Powder keg of Europe: Balkans plan 2026 🇲🇪 🇭🇷 🇧🇦

Ten days, three countries, late October 2026. Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, by bus and train, with a work week in Dubrovnik in the middle.

Work sent me to Dubrovnik, so I built the trip around it, a few days before and a few after. I'd been to Dubrovnik once, in August 2019, and liked it a lot. That's also when I first read about Mostar, three hours up the road, and I've been thinking about it ever since. Now I'm going.

Before World War One, journalists called the Balkans "the powder keg of Europe": the Ottoman, Venetian and Habsburg empires collided here. The route follows their traces: the forts of four empires in Herceg Novi, the 1991 siege of Dubrovnik, divided Mostar, and Sarajevo, where the shot of June 28, 1914 started the First World War and where the longest siege of a capital in modern history ended in 1996.

This is the working plan I keep for myself, posted so it doesn't get lost and so anyone plotting a similar route can poke around. Dates, where I'm staying, what I'm doing each day, with a Google Maps link for every stop.

Contents:

1. Before the trip
2. At a glance
3. Where I stay
4. Montenegro 🇲🇪
5. Croatia 🇭🇷
6. Bosnia and Herzegovina 🇧🇦
7. What to eat
8. Booked

Before the trip

Weather. Late October: 18–21 °C on the coast, still warm by the sea. Mostar 17–20 °C. Sarajevo sits at 500 m in a valley: 12–15 °C in the day, 3–6 °C at night, often foggy. Bring a proper jacket for the last two days.

Money. Croatia and Montenegro use the euro, BiH the convertible mark (KM). Euros work in many places, but the change comes back in KM at a bad rate, so take KM from an ATM on arrival. The mark was introduced in 1998 to replace three wartime currencies and pegged to the Deutsche Mark at par, hence the odd rate of 1 EUR = 1.95583 KM. The small coins are fenings, from pfennig: nobody could say the "pf", and the misspelling became official. The 10, 20, 50 and 100 KM notes come in two designs, one for the Federation of BiH (Latin script first) and one for Republika Srpska (Cyrillic first). Both are valid everywhere; the 200 KM note and the coins are shared.

Borders and data. Croatia is in Schengen, Montenegro and BiH are not, so the route crosses the Schengen border four times. EU roaming stops at the Croatian border too: get an eSIM for the Balkans before the flight.

Time. Winter time starts on the night of Sunday Oct 25: at 03:00 the clocks go back to 02:00, from UTC+2 to UTC+1, the same night as in Spain. The 06:33 train to Sarajevo runs on the new time, so that night gives an extra hour of sleep.

Language. All three countries speak what is essentially one language: Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and Montenegrin speakers understand each other without translation. In BiH and Croatia, don't call it Serbian. The basics:

• Zdravo — hi
• Dobar dan — good afternoon
• Hvala — thank you
• Molim — please
• Izvinite — excuse me
• Da / Ne — yes / no
• Malo razumijem — I understand a little
• Polako, molim — slower, please
• Može — sure, OK
• Koliko košta? — how much is it?
• Račun, molim — the bill, please
• Gotovina / kartica — cash / card
• Doviđenja — goodbye
• Za mene … — for me … (when ordering)
• Za mene ćevapi i kafa, molim — ćevapi and a coffee for me, please
• A za piće … — and to drink …
• Mogu li karticom? — can I pay by card?

At a glance

Date	City	Theme
18 Oct, Sun	Herceg Novi	Arrival + the staircase town
19 Oct, Mon	Herceg Novi → Dubrovnik	Morning by the sea, bus to Croatia
20–22 Oct	Dubrovnik	Work week, evenings only
23 Oct, Fri	Dubrovnik → Mostar	City walls + bus to BiH
24 Oct, Sat	Mostar	Blagaj + the front line on foot
25 Oct, Sun	Mostar → Sarajevo	Neretva train, bazaar, Trebević
26 Oct, Mon	Sarajevo	Siege, Srebrenica, 1914
27 Oct, Tue	Sarajevo	Tunnel of Salvation and departure

Where I stay

Nights	City	Area
18 Oct	Herceg Novi	Near the old town, 15 min on foot
19–22 Oct	Dubrovnik	Lapad, the peninsula west of the old town
23–24 Oct	Mostar	Old town, east bank, a few minutes from the Old Bridge
25–26 Oct	Sarajevo	Baščaršija, the Ottoman old town

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Montenegro 🇲🇪

Herceg Novi. Founded in 1382 by Tvrtko I, king of Bosnia, as a port for a country with no sea. A century later the Ottomans took it and ruled for more than two centuries. In 1539 a Spanish tercio died here: about 3,500 soldiers held the fortress for weeks against Barbarossa's fleet. Then Venice, Austria, Yugoslavia. Four empires for one small town.

