Photo Friday: The Beauty Of Bosnia

It’s no secret that I loved Bosnia.

From the charming towns to the stunning mountains; the villages with backdrops to the sprawling countryside. Bosnia and Herzegovina had way more to offer than I could ever have expected.

Of course, most of my photos were taken from the window of a bus, and that’s not the easiest or best way to showcase beautiful landscapes. But I think this should hopefully portray just how beautiful Bosnia really is.

Riverside houses – such a beautiful place to live!

I wish I could have taken this photo outside of a moving vehicle, because this turned out pretty well! More picturesque towns.

Incredible views over the water.

We stopped in this town for a toilet break and lunch – but I was preoccupied by exploring some side streets for views like this!

…and finding cats.

Cats were more of a feature in Croatia and Montenegro, but we saw a bunch in Mostar too. And this one in this small town was particularly photogenic!

Flowers mark the spots in Mostar. Beauty even in tragedy.

This all looks incredible – but unfortunately you have to be wary of hiking in Bosnia, as there are so many land mines still out there! Apparently they are due to finish “demining” the countryside by 2025, but considering over 2 million have been hanging around since 1995, I’m not sure if I want to take my chances!

The mist started rolling in – but it actually added to the atmosphere of some of these towns!

And as always, a minaret of a mosque looms out, no matter what. I lost count of how many I have in photos, let alone how many I saw.

(See how many you can count in this post!! Hint: there’s one in almost a third of these photos.)

Jablanica was another stop we made, between Sarajevo and Mostar. We mostly stopped for this incredible view – but there’s also some interesting history here!

There’s a completely destroyed bridge, which unfortunately you can’t see from this viewpoint, although one of our group flew a drone over it to see it from above.

The bridge has actually been destroyed three times – once as a decoy during the Second World War, and again for real by the Luftwaffe shortly after. It was then used in a 1969 Orson Welles film, The Battle Of Neretva, depicting the war, where they blew it up AGAIN. It was completely done in vain; a bit like that scene in Tropic Thunder where the cameras weren’t rolling for the explosion, except it turned out that the footage was unusable as there was too much smoke! But the bridge has laid waste ever since, becoming a tourist attraction in its misfortune.

We did drive past it and it’s pretty cool – you can read all about it on Atlas Obscura!

These canyons were incredible!

Even on a moody day, those mountains just look spectacular. Again, it would have been nice to get better photos without the blurry bushes!

Ah, Mostar. One of my favourites!

Read more: Mostar: The Gem Of Bosnia

And finally, one from Sarajevo – because there was plenty of beauty in the towns too, when you’re least expecting it.

Read more: Sorrow In Sarajevo: A Heartbreaking Tale Of The Bosnian Capital

And one of my favourite photos from the entire trip: we stopped at a winery in rural Bosnia, and it was literally in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t a single house in sight, other than this building that sold huge bottles of cheap wine. By cheap, I mean we got a 3 litre bottle of red wine for €9. It looked like motor oil!! Was it great wine? Well I won’t pretend it was the best, but it wasn’t actually bad!

Anyway, we spent a little time here to get appropriately merry for the rest of the bus journey, and three of us accidentally made friends with these guys. They didn’t speak a word of English, but every so often, they would turn around and “cheers” us; we would raise our glasses back and we would all laugh.

So when it came time to leave, I had to ask if we could get a photo with them. They were more than happy to!

It’s safe to say that Bosnia & Herzegovina was a surpriiiiiise.

It’s even more of a surprise that it’s so high up on my list of places to go back to. But I am desperate to see more of this, and I’m sure you can see why!

Thanks for joining me on my journey through Bosnia!