Two and a half hours inland into Bosnia and Herzegovina, for the rebuilt Ottoman bridge at Mostar and the wide falls at Kravice. A long day and a real border crossing, but the most different thing you can do from Split.
By Marin Perić
It is a twelve-hour day, most of it in a vehicle, and the old town of Mostar is small and very busy by midday. What makes it worth doing is not the bridge photograph — it is the shift in the landscape, the food, and the visible history of the 1990s in the buildings on the way in. You drive through the Neretva valley, which is dramatic and strange and looks like a different country from the coast, because it is.
If twelve hours is too long, Krka is an hour and a quarter away and has waterfalls too.
For a shorter day of old stone, Trogir takes half a day.
The bridge is the Stari Most, the Ottoman arch that the locals jumped off for centuries, was destroyed in the war in 1993 and rebuilt in 2004. It is beautiful, it is smaller than you expect, and the divers at the base will jump for a collection of euros if there is a crowd. The old town on either side is a bazaar of cobbled streets, copper workshops and Turkish coffee houses — fifteen minutes to walk the whole thing, longer if you stop.
Kravice is the waterfall, about forty minutes west of Mostar, and it is a wide horseshoe of falls into a cold pool you can swim in. The swim is the reason to go, and it is cold — the water comes off the mountains and is about 15 °C even in August. The place is busy in the middle of the day; the organised tours all arrive at the same time, and swimming early or late is better if your driver will do it.
You are leaving the EU: passports, not ID cards, and border queues in August can add an hour each way. The currency is the convertible mark, though euros are widely accepted in tourist places at a poor rate — change a small amount or pay in euros and accept the rounding. The food in Mostar is the best reason to go: ćevapi, burek and Turkish coffee, cheaper and better than the equivalents on the coast.
Back in Croatia it is the euro — see is Split expensive? for what things cost.
Organised day trips from Split are the practical choice and handle the border. Driving yourself takes about 2.5 hours each way; bring your passport and check your car insurance covers Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Get out there
Guided trips that include this stop, with live availability.
Boat trips
A full day on a fast twelve-seat boat: the Blue Cave on Biševo, the Monk Seal cave, Stiniva's famous cove, lunch on Vis and a swim off Budikovac's turquoise lagoon, finishing with a stop at Hvar town. Ten and a half hours, small group, no coach transfer.
History
Ninety minutes through the palace with a guide who lives inside it: the Golden Gate, the cellars, the Peristyle, the cathedral and the streets in between. Small group, no flag, and a proper explanation of why a Roman emperor retired to a cabbage patch in Dalmatia.
Boat trips
Five hours to Šolta and back on a ten-person boat: three swim stops in coves you cannot reach by road, an hour in Maslinica for dinner or a drink, and the run home across the channel as the sun goes down behind the island.