Bosnia and Herzegovina: Sarajevo, Jajce, Mostar and the highlands

1. Day 1: Arrive in Sarajevo

   Sarajevo International Airport (SJJ) to your hotel in Sarajevo

   • Drive about 30 min
   • Welcome dinner
   • Stay in Sarajevo
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Sarajevo International Airport (SJJ), about 12 km west of the centre, and a driver meets you in the arrivals hall for the twenty-minute drive to your hotel near the old town. Sarajevo fills a narrow valley of the Miljacka river, with hills and minarets on every side, and the old Ottoman bazaar, the Austro-Hungarian streets and the socialist-era blocks follow one another from east to west along the river. Plan to land by about 4 pm. In the early evening your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing on the week, then walks you from the Austro-Hungarian quarter, past the National Theatre, along Ferhadija to Baščaršija as the cafés fill and the call to prayer carries across the rooftops. Dinner together is at a local restaurant: Bosnian pies, slow-cooked stews and grilled meats, with vegetarian dishes for anyone who wants them.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Sarajevo International Airport (SJJ)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Evening walk from the National Theatre to Baščaršija
   • Welcome dinner

   Free time: Free until the early evening briefing

   

2. Day 2: Sarajevo: the old bazaar and the siege

   Baščaršija on foot, then Sniper Alley and the Tunnel of Hope at Butmir

   • Drive about 45 min
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Sarajevo
   Day 2 details

   We start early in Baščaršija, before the day groups arrive, with a licensed local guide. The lanes of the old bazaar are still named after the crafts once worked in them, and the coppersmiths of Kazandžiluk are hammering by eight. We visit the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque, built in 1530 and 1531, the covered Bezistan market, the Sebilj fountain, the Old Orthodox Church and the Catholic cathedral, then stop at the Latin Bridge, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot on 28 June 1914, and the City Hall, burned with the National Library in 1992 and reopened in 2014. Lunch is at an aščinica, a home-cooking canteen. In the afternoon a local siege-history guide, confirmed when you book, takes us through the siege of 1992 to 1996: the boulevard once called Sniper Alley, then the Tunnel of Hope museum at Butmir, which keeps a stretch of the 800-metre tunnel dug under the airport runway in 1993. The evening is free.

   Included

   • Old town walk with a licensed local guide: Baščaršija, the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque, the Bezistan, the Old Orthodox Church and the cathedral
   • The Latin Bridge and the City Hall (Vijećnica), entry included
   • Sit-down lunch at a traditional aščinica
   • Siege of Sarajevo tour with a local guide, including Sniper Alley
   • Tunnel of Hope museum, entry included

   Optional experiences

   • Gallery 11/07/95, on the Srebrenica genocide
   • The Jewish Museum in the old synagogue
   • Trebević cable car to the 1984 Olympic bobsled track

   Free time: Evening free

   Activity: About 4 km on foot on cobbles in the morning. The siege tour is detailed and can be upsetting; your guide answers questions openly.

   

3. Day 3: Lukomir, the highland village

   Sarajevo to Umoljani on Bjelašnica, walk to Lukomir, back to Sarajevo

   • Drive about 3 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Sarajevo
   Day 3 details

   A day in the mountains south-west of the city. We drive about an hour and a half up past the 1984 Olympic slopes of Bjelašnica to Umoljani, a shepherds' village of stone houses and old stećak gravestones at about 1,300 m. From here the walk to Lukomir crosses open highland pasture with long views into the Rakitnica canyon, about 8 km one way with gentle climbs. Lukomir, at about 1,470 m, is often called the highest village in the country: a handful of families still live there in summer, keeping sheep and the stone houses with their steep wooden roofs. Lunch is in a village home, with pies, cheese and fresh bread. The van meets us in Lukomir for the drive back, so nobody walks the return. We are back in Sarajevo by late afternoon, with the evening free. The village road is gravel and open roughly from late spring to autumn, which is why this trip runs May to October.

   Included

   • Guided highland walk from Umoljani to Lukomir with a local mountain guide
   • Home-cooked lunch in Lukomir
   • Van back from Lukomir to Sarajevo

   Easier option: Ride in the van to Lukomir and take a short walk around the village and the canyon rim instead of the full walk.

   More active option: Walk the full circuit back from Lukomir to Umoljani along the canyon edge, about 16 km in all.

   Free time: Evening free

   Activity: About 8 km on grassy and rocky paths at 1,300 to 1,500 m, with about 300 m of gentle climbing. Good shoes and a warm layer; the weather changes fast at altitude.

4. Day 4: Travnik and Jajce

   Sarajevo to Travnik, then Jajce

   • Drive about 3 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Jajce
   Day 4 details

   We leave Sarajevo after breakfast and drive about an hour and a half north-west to Travnik, seat of the Ottoman viziers of Bosnia for more than a century. Walk through the old town with your guide: the Colourful Mosque with its painted facade, the house where the writer Ivo Andrić was born in 1892, and the fortress above the town, then lunch by Plava Voda, the cold spring that runs through the lower town. An hour further on is Jajce, the royal town of medieval Bosnia, built on a rock where the Pliva drops into the Vrbas. A local guide walks you through the town walls and the catacombs to the fortress, and to the AVNOJ museum, where the second session of the partisan council met on 29 November 1943 and laid the basis for socialist Yugoslavia. In the late light we go down to the viewpoint below the Pliva waterfall, which falls about 20 m into the river in the middle of town. Dinner together in Jajce.

