Blagaj - Pocitelj

Wed 18/9/24

Early morning after rising up for Subuh prayer, we walked to the Neretva river to capture pictures of Stari Most before the crowd arrives. True enough, the Old Town was just opening up at 7am, with some cafes opening up their premises and there was no crowd at all. 

We happily took pictures with no one else in sight and flew the drone to capture the aerial video of the Stari Most bridge across the Neretva river with the background of the Old Town and mosques. 

areal shot of Stari Most bridge early morning

no crowd early morning at old town Mostar

After completing our mission, we walked back to our apartment, stopping by at the bakery Pekara Tinjak just in front of our house to buy burek for breakfast. This time we bought the spinach and cheese burek which cost 5 BAM. We had breakfast at the compound of the apartment.

spinach burek

After breakfast, we drove to Blagaj to capture the beautiful view of the river Buna near the edge of the cliff where you could also do rock climbing. The drive there took only 25 mins, as it is located only 14km from Mostar. When we arrived there at 9.30 am, there was already a small crowd so we had to wait a bit to take pictures.

It was a really peaceful and relaxing place (minus the crowd would be even greater), so it's no wonder the Sufis made a monastery at the place for prayer. We also found a few stalls here selling fresh figs so we bought them for 5 EUR / kg (I paid in Euro by cash). We found a bench by the river to sit and enjoy the fresh figs. It tasted really good and sweet.

Blagaj monastery (tekija) by the Buna river

peaceful and beautiful Blagaj river

Blagaj monastery (tekija) by the rock cliff and Buna river

fresh fig

Satisfied with fig eating and picture taking, since we still had plenty of time, we then made our way to the Pocitelj fortress which was not in my original itinerary. The drive to the fortress located 26km away took about 40 minutes. I searched for a parking place of the fortress and we were directed to the location at the top of the fortress. This turned out to be good as we didn't have to climb up from the bottom at the Neretva river. There is no entrance fee to the fortress.

There is a village with traditional houses and people living in the houses at the fortress. The houses reminded me of the ones in Safranbolu with Turkish influence. We spent some time there walking from the top to the fortress tower and flew the drone. It was sunny today and there were not many tourists here compared to Mostar or Blagaj.

view of the old town and Neretva river from the top of Pocitelj fortress

Pocitelj fortress tower and Neretva river

traditional houses reminiscent of Safranbolu at Pocitelj

Pocitelj fortress tower

We returned back to Mostar at 1pm and arrived 40 minutes later to our apartment and parked our car there before walking out again to the old town to have lunch at Sadrvan restaurant again. Since it was already past 3pm, there was no queue for lunch today. We had trout fish and klepe (dumplings) today with orange juice and promeganate syrup which cost 45.5 BAM. After lunch, we tried pistachio ice cream from a nearby stall for 2 BAM (normal one) and artisan pistachio ice cream for 6 BAM. The verdict - the artisan pistachio ice cream tasted better, so the pricier cost was justified. 

klepe dumplings

Not much remaining things to do, bought some fridge magnets here as souvenirs. We had a chat with a Malaysian uncle, he recommended to eat lamb at Jablanica, so we decided to stop by there tomorrow to have a try on the way to our next destination, Lukomir. We searched for it in the web and managed to find the said restaurant. We went back to our apartment before sunset and called it a day.