Having well and truly caught the Balkans bug once more over the last couple of years, October 2025 saw us return for our fourth visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina – and our second of the year. In March, we’d drifted north-west to Banja Luka and then threaded back to Sarajevo via Jajce and Travnik. This time, the plan was to focus on the unabashed greatest hits: Mostar and Sarajevo.
First stop: Mostar, the jewel of the Herzegovina region. It’s a popular day trip from nearby Dubrovnik and Split, but we were giving it the time it deserves – four nights in total: two on our own, then two more after linking up with Lucy’s parents on Thursday evening, which would be a lovely opportunity to explore one of our favourite countries through fresh eyes.
An early taxi
The day began with a 4:30am taxi to Leeds Bradford Airport. At this hour, we could just about muster enough energy to make tea and perform the traditional Matt-and-Lucy pre-departure ritual: quadruple-checking that every device is turned off and every door and window is locked. The latter involves tugging each door handle with increasing ferocity until it runs the risk of falling off.
Although Bosnia and Herzegovina grows more popular every year (one of our guides on this trip told us he thought visitor numbers were increasing by 25-30% annually), it still qualifies as “off the beaten track” for most British travellers. We’ve become well-practised at fielding the “Why there?” question, and our taxi driver obligingly asked it before we’d reached the end of the street.
We delivered our practised pitch through our pre-coffee yawns: majestic scenery, welcoming people, comfort food served in heroic portions and the chance – handled with care – to learn about a dark, complex chapter of recent European history. By the time we were done, he was nodding along enthusiastically.
Our 7:30am Jet2 flight to Dubrovnik boarded to the dulcet tones of Jess Glynne – which, at that hour, felt like a welcome energy boost for all of us bleary-eyed passengers. Having checked in at the last minute, we both drew aisle seats, which were excellent for leg room, but less good for spotting Croatian islands out of the window as we approached our destination. Even so, we caught teasing glimpses of the Adriatic, a scatter of rocky islets and intriguing mountain ranges with tiny terracotta-roofed houses far below. We touched down a few minutes ahead of schedule.
Transferring to Dubrovnik Bus Station
Passport control supplied the traditional parable about modern Britain. We, the proud possessors of blue passports, joined the Brexit Appreciation Queue, which moved at the speed of treacle while the EU lines sped forward uninhibited. Eventually, we emerged into the arrivals hall, blinking in the way one does when just landed in sunnier climes, and hunted for the airport shuttle. The sign revealed itself at last, and we followed a small herd of fellow travellers outside to a coach bay.
Within minutes, an unbranded coach sighed to a halt, and a hooded driver sprang from the door before disappearing at high speed. (Into a cafe? Behind a luggage trolley? Only the gods of airport transfers know.) Ten minutes later, he reappeared to find that, left unsupervised, the British had done what the British do best: formed a perfect queue in front of a closed door. He opened it. We shuffled aboard with the pride of a people who can line up anywhere.
We picked the left-hand side of the coach – a calculated move for coastal views on the 45-minute run to Dubrovnik Bus Station via the iconic Old Town. There’s something surreal about driving right past one of Europe’s most famous cities, but we’d visited Dubrovnik before – over a decade ago, good grief – and knew we could return. Bosnia, meanwhile, felt on the cusp of a tourism boom. We had seen in March how much busier it was than on our first visit in 2014, and we wanted to soak it in now, before the rest of the world fully catches up.
The seating gamble paid off. The road from the airport to town is simply stunning, clinging to cliffs that offer you a birds-eye perspective of the Adriatic. The sea was blindingly bright, flicking with a dozen small boats and kayakers bobbing along the rocky coves. Across the water, Dubrovnik’s Old Town came into view, its walls squared against the glittering water.
As we descended towards the throng, the world grew steadily busier, and the coach window became a moving theatre of external activity.
Admiring the chaos of Dubrovnik from the coach
People in restaurants leaned into late breakfasts under cream parasols, waiters gingerly balancing trays with utmost focus. From the bus, you could almost smell the grilled fish and sun-warmed stone – something you can’t bottle up in a picture.
We spotted the cable car station lifting orange gondolas toward the ridge, each one a slow punctuation mark rising above the Old Town. Back in 2015, we had taken the cable car to watch the sunset, and we promised ourselves we’d ride it again next time we were here.
We rolled past Pile Gate, the most-photographed entrance to the Old Town, where selfie sticks and vlogging cameras bloomed like metallic wildflowers. Watching the crowds from the cool of the coach felt like a bit of a treat when we saw just how busy it was.
When we stopped to let passengers off, a festival of luggage choreography commenced. People poured off the bus and reunited with their bags in a clatter of wheels and hopeful calls from taxi drivers. Our coach driver supervised the melee with the air of a man who has seen every suitcase ever made and remains unconvinced by most of them.
Two corners later, we spotted our first bakery of the trip, its window stacked with coils of golden burek. We felt the faint rumble of hungry stomachs before finally pulling into Gruž, Dubrovnik’s port and bus station, where cruise ships sat at berth, towering over the scene.