   Included

   • Travnik old town with your guide: the Colourful Mosque, the Ivo Andrić birth house and the fortress
   • Sit-down lunch by the Plava Voda spring in Travnik
   • Jajce with a local guide: the walls, the catacombs, the fortress and the AVNOJ museum, entries included
   • The Pliva waterfall viewpoint
   • Dinner together in Jajce

   Activity: About 4 km on foot with steep lanes and steps up to the Travnik and Jajce fortresses; both climbs can be skipped.

   

5. Day 5: Down the Neretva to Mostar

   Jajce to the Pliva lakes, then Prozor, Jablanica and Mostar

   • Drive about 4 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Mostar
   Day 5 details

   An early walk to the Pliva lakes just outside Jajce, where small wooden watermills stand on the falls between the lakes, best before the day visitors come. Then we drive south over the hills by Bugojno and Prozor to Jablanica, about 155 km and two and three quarter hours with a coffee stop. Here the broken railway bridge over the Neretva, blown up in 1943 in the Battle of the Neretva, still lies in the river beside a small museum. Lunch is spit-roast lamb, the town's speciality. The road then follows the green Neretva gorge south to Mostar, about an hour. We check in and rest through the heat of the afternoon, and at about 6 pm, as the day-trippers' coaches leave, a licensed local guide walks you through the old town: the Crooked Bridge, the Koski Mehmed Pasha mosque and its minaret, and the Old Bridge, first built in 1566, destroyed in 1993 and rebuilt in 2004. The evening is free by the river.

   Included

   • Early walk to the watermills of the Pliva lakes
   • The Neretva bridge and museum at Jablanica, entry included
   • Sit-down lunch of spit-roast lamb in Jablanica
   • Evening old town walk in Mostar with a licensed local guide
   • Koski Mehmed Pasha mosque and minaret, entry included

   Optional experiences

   • The Old Bridge Museum in the bridge tower

   Free time: Late afternoon and evening free in Mostar

   Activity: The longest drive of the trip, about three and three quarter hours and 215 km in all, broken at Jablanica for the museum and lunch, with a coffee stop before it.

   

6. Day 6: Herzegovina: Blagaj, Počitelj and the Kravice falls

   Mostar to Blagaj, Počitelj and the Kravice waterfalls, back to Mostar

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Mostar
   Day 6 details

   Start with the Old Bridge at about 7:30, when the Kujundžiluk bazaar is still shuttered and the stone is cool. Then it is twenty minutes to Blagaj, where the Buna river rises from a cave at the foot of a 200-metre cliff and the dervish house, the tekke, stands on the water's edge. Visit it before the coaches arrive. We continue south to Počitelj, a walled Ottoman village climbing the hillside above the Neretva, with its mosque, its hammam and a tower to climb for the view down the valley. Lunch is a sit-down meal by the river near Počitelj. In the heat of the afternoon we go to the Kravice waterfalls on the Trebižat, a wide horseshoe of falls about 25 m high, where in summer you can swim in the pool below. Back in Mostar by about 5 pm for a free evening. Dinner tonight is a farewell meal together on the river terrace.

   Included

   • The Old Bridge early, before the bazaar opens
   • Blagaj: the Buna spring and the dervish house, entry included
   • Počitelj: the old village, the mosque and the tower
   • Sit-down lunch near Počitelj
   • The Kravice waterfalls, entry included
   • Farewell dinner in Mostar

   Easier option: Stay by the water at Blagaj and Kravice; skip the steps up to the Počitelj tower.

   More active option: Climb from Blagaj to the medieval Stjepan Grad fortress on the cliff above the spring, about an hour up on a rocky path, before lunch.

   Free time: Late afternoon free in Mostar

   Activity: Bring a swimsuit from June to September; the water at Kravice is cold and swimming is at your own risk.

   

7. Day 7: Konjic and back to Sarajevo

   Mostar up the Neretva to Konjic, then Sarajevo International Airport (SJJ)

   • Drive about 2.5 h
   • Breakfast
   Day 7 details

   A last breakfast in Mostar, then we drive north up the Neretva valley, past the emerald water of Jablanica lake, to Konjic, about an hour and a quarter. Konjic's single-arched stone bridge was built in 1682, blown up in 1945 and rebuilt in 2009, and the old town around it is a short, easy walk with coffee by the river. From Konjic it is about an hour to Sarajevo International Airport (SJJ), arriving around 1 pm, with a drop-off in central Sarajevo for anyone staying on. Book a flight leaving after about 3 pm. If you would rather end in Mostar, or fly out of Dubrovnik to join our Balkans circuit or head home, tell us when you book and we arrange the transfer. Your guide sees you to the airport and checks your flight before saying goodbye.

   Included

   • Konjic: the old stone bridge and a short walk with your guide
   • Drop-off at Sarajevo International Airport (SJJ) or a central Sarajevo hotel

   Optional experiences

   • Tito's nuclear bunker (ARK D-0) near Konjic, by advance booking, needs a flight after about 6 pm

   Easier option: For an early flight we drive straight from Mostar to the airport, about two hours.

   Activity: Book a flight leaving Sarajevo after about 3 pm.

   

Wildlife and weather: Sarajevo and the highlands are mild in summer and cool at night; Mostar and Herzegovina can pass 35°C in July and August, so we tour early and late there and rest in the afternoon. May and October bring fresher days and the odd mountain shower.

• Sarajevo3 nights
• Jajce1 night
• Mostar2 nights