Stari Most stood for 427 years before a single tank shell reduced Mostar's Ottoman bridge to rubble in November 1993. The original structure, commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1557 and completed by architect Mimar Hayruddin in 1566, spanned the Neretva River with a single 28.7-metre limestone arch—wider than any stone bridge built in the Balkans before it. The bridge's name, "Old Bridge," became ironic only after its destruction; for centuries it was simply "the bridge," the unchallenged centrepiece of a market town where Venetian merchants met Ottoman craftsmen. UNESCO funded its reconstruction using limestone from the original quarries at Tenelija Hill, and the rebuilt span opened in July 2004, replicating every dimension of the 16th-century original. Today Stari Most anchors a UNESCO World Heritage ensemble that extends across both banks, encompassing 28 protected monuments within a 24.28-hectare zone. The bridge itself carries no vehicular traffic; its 4.49-metre width accommodates only pedestrians, and the limestone treads, worn smooth by half a millennium of foot traffic, remain slick after rain. Two fortified towers—Helebija on the northeast bank and Tara on the southwest—frame the crossing, their interiors converted to small museums documenting the bridge's destruction and reconstruction. The Kujundžiluk quarter on the east bank retains its Ottoman-era street plan, a warren of coppersmith workshops, carpet stalls, and coffeehouses pressed into buildings that predate the 17th century. The cavtat to mostar tour departs from Croatia's Adriatic coast and crosses the border at Zaton Doli, entering Bosnia and Herzegovina's southernmost canton. Most day trips pair Stari Most with stops at Kravica Waterfalls—a 120-metre-wide travertine cascade 40 kilometres south of Mostar—and the medieval fortress town of Počitelj, whose stone citadel overlooks the Neretva from a limestone bluff. The route follows the M6 highway through the Neretva Valley, passing pomegranate orchards and tobacco fields before climbing into the karst highlands that separate the Adriatic watershed from the inland Dinaric basin. The border crossing adds 30 to 45 minutes to the journey depending on queue length, and Bosnia uses the convertible mark, pegged at 1.95583 to the euro, though vendors near Stari Most accept both currencies. Mostar's microclimate, sheltered by the Velež and Prenj massifs, produces summer highs that routinely exceed 35°C, and the bridge's unshaded limestone surface radiates stored heat well into the evening. The site imposes no entrance fee for crossing Stari Most itself, though the tower museums charge separate admission. The bridge's reconstruction adhered to 16th-century masonry techniques, including the use of tenons—metal pins that lock adjacent stones together without mortar—and the original recipe for the lime-based adhesive that binds the arch's inner stones. The result is a structure that carries the visual and tactile weight of the Ottoman original, authenticated by UNESCO as a faithful reconstruction of a monument that, for a decade, existed only in collective memory and archival photographs.