Lunchtime near Dubrovnik Bus Station
At the bus station, we shouldered our rucksacks and took stock. We had downloaded our tickets for Mostar and had just under three hours before the coach departed at 4:00pm. Matt had pinned a handful of lunch options across the street from the bus station, all promising carbs and shade – two of our main requirements in life and travel.
The mid-October sun had slipped its autumn shackles and was giving a passable impression of July, so we gratefully pounced on the last free table at Bistro 49, whose covered terrace was a cheerful tangle of couples, families and groups enjoying food and drinks.
Back in the Balkans once more, we greeted the moment with the only appropriate food order: ćevapi. Every time we write about it, we marvel that it’s never quite conquered Britain. This is the street food of champions – grilled fingers of spiced beef tucked into warm somun bread with chopped onion and a dollop of kajmak. We ordered two large portions on the sound scientific principle that Matt will finish whatever Lucy doesn’t have. As ćevapi goes, it was a solid opening effort – exactly what we were after before a cross-border bus. “A delight”, Lucy pronounced – a five-star rating in her eyes.
We lingered after the meal the way you do when you’re slightly exhausted from an early flight, drifting from lunch into the espresso course while the sun re-angled itself through the glass and began to slowly poach us. Taking this as a hint from the universe, we paid up and – still with 90 minutes to spare – wandered down to the waterfront with our rucksacks in search of a breeze and, ideally, a bench.
Benches and breezes
The breeze was gentle, and benches were scarce. Most were occupied travellers waiting for ferries, each protectively grasping their wheeled suitcases. A rust-flecked but energetic ferry began loading as we strolled – the kind of Adriatic workhorse that looks older than you but probably outlives us both. Deckhands shouted amiably, ropes thudded, gulls hovered with the world-weary air of birds who have eaten far too many crisps.
Lucy, who has a sixth sense for green space, spotted a small park across the road. We crossed past a cafe where every table was an animated cloud of cigarette smoke and laughter, found the only bench in the shade and (crucially) not beside a bin, and flopped down. We enjoyed watching the ferries and boats coming and going in front of us – ports really are among the best waiting rooms on earth. Everyone is on the cusp of going somewhere.
With 45 minutes to go, we hoisted ourselves upright and headed back to the bus station. The small electronic board announced our bus would arrive at 15:50 for a 16:00 departure – cutting it fine for a coach coming all the way from Visoko, a town north of Sarajevo. “This could be interesting”, we declared as we joined the growing crowd.
The long-ish wait for the Mostar bus
The platform was filled with a familiar patchwork of backpacks. There were tidy, compact packs that suggested short trips or super-efficient packing, and heroic, Everest-ready contraptions suggesting someone had brought their winter duvet. At one point, a woman – late twenties, oddly glamorous for a bus station and incandescent with frustration – stormed past and declared to no one in particular that she was “sick of this stupid country”. Quite how Croatia had offended her remained unclear, but she had a brisk, bewildering conversation with a staff member and then disappeared in a whirl of rage. We wished her better days and a strong coffee.
15:50 came and went, as did 16:00. No sign of the bus. Several times our hopes rose as a coach turned into the bus station complex, only to veer grandly towards the cruise terminal. Dozens of buses ferried thousands of cruise passengers to and from the Old Town, an endless supply of visitors to explore Dubrovnik’s sunlit walls. Each time we got our hopes up, we learned a valuable lesson: never celebrate the arrival of a bus until it is physically swallowing your luggage.
At 16:25, a coach finally peeled towards us. The cardboard sign in the windscreen read “Visoko – Dubrovnik” – hurrah! We would shortly be on our way. We formed our next perfectly straight British queue – honestly, scientists should study us – and slid our rucksacks into the hold with the rest of the luggage bound for Mostar.
Inside, the windows were grubby, the seats occasionally eccentric (or missing altogether), and the air conditioning was – to put it kindly – trying its best. None of that mattered. Next stop: Mostar. We took our seats and settled in for the journey.
Enjoying the journey to Mostar
The coach threaded through the last of Dubrovnik’s suburbs and began to climb. Terraces of olives and cypress drifted by, and the sea twinkled below. Soon the coast gave way to high karst country, pale limestone covered in rough shrub. Villages appeared and vanished – red roofs, a church spire, many faded billboards advertising homemade honey. The light softened as the sun began to set, draining from gold to peach to the gentle Balkans grey.
A simple border crossing
The Croatia-Bosnia and Herzegovina border arrived quite suddenly, just a quiet set of booths perched on a bend in the road, flags fluttering above. The driver beckoned us all off and we queued up next to a small hut where officials shuffled, inspected and stamped our passports one by one. Ten minutes later, with the whole coach passing through without incident, the coach rolled across the border and waved us back on. Remarkably straightforward and efficient.
The landscape shifted almost at once – more raw limestone, more emptiness between settlements, the air of a place that has decided to be beautiful without fuss.