Oct 18 — Arrival in Herceg Novi

Land in Dubrovnik, cross straight into Montenegro, afternoon and sunset in Herceg Novi.

• Dubrovnik Airport → Herceg Novi — Pre-booked transfer, 27 km, ~35 min plus the Karasovići / Debeli Brijeg border. On a Sunday morning in October the queue is usually short.

• Herceg Novi Old Town — The town sits on a steep slope: from the waterfront up to the forts, the streets are stairs.

• Sahat Kula — Clock tower gate from 1667 above the main square. Go through it and keep climbing; the old town is all stairs.

• Kanli Kula — "The Bloody Tower", an Ottoman fortress at the top of town, once a prison. Best view of the entrance to the Bay of Kotor. Small fee.

• Forte Mare — Sea fortress at the bottom, Bosnian foundations, rebuilt by the Venetians.

• Šetalište Pet Danica — 7 km seafront promenade to Igalo, on the line of the old narrow-gauge railway to Dubrovnik, closed in 1968. Walk it at sunset.

Oct 19 — Herceg Novi → Dubrovnik

A free morning by the sea, bus to Croatia in the afternoon.

• Savina Monastery — Orthodox monastery on the hill east of town, 18th-century church, quiet gardens. 20 min on foot from the centre.

• Herceg Novi bus station — Bus to Dubrovnik at 15:35, 1h 25m, back into Schengen at the border.

Croatia 🇭🇷

Dubrovnik. For 450 years, from 1358 to 1808, the city was a state of its own: the Republic of Ragusa. A merchant republic that lived on sea trade, paid tribute to the empires around it and outlasted them all, until Napoleon abolished it. Its flag carried one word: Libertas. The last siege of the city came in 1991–92.

Oct 20–22 — Dubrovnik, work week

Days are work. These are for the evenings.

• Stradun — The main street of the old town. Polished limestone that shines like a wet floor under the lamps. After 20:00 the cruise crowds are gone. Pile Gate → Stradun → Luža Square → the old port, about an hour.

• Fort Imperial / Homeland War Museum — From October 1991 the city was under siege by the Yugoslav army. On December 6, 1991 the old town was shelled, and the defenders held this Napoleonic fort above it. The museum inside is small and direct. This is where the powder keg part of the trip starts. I've been up the cable car before, so this time a taxi up, about 20 minutes from Lapad.

• Lapad promenade — Sea walk along the Lapad bay to Uvala Lapad beach. Good for a run before work.

Oct 23 — Dubrovnik on foot → Mostar

Walls at opening time, the old town until 15:00, bus to BiH at 16:00.

• Gruž bus station — Leave the bag at the left-luggage office in the morning and walk light all day. It's also where the evening bus leaves from.

• City Walls of Dubrovnik — Enter at Pile Gate at 8:00, when it opens, before the cruise groups. 1,940 m around the old town, up to 25 m high. Look at the roofs: the bright tiles replaced the ones hit in 1991–92, the faded ones are original. About 2 hours.

• Onofrio's Fountain — 1438, right inside Pile Gate. The water still comes by aqueduct from 12 km away.

• Franciscan Monastery pharmacy — Working since 1317, one of the oldest pharmacies in Europe. They still sell their own rose cream.

• Sponza Palace — 16th century. Inside is the Memorial Room of the Dubrovnik Defenders: photos of the people killed in 1991–95 and a flag burned in the December 6 shelling. Free, 10 min.

• Rector's Palace — Seat of the Republic of Ragusa. Over the council hall door: Obliti privatorum publica curate, "forget private affairs, take care of public ones".

• War Photo Limited — Photo gallery on the Yugoslav wars, from Vukovar and Sarajevo to Kosovo. One floor, 45 min. The best introduction to Mostar and Sarajevo. In October open daily 10:00–17:00, closed November to March.

• Porporela — Breakwater at the end of the old port. Sit on the stone with the walls behind you and Lokrum in front.

  — Bus 16:00 → 19:15, up the coast and into the Neretva valley in the last light.

Bosnia and Herzegovina 🇧🇦

Two cities, two nights each: Mostar in the south, in Herzegovina, and Sarajevo, the capital, in Bosnia.

Mostar. The town is named after the mostari, the bridge keepers who guarded the Neretva crossing back when it was still made of wood. The town is first mentioned in 1474. It is the capital of Herzegovina, the south of the country.

Oct 23, evening — Mostar

The Old Bridge in the dark, then ćevapi.

