A day trip from Mostar

 We rented a car for one day while staying in Mostar and did a little road trip to explore some nearby sights. 

Pocitelj

Pocitelj is about 30 min south of Mostar by car. It's a very small, old town built into the side of the valley wall. It's beautiful! We might have driven by and not really noticed it from the highway, but we were glad we stopped and walked around. It was a short but steep climb up to the fortress, and it looks like some of the sights are being restored. Check out the stone slab roofs of the homes!

Kravice Waterfalls

About 30 min futher driving West from Pocitelj, we parked at the lot for Kravica Waterfalls and had our packed lunch. There was only one other car in the huge lot that obviously gets packed with tour buses in the summer. It's very popular for tourists to visit and swim here in the summer. We paid our entrance fee and walked down to the falls. Since it had been raining very hard recently, the water levels were very high and some paths weren't accessible. 

"Connecting seraparted" is what the sign says

The white, green and blue long distance hiking trails in the Western Balkans

The stairs lead into the water

After the waterfalls, we drove about 10 min to a fortress on the hill above the valley. The fortress is called the "Fortress of Herzog Stjepan Vukcic Kosaca" and seems to have had some recent restoration work.

A 15 min drive away from the fortress took us to a took called Medugorje, which was dominated by the Church of St. James. It's common for pilgrims to come to the nearby Apparition Hill, where Mary apparently has apparently been seen in visions. 

Statue depicting the Rise of Jesus nearby the church

Next we drove back toward Mostar, stopping at the town of Blagaj to see the Dervish House at the mouth of the Buna river. The source of the river is underground, so it appears out of a cave in the cliff walls. We really enjoyed watching the river flow here.

We thought it was pretty funny that 'sleeping is not allowed'

This was a great day overall and we really enjoyed the sights. It was awesome to do it without more than a handful of other tourists, even if we didn't get to enjoy swimming at the falls. Plus, the rental car for the day only cost us about 35 euro!