Passing through Stolac, watching for tombstones
As darkness approached, we swung through Stolac, a town of river bends and stone bridges. Despite the smudges, I pressed my forehead to the glass. I knew that, just beyond Stolac, the road skirts one of the region’s great wonders: fields of stećci, medieval tombstones, some carved with spirals, knights or creatures. If you ever have the time, be sure to stop at Radimlja, where you can explore the stones at your own pace. Sadly, we couldn’t stop them on this journey as day turned to night.
From Stolac, the road begins to head towards the Neretva, the valley widening, the mountains getting higher. Eventually, we joined the heavier traffic on the outskirts of Mostar.
A while later, half an hour behind schedule, our coach sighed to a halt beside a petrol station next to Mostar Bus Station. Quite why we didn’t go into the bus station itself will forever remain a mystery.
Hello, Mostar!
A flurry of movement, a barked MOSTAR from the driver, and we found ourselves on the pavement, peering into the coach’s shadowy hold for two rucksacks that suddenly felt identical to everyone else’s.
A phone torch saved the evening. Bags reclaimed, we set off towards our aparthotel, which was handily tucked between the bus station and Stari Most, the 16th-century stone arch that is the undisputed icon of Mostar. The walk offered a small snapshot of the city at night – the glow of late-opening bakeries, kiosks selling colourful snacks and large bottles of water, and the skeletal façade of the war-scarred Razvitak shopping centre, windowless and open to the elements. Mostar wears these layers as plainly as it did when we first visited over ten years ago. Some streets are fully restored, some still carry the signs of war. It’s sobering and strangely hopeful at the same time.
Check-in was a straightforward treasure hunt: retrieve the keys from a hallway safe, figure out which one opens the main door, then let ourselves into a compact apartment with a generous lounge, a perfectly comfortable bed and a kitchen drawer that contained an interesting approach to utensils. Think one pan, two unrelated lids, and spatulas that had clearly seen things.
Into the Old Town we go
Supplies were required, so we popped out to the nearby Mercator for water and some bottles of Cedevita, the classic Balkan vitamin drink that Matt is slightly obsessed with. Errands run, we joined the mid-evening crowds drifting towards the Old Town.
The day-trippers had melted away, the cobbled coppersmith lanes were busy but unhurried, some stalls shuttered for the season, others clinking softly as shopkeepers stacked trays of souvenir coffee sets. It was clearly time for the city to take a breath after a busy summer season.
The liveliest corners clustered around the popular Šadrvan and Hindin Han restaurants, reliable fixtures on every “best places to eat” list (and on ours, too). Šadrvan does Ottoman-inspired platters that justify the constant crowds, whilst Hindin Han boasts a perfect spot on a terrace above the water, where the breeze does noble work in the summer heat. We weren’t hungry enough to do them justice yet, so instead we slipped downhill to the rocky river beach below the bridge.
Stari Most at night
Stari Most, one of the most iconic buildings in the Balkans, was doing what Stari Most always does at night – looking majestic. Built under Suleiman the Magnificent, the bridge was destroyed in 1993 and subsequently reconstructed stone by stone, eventually reopening in 2004. The Old Bridge Area of Mostar is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, a testament to the city’s historical significance.
We admired the view as floodlights turned the stone arch to a delicate ivory, whilst the Neretva – mountain-cold and deep, dark green in the low light – curled past at an aggressive pace. Above us, a gentle procession of walkers crossed the bridge, pausing in the middle to take photos and soak in the atmosphere. From nearby terraces came the enjoyable clink of cutlery and glasses, a quiet soundtrack to the scene.
If you visit by day during the summer, you’ll likely see Mostar’s famous bridge divers – members of a local club – collecting donations before making the dramatic plunge into the Neretva. It’s a tradition with deep roots. For visitors, you should resist any heroic urges to try it yourself: the water is shockingly cold, the current is surprisingly strong, and the room for error is slim.
We lingered a while longer before threading back through the increasingly sleepy streets. Tomorrow we’d be heading to Blagaj, just a 20-minute bus from Mostar, where a 16th-century Dervish monastery stands pressed under a sheer limestone cliff at the source of the Buna River, one of the largest karst springs in Europe. We’d visited in March and were keen to return to see it in autumn light.
Signing off for the night
Before sleeping, we pencilled a Mostar wish-list: climbing the minaret of the Koski Mehmed-Pasha Mosque for a bird’s-eye view of the bridge; a wander to Kriva ćuprija (the Crooked Bridge, a smaller cousin of Stari Most tucked nearby); and a visit to a nearby cafe to sample the traditional Bosnian coffee. If energy and coffee aligned, we would head further afield to the infamous Sniper Tower.
Back at the apartment, we toasted Mostar with bottles of neon-orange Cedevita and set alarms for the morning. The sound of the city murmured through our shutters, and the sound of fellow hotel guests reverberated through the shockingly thin walls. That hardly mattered; it had been a long day’s travelling, and we were asleep as soon as our heads touched the pillow.
Read next: Part two of our autumn trip to Mostar.