• Stari Most — Straight to the Old Bridge after dark. It's lit and the day-trippers are gone.

• Tima-Irma — Ćevapi, the reference place in Mostar. Expect a queue.

Oct 24 — Blagaj + Mostar on foot

Blagaj in the morning, the west bank and the front line before lunch, the old town in the afternoon.

• Blagaj Tekke — A 16th-century dervish house against a 200 m cliff, exactly where the Buna river comes out of a cave. At 8:45 on a Saturday in October you have it almost to yourself. Above the cliff: Stjepan Grad, the fort of the duke ("herceg") who gave Herzegovina its name. City bus 10 (~20 min) or a taxi (~20 KM).

• Spanish Square — Named after the Spanish peacekeepers: they were stationed in Mostar in the 1990s, and more than 20 Spanish soldiers died in BiH. During the war the front line ran straight across the square, and the yellow Austro-Hungarian gymnasium building ended up right on it.

• Sniper Tower — A gutted glass bank next to the square. Snipers held it during the war; now it's covered in street art. Look from outside, the floors aren't safe.

• Bulevar — In 1993–94 the front line ran down this avenue: Bosniaks on the east bank, Croats on the west. New facades next to shot-through concrete shells.

  A city split by a river into two sides that shot at each other across it. Ten years ago this would have read as history to me. Now it doesn't.

  — Bronze Bruce Lee, 2005. Picked because he was the one hero everyone in the divided city could agree on.

• Franciscan Church — 107 m bell tower, the tallest in BiH, rebuilt after the war. Taller than any minaret in the city, on purpose.

• Cathedral of Mary, Mother of the Church — 1980, raw concrete and stained glass. Yugoslav modernism you rarely see in a church.

• Partisan Memorial Cemetery — Bogdan Bogdanović, 1965. Stone terraces climbing the hillside like a maze, one of the best Yugoslav monuments. 20 min walk west of the centre.

• Crooked Bridge — 1558, built eight years before the Old Bridge to test the arch.

• Old Bridge Museum — In the bridge tower. The bridge is from 1566, 24 m over the Neretva, shelled down on November 9, 1993, rebuilt with stone raised from the river, reopened in 2004. Watch the short film of the collapse before you walk across.

  — Down the rocks to the water on the west bank for the classic angle.

• Kujundžiluk — 16th-century bazaar street paved with river stones, named after the goldsmiths (kujundžije); today it is mostly copper and souvenirs.

• Koski Mehmed Pasha Mosque — 1618. Climb the narrow minaret for the bridge from above.

• Bišćević House — 17th-century Ottoman house, the living room hangs over the Neretva on stone pillars.

• Muslibegović House — 18th-century Ottoman mansion with separate men's and women's quarters. Part museum, part guesthouse.

• Millennium Cross — 33 m cross on Hum hill, 2000, looking down on the mostly Muslim east bank. Best panorama in Mostar, but 1.5 hours up on foot. Only if the legs allow.

Oct 25 — Train to Sarajevo + Trebević

Sarajevo. The city was founded around 1461 by the Ottoman governor Isa-beg Isaković. The name comes from the Turkish saray, palace. A mosque, a Catholic cathedral, an Orthodox cathedral and a synagogue stand within a few hundred metres of each other. In 1984 the city hosted the Winter Olympics; eight years later it was under siege.

Sunrise train up the Neretva valley, the bazaar in the morning, cable car up the mountain after lunch, then the whole way back down on foot through the old Olympic bobsleigh track. In late October the cable car closes Monday to Wednesday for servicing, so this is the one day for it.

• Mostar railway station — Train 720 at 6:33, Sarajevo at 8:35. Paper ticket from the station counter, cash; ŽFBH also sells online. The line follows the Neretva and Jablanica lake, then climbs through a chain of tunnels into the Sarajevo valley. One of the most beautiful railway lines in Europe, at sunrise.

• Baščaršija — The Ottoman bazaar, founded in 1462. Once 12,000 shops on 45 streets, one guild per street; about 30 lanes survived the fires.

• Kazandžiluk — The coppersmiths' lane, almost 500 years old. Coffee sets, trays, and engraved shell casings left over from the siege.

• Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque — 1531. In 1898 the first mosque in the world with electric light. The courtyard clock runs on lunar time and shows 12:00 at sunset.

• Tašlihan — Foundations of a 1540s caravanserai built by Dubrovnik stonemasons, dug out in 1998 in the courtyard of Hotel Europa.

• Sarajevo Meeting of Cultures — Brass line in the Ferhadija pavement. Ottoman Sarajevo to the east, Austro-Hungarian to the west.

