A Week in #Bosnia | Day Four – Banja Luka to Mostar @ExcitingBosnia
A Week in #Bosnia | Day Four – Banja Luka to Mostar @ExcitingBosnia
An early start and we jump in the car to head south towards Mostar where we will be staying for the night.
As you leave Banja Luka you are immediately on the road that follows the River Vrbas known for it’s world class white water river rafting through the Vrbas Canyon, offering stunning cliff and water scenery.
En route to Mostar we stopped at Bočac to view the horseshoe bend in the River Vrbas.
We finally arrive in Mostar after long drive but with spectacular scenery on the way.
We were staying in a lovely little hotel Hotel Villa Anri which is just a stones throw from the Mostar bridge and the Old Town of which our room had a wonderful view of.
After a beer on the terrace overlooking Mostar we headed for the bridge, the Stari Most and the Old Town which are now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Old Town is a warren of pretty cobbled streets with beautifully restored buildings and is perfect to stroll around on a summers evening.
One thing of course that you can’t ignore is that the bridge was destroyed in November 1993 during the conflict. It has now been restored and has been done incredibly sympathetically. My host David asked me for a few words:
After our stroll, we head off for a pivo and found a fantastic oddity in the guise of a bar in a cave…yep that’s right a ‘cave bar’. The Ali Baba is in the rock a few hundred yards from the bridge and is certainly worth a visit.
You can see photographs of Mostar in the slideshow at the bottom of this post.
We found a lovely restaurant, Hindin Han, with a terrace/veranda over looking the river which are abundant and I’m sure you would not struggle to find somewhere to have something fabulous to eat.
To start we had a meze platter for four people…
I should have learnt by now about the portion sizes. I ordered steak ‘Spanish Bird’ which was veal steak, stuffed with cheese, smoked ham with mushrooms. It was rather yummy however…how big is that?!
This was just a whistlestop visit to Mostar but I would definitely come back again to use it as a base for more exploring in the area and I highly recommend Hotel Villa Anri to do that from.
So, off to bed to await the next days encounters, Blagaj, Jablanica and Sarajevo.
[slideshow]
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To find out more about visiting Bosnia and Herzegovina go to www.holidayinbosnia.com
