New Orthodox Church, which they're attempting to reconstruct.

A great deal of progress has been made, but there's a long way to go.

The inside of the church will be huge.

The second church we visited was right behind it, and that was the "Old Orthodox Church," a much smaller one with an interesting legend behind its construction.

The Old Orthodox Church was built earlier during the Ottoman empire's rule. They required that it be built below the ground so that it would be hidden.

The legend for the church's original construction goes some like this: there was a priest who wanted to build the church, but the Ottoman governor at the time demanded his daughter before giving permission. He refused, but was persistent enough that the governor said he could build it on the area taken up by a bull's hide (or his robes, depending on who is telling it). Being pretty creative, he cut it into one long strip that with a very large circumference, and when he stretched it out it was large enough to build a church inside of it!

The first pomegranate tree I found. Pomegranates are a symbol for Hercegovina.

Our second stop was the Blagaj Dervish House (as in whirling Dervishes), which was located in a beautiful setting right at the base of a mountain and next to an enormous natural spring. I would definitely encourage you to visit, it's very worth it.

The house is set back in a beautiful hillside town, with small stone houses like these dotting the road leading back to it.

Women had to cover up before heading into the house. Men with short shorts had to put on a skirt.

The Dervishes like to be in touch with nature, which they believe brings them closer to God. The beautiful views were definitely moving.

Amanda exploring the Dervish house.

Mike and Hunt getting appropriately attired.

We went upstairs next.

And saw how the Dervishes lived.

The view from outside the house... the waters were crystal clear.

This is BOSNIAN Coffee (not Turkish), which somehow manages to be even sweeter than Turkish coffee. Delicious. The Turkish Delight (or Bosnian, I'm not sure), was good too.

The beautiful view from the bridge looking towards the house.

After the Dervish House we traveled to an old fort. On the way, though, we saw quite a few wineries.

Up next we went to the Pocitelj Fort, which began as a Hungarian fort in the 1400s. After that the Ottomans took over. That's about all I know about it, and it was a short stop, but it has a fascinating history that you can read about on UNESCO's website.

Matt and I decided to see how far up we could get in 7 minutes before we had to turn back down.

These steps have been well-worn. My flip flops probably weren't the best footwear for the climb.

Amanda and Monica caught up to us pretty quickly.

Didn't quite make it to the tower, but we got close enough for a nice shot!

When we arrived there were vendors walking around selling fresh fruit. Dates, apricots, figs, and more. I think if I lived here I would eat a lot more fruit.

Our final stop before Amanda and I had to head back to Sarajevo (or so we thought) was lunch at the Herceg EtnoSoloMedugorje, a beautiful restaurant that combines the modern with the rustic along with elements from nature. The restaurant has a small creek running through it even, complete with fish! We had one of our last great meals here before leaving, and it was a great one to end on!

A river runs through it...

Complete with fish in it!

Not sure if they're the same fish that end up in here, but this soup was really good too.

The potatoes and meat platter was delicious. I'm really missing the food!

As a last gesture of the hospitality we experienced in Mostar, we were taken to Mostar by Ms. Radmila Komadina, Chief Advisor of the City of Mostar, in her car. As if that weren't enough, she heard that we wanted to stop and see the Kravice Falls, so she took us there!

It's a popular spot for the locals and for tourists, with beautiful waters to swim in.

Wish we had more time to stay and swim!

Beautiful view...

Didn't realize we got photobombed until I was writing this :)

That night, we headed back to Sarajevo by bus. It was a nice two-hour drive and a beautiful last drive through the countryside. Our time in Bosnia & Hercegovina was too short, but we made a lot of friends and hope to go back in the future.

Thank you again to all our wonderful hosts, and thanks for reading!