Ryan Shirley stood on the edge of a platform above the Neretva River in Mostar, looked down at the green water below, and jumped. His friend had already leaped from the old bridge itself, 24 meters above the river, but a recent injury kept Ryan off that particular spot. The platform nearby was more than enough. Bosnia and Herzegovina, he had come to realize, is a country that keeps catching you off guard, a place where mountain villages, Ottoman bridges, and coastline on the Adriatic all exist within a few hours of each other, and almost none of it makes the standard European itinerary.
From Mostar’s old bridge to the green falls an hour away
Mostar earns its place at the start of the countdown on reputation alone. The old bridge, first built in the 16th century, was destroyed in the 1990s and rebuilt in 2004. It draws both locals and visitors who jump from its arch into the river below. The surrounding old town is worth an unhurried afternoon on its own. A short drive away, a religious site that dates back over 500 years sits at the base of a spring feeding into the Buna River, surrounded by cliffs and water clear enough to read through.
About an hour from Mostar, a waterfall reaches 25 meters and empties into water with an emerald green color that photographs like a travel poster and feels even better to swim in. Barriers keep visitors at a respectful distance from the falls themselves, but close enough to feel the spray. Ryan brought goggles and made the most of it. Just 30 minutes further sits a historic village with a 14th-century fortress and a medieval wall that rings the settlement, a place easy to miss on a map but hard to forget once you have walked through it.
Naum, the country’s only coastal town, comes next. Sandwiched between Croatia on both sides, it sits where Bosnia and Herzegovina touches the Adriatic. The coastline stretches 20 kilometers. Ryan drove there from Dubrovnik in about an hour. A beach area called Meridian offers views back across the water toward the town, and a peninsula on that same side leads to a northwestern point he described as one of his favorite shots from the entire trip.
Mountain lakes, a capital city, and the hike that earns its views
Rama Lake, about two hours from Mostar, is an artificial lake formed by a dam, and it is the image that first made Ryan want to visit Bosnia at all. Islands and fingers of land stretch into the water in every direction. Campers lined the shore on the afternoon he arrived. The city of Jajce, roughly two hours from Rama Lake, is home to a waterfall that Ryan called one of the most beautiful he had seen inside any city.
Sarajevo, the capital, holds about 300,000 people and a history dense enough to fill a semester. It was established as an Ottoman stronghold in the 15th century. In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated there, an event that triggered the First World War. A gondola ride to the Trebevic viewpoint gives a full panorama of the city below.
Prokosko Lake, two hours from Sarajevo, reminded Ryan of an Alpine village. He recommends arriving from the eastern side, where new paved roads make the approach easy. The western approach, he was direct about, is rough. A small entry fee applies at the village edge. Lukomir, the country’s most remote and highest village at 1,495 meters elevation, is reachable in about two hours from Sarajevo, though the last 16 kilometers are unpaved and a four-wheel-drive vehicle helps.
Visoko, 40 minutes from the capital, centers on a mountain formation some researchers believe to be an ancient pyramid. The Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun, as it is called, is covered in trees and genuinely does resemble a pyramid from certain angles. A guided tour of the nearby tunnels, about two and a half kilometers from the pyramid entrance, takes visitors through a labyrinth that is still being excavated. The tunnels date back thousands of years, according to the guide on site.
Konjic, roughly halfway between Mostar and Sarajevo, is a mountain town whose Ottoman bridge was built in 1683. Visegrad, near the Serbian border, sits on the Drina River and features a 16th-century bridge with 11 arches worth walking across. Upstream, a small structure built in the 1960s by locals as a resting spot for river swimmers sits right on the border between Bosnia and Serbia.
The final entry is Maglic, the highest point in the country at 2,386 meters, sitting directly on the border with Montenegro. Getting to the base takes about three hours from Sarajevo, with the last hour and a half on an unpaved dirt road. The full loop hike covers 13 kilometers with 1,150 meters of elevation gain, finishing at a glacial lake in Montenegro. Bring a passport, roughly 10 euros for the Montenegro national park entry fee, and about one euro per person for the border crossing.
Ryan put his takeaway plainly: ‘I really enjoyed traveling through the country and will have to return to make a part two.’
The bridge at Konjic, built in 1683
The Ottoman bridge at Konjic stands in the center of town, its stone arch rising over the river, its construction date more than three centuries behind it.
Bosnia and Herzegovina turns out to be the kind of place where a 24-meter bridge jump, a glacial lake on a foreign border, and a medieval wall around a quiet village can all fit inside the same road trip, and Ryan Shirley made it back without jumping from the famous one.
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