Career Break Travel: Mostar & Sarajevo

Mostar caught our eye when we were researching where to go after Croatia because of its fairytale-like beauty, and we decided to tack on Sarajevo without realising what it had to offer.

Bosnia and Herzegovina was our next stop after Croatia, and the seventh country out of 10 that we visited on our 3-month long career break trip.

Days spent in Bosnia and Herzegovina

A total of 8 days, with 5 nights in Mostar and just 2 nights in Sarajevo

Highlights

• Managing to catch the jumps off Stari Most – How do they leap off a 24m-high bridge!?

And the water they land in was freezing cold! No wonder you have to train before you even try!

• Exploring the fairytale-like Old Town in Mostar – It’s really as beautiful as they say! Even in the insane heat, we were happy to walk around.

• Catching a festival in Mostar – We still have no idea what event that was, but the atmosphere was electric. There was lots of singing, dancing and clapping on the streets!

• Caifan-style food in Sarajevo – There were some dishes where we had no idea what we were picking, but everything we ate turned out delicious! Some of the homey eateries we ate at also reminded us a little of the caifan stores back in Singapore where we picked a few dishes and they were placed on one plate.

Lowlights

• Realising there was more to do in Sarajevo and less to do in Mostar than we thought – Most people stay in Mostar for a day or two, if they even stay the night at all.

Us?

We stayed for 5 nights, thinking that there would be a lot more to do than what Google said there was as that’s the case for most places we go to. Not really. The Old Town was walkable in less than a day. Add a day for a trip to Blagaj, and two nights at Mostar would have been perfect!

Unfortunately, Sarajevo was the opposite. We gave ourselves only 2 nights there after reading forums that that would be enough. Another 2 more nights would have been better as some of the places needed a longer travel time. We didn’t even manage to visit the war tunnel!

I guess we’ll have to visit again when we return to Bosnia and Herzegovina!

• Wasting money and food at Blagaj – We asked if a restaurant at Blagaj served fish and he pointed one dish out. Turns out fish meant squid, which we don’t eat!

This would have been put in the fun mention column had it not been for the waiter’s bad attitude and rudeness when we checked with him if the squid was fish!

• Seeing young beggars – We were craving for McDonald’s and went to the Mostar city branch for some air-con and junk food. It was sad to see two kids begging for money in the restaurant and keep getting chased out by the staff (who were just doing their jobs).

Fun mention

• Buying train tickets from Mostar to Sarajevo – The train station was about a 30-minute walk from our motel and we travelled twice in the blazing hot 37 weather to try and buy tickets. We perspired so much it looked like we just got out of a pool.

The first time we went, they said we could only buy the train tickets on the day itself. But since we wanted to get on the earliest train to Sarajevo, we decided to give it another shot as other people on forums seemed to be able to. Luckily we succeeded on the second try!

Don’t be silly like us if you’re staying in the Old Town! There’s an option to buy the tickets online now!

Where we stayed

Sinan Han Motel in Mostar was great. The owner was so helpful that he gave us a lift to the train station for the rest of the way after spotting us walking on the streets.

The location was in the quiet side of the Old Town and we got the lone room on the rooftop. We even got to enjoy an unblocked view of fireworks one of the nights!

Since we were only in Sarajevo for 2 short nights, we treated ourselves to a huge Airbnb apartment. It had two bedrooms, a spacious living room, a full kitchen and was just a 5-minute walk from the Old Town! It was so hard to leave each morning!

How much we spent in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Item	Expenditure
Accommodation	$459.81
Food	$244.17
Transport	$94.16
Attractions	$15.38
Miscellaneous	$53.79
Total	$867.31

We spent a total of S$867.31 for the both of us over 8 days.

Transport costs include the journey from Dubrovnik to Mostar.

Where we went next

We took a short 2-hour flight on Pegasus Airlines to the beautiful former capital of Turkey, Istanbul.