Balkans Road Trip: Day 9 – Radimlja, Mostar, and Sarajevo

Today was another major driving day. Yang cleverly anticipated that we would lose our roaming data in Bosnia and Herzegovina, so we downloaded Google Maps to help triangulate with our GPS. It did not take long to reach Bosnia from Dubrovnik despite driving along quite narrow country roads. As we rose from the coast to the mountains, we could see the city below us, and the scenery kept impressing us with more beautiful views.

Although we gradually lost sight of the sea, the views did not become any less spectacular. Our road led along the edges of valleys, which spread out under sparsely forested mountains with prominent rings of sediment on their slopes. I even stopped the car at one point to take a few pictures, clambering up and off a dusty path onto the rocky hill.

The road to Mostar leads past Radimlja, a necropolis built up between the 15^th and 16^th centuries by local inhabitants. The cemetery features 133 stećaks (or stećci, if one wants to be very particular), massive tombstones decorated with various motifs in bas-relief, such as crosses, male figures, and hunting scenes. While most of them are stone slabs, sarcophagi, and chests, there are also a few crosses.

Radimlja lies less than an hour away from Mostar, a picturesque medieval city dotted with hefty stone towers and slender old minarets. It is most famous for its hump-backed bridge, which spans the river from a height of 24 metres. Despite this formidable height, we saw people jump into the river from the bridge, emerging unscathed in the turquoise waves below. The bridge dates to 1557 but was destroyed in 1993 during the Croat-Bosniak War, with its re-opening only taking place after a whole decade.

Parking our car north of the centre in an underground garage, we arrived in old Mostar around noon. We felt more secure about our vehicle this way, and the price of 1.5 euros for the service compared very favourably to parking in Croatia. We then continued to a bank, where I withdrew some Bosnian Marks, and we ate at a restaurant overlooking the beautiful Old Bridge. As we had seen a lot of lavender products around – the region must be known for them – we simply could not resist the temptation of buying some lavender flavoured ice cream.

The subsequent drive to Sarajevo was rather tiring, and we encountered much traffic upon entering the city. Nevertheless, we checked in just in time to catch golden hour, which we spent walking eastward on Ferhadija and Sarači streets, which lead to Baščaršija Square and form the tourist artery of Sarajevo. Finally deciding that we felt hungry enough to eat dinner, we sat down at a restaurant, and quickly popped down to a nearby confectioner’s for some local desserts: we bought a smokva (a thick, fig-based paste between two thin wafers) and a ružice (a twirl made of a thin wall of dough and much walnut paste).

Writing of this culinary adventure reminds me that after crossing the border today, we bought some oranges and a big glass bottle of homemade orange juice from a roadside stall. We had seen many of these on our way to and from Dubrovnik and told ourselves we would have to visit one. When we entered our room that afternoon, I took a big gulp and realised with horror that it was deathly sweet. I ran to the bathroom and spit it out. The bottle did not contain juice but syrup.