The city of Mostar lies at a crossroads of cultures: just inland from the Adriatic coast, in the southern part of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Mostar — where Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Muslim Bosniaks had lived in seeming harmony before the war, then suffered horribly when its warring neighborhoods turned the city into a killing zone — has provided me with some of the richest experiences anywhere in Europe.

The vibrant humanity and the persistent reminders of the terrible war, now a generation in the past, combine to make Mostar strangely engaging.

Before the war, Mostar was famous for its 400-year-old, Turkish-style stone bridge. Its elegant, single-pointed arch was a symbol of Muslim society here, and of the town’s status as the place where East met West in Europe. Then, during the 19

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