Since we had a rental car, we decided to drive to some of the scenic towns near Mostar. Here’s a brief overview of the spots we visited. [Read more…] about Day trips in Bosnia
Bosnia & Herzegovina
The Glass Bank
In Sarajevo, we rented a car and drove to Mostar, a city in the west of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mostar is most famous for its bridge. No pun intended; “most” actually means bridge in Bosnian.
The bridge is 21m (about 70ft) hight, and was built by the Ottomans in the 16th century. Locals jump off the bridge…for money. Due to the height, they must execute the pencil drop perfectly, or risk injury. Only about 1,000 tourists have successfully completed the jump. Some have died. During the war, the bridge was heavily bombed, but has been restored.
Sarajevo
Sarajevo was the site of the 1984 Winter Olympics. Then a part of Yugoslavia, the city was the first communist host of the Winter games. By all accounts, the games were a success: disabled skiing was included as a demonstration sport for the first time, Katerina Witt won her first gold medal, and Torvill and Dean earned the only perfect scores in ice dancing. Eight years later, the city was a war zone.
17 hour bus ride
It didn’t start off well. As we boarded our 7:30pm Eurolines bus from Munich to Sarajevo, the drivers immediately yelled at us in some language (Bosnian? Czech?) to give them money to check our bags. While we didn’t quite understand them, the word “Euro” is pretty understandable, especially when said while four fingers are held up. I’ve never heard of paying to bring a backpack on a bus, and there was no mention of it on the company’s website, but these guys didn’t seem up for negotiation, and I really didn’t want to miss the bus. So we begrudgingly paid.