• Sarajevo Rose at the Cathedral — A mortar crater filled with red resin. The shrapnel marks spread from the centre like petals, hence the name. Impacts that killed three or more people were marked this way; 50 to 100 are left in the city. This is the first one; after it they keep turning up underfoot along the whole route.

• Buregdžinica Bosna — Burek since 1952, sold by weight with a spoon of sour cream. Burek is meat only: cheese is sirnica, spinach zeljanica.

• Sarajevo Brewery — Founded in 1864. During the siege its artesian spring was the main source of clean water for 300,000 people, who queued for it under sniper fire.

  — Cable car up to 1,160 m, 7 minutes. The ridge was the main Serb artillery position during the siege.

• Olympic bobsleigh track — 1,300 m of concrete from the 1984 Olympics. During the siege firing loopholes were cut into the curves. Now graffiti through the forest, and I walk it downhill and on to the city.

Oct 26 — Siege, Srebrenica, 1914

Srebrenica in the morning, the 1914 corner before lunch, Sniper Alley on foot both ways, sunset over the city.

The siege of Sarajevo lasted from April 1992 to February 1996, 1,425 days, longer than any siege of a capital in modern history. The city was shelled from the surrounding hills; more than 5,000 civilians were killed, about 1,600 of them children.

• Gallery 11/07/95 — Named after the day Srebrenica fell. Srebrenica is a small town in eastern Bosnia that the UN declared a "safe area" in 1993. On July 11, 1995 the Bosnian Serb army under Ratko Mladić took it. Over a few days more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed, while Dutch UN peacekeepers stood by. The international tribunal ruled it a genocide. Inside: Tarik Samarah's photographs, survivor testimony and a wall with all 8,372 names. No photos inside.

• Latin Bridge — 1798. On June 28, 1914, at its north end, Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and Europe went to war a month later.

  This is the one I'm going for. A street corner where a single shot started the First World War. That's hard to take in, and I want to stand there.

• Museum of Sarajevo 1878–1918 — One room on that same corner, about the Austro-Hungarian years and the assassination. Closed on Sundays.

• Vijećnica — Neo-Moorish city hall, later the National Library. Burned by incendiary shells in August 1992 with almost 2 million books. Rebuilt over 18 years, reopened in 2014.

• ASDŽ Aščinica — Bosnian cookshop, slow-cooked dishes from copper pans. It opened in 1994, mid-siege, cooking on wood stoves.

• History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina — 2.8 km down Sniper Alley on foot. "Besieged Sarajevo": homemade stoves, generators, aid tins. The facade still carries the bullet marks.

• ICAR Canned Beef Monument — A gilded tin of aid beef "from the grateful citizens of Sarajevo". Sarcasm for 1,425 days of tinned meat instead of help.

• Yellow Fortress — Ottoman bastion above Baščaršija at sunset, when the call to prayer starts from dozens of minarets at once.

Oct 27 — Tunnel of Salvation and departure

A last coffee in the old town, a drink from Sebilj, the tunnel in the morning, the plane after lunch.

• Sebilj — Wooden fountain kiosk from 1891 on Pigeon Square. Whoever drinks from it comes back to Sarajevo. One sip before the tunnel and the airport.

• Tunnel of Salvation — 800 m dug by hand in 1993 under the UN-held airport runway, the only way in and out of the besieged city. 25 m of it can be walked through at the Kolar family house. It's next to the airport, so it's the last stop before the flight.

What to eat

Montenegro 🇲🇪

• Njeguški pršut — dry-cured ham from the mountain village of Njeguši above Kotor, with local cheese.

Croatia 🇭🇷

• Black risotto (crni rižot) — made with cuttlefish ink.

• Oysters from Ston.

• Rožata — Dubrovnik's crème caramel with rose liqueur.

Bosnia and Herzegovina 🇧🇦

• Ćevapi — five or ten small sausages in somun flatbread with onion and kajmak.

• Burek and pita — burek is meat only; with cheese it's sirnica, with spinach zeljanica.

• Sogan-dolma — stuffed onions: onion bulbs filled with meat and rice, a Sarajevo dish.

• Begova čorba — thick chicken and okra soup.

• Tufahija — an apple poached in syrup, stuffed with walnuts, topped with cream.

• Bosnian coffee — in a džezva, with Turkish delight.

Booked

• Transfer Dubrovnik Airport → Herceg Novi, Oct 18 — 10:00

• Bus Herceg Novi → Dubrovnik, Oct 19 — 15:35

• FlixBus Dubrovnik → Mostar, Oct 23 — 16:00

Everything else on the plan is walk-up. I'll buy the Mostar → Sarajevo train ticket at the station counter.