The journey
Eight stone arches that outlasted empires, along rivers that marked the edge of the known world.
The Ottoman Empire built bridges the way other empires built walls — as expressions of permanence, of reach, of the civilising ambition of an administration that lasted 600 years. Across the Balkans, hundreds of these bridges survive. Eight of them, on this route, are among the finest in the world.
From the Vardar valley in North Macedonia to the Neretva in Herzegovina, this route follows the Ottoman road through the Balkans — through cities that were once provincial capitals of a vast empire, through bazaars and tekkes and caravanserais, and across bridges that have been standing since the 16th century.
The route includes Stari Most at Mostar — destroyed in 1993, rebuilt from the riverbed — and the Konjic bridge, the Prizren bridge, and five others that almost no Western traveller has ever seen.
Day by day
The itinerary
North Macedonia
Skopje — The Stone Bridge
Skopje's 15th-century Stone Bridge, 215 metres of Ottoman masonry across the Vardar, is where the tour begins. The old bazaar behind it is the largest in the Balkans. The Mustapha Pasha mosque. The Čifte Hamam. Two days of material to explore in one.
North Macedonia
Ohrid — UNESCO on the Lake
Southwest to Ohrid: the UNESCO city with 365 churches, a Byzantine basilica with the oldest Slavic frescoes in existence, and a lake so clear you can see the bottom at 20 metres. The medieval bridge at the mouth of the Crn Drim. A night by the water.
Albania
Shkodër — The Longest Ottoman Bridge
Across the Albanian border to Shkodër, where the Mesi Bridge — 18 arches across the Kiri river — was built in the 18th century and still stands in the gorge below the Rozafa castle. The castle itself looks out over three converging rivers.
Kosovo
Prizren — The Ottoman City
Prizren is the best-preserved Ottoman city in the Balkans: 35 mosques, a 15th-century bridge, the Sinan Pasha mosque, the ruins of the Prizren fortress looking down over the Bistrica river. A city that feels genuinely unchanged.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Mostar — The Bridge That Came Back
Stari Most: built by the Ottoman architect Mimar Hayruddin in 1566, destroyed by Croat artillery in 1993, rebuilt stone by stone from the riverbed in 2004. The bridge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is also, still, a place where people dive into the Neretva from 21 metres.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Blagaj & Počitelj — Hidden Herzegovina
The Blagaj tekke at the source of the Buna river — a 15th-century dervish lodge at the base of a 200-metre cliff, with the river emerging fully-formed from the rock beneath it. Then Počitelj, the perfectly preserved Ottoman village above the Neretva.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Konjic — The Secret Bridge
The Konjic bridge: four arches, built 1682, UNESCO-listed, almost entirely unknown outside the region. Below it, the Neretva is cold and clear. Above it, the mountains of Central Bosnia. And nearby, ARK D-0 — Tito's nuclear bunker, optionally.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Sarajevo — Departure
Final day in Sarajevo: the Latin Bridge over the Miljacka where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in 1914. The old city bazaar. A farewell dinner in the Baščaršija.
