Old Town and the Plane Trees, Trebinje

Old Town and the Plane Trees, an 18th-century Ottoman fortress on the Trebišnjica and a square shaded by century-old plane trees.

The Old Town, also known as the Kastel, was built when the Ottomans, having lost Herceg Novi and Risan in the war with the Holy League (1683–1699), had to reorganise their holdings in Herzegovina. It rises on the right bank of the Trebišnjica above the deepest point of the river, the Ban-vir, named after a legend about a ban who drowned there.

Construction was begun in 1714 by Osman Pasha Resulbegović, with master builders from Dubrovnik. A moat linked to the river was dug around the walls, and a drawbridge stood over the gate where the tunnel is today; the moat was filled in 1932 for fear of disease. The Osman Pasha and Sultan Ahmed mosques and the clock tower date from the same period, and the Museum of Herzegovina now stands inside the walls.

Right beside the walls is Trg slobode, with sixteen plane trees more than 120 years old: the heart of town life, with a morning market of local produce, coffee in the shade of a summer garden with over 500 seats, and evening strolls that go on late into the night.

Getting there

Right in the centre, next to Trg slobode and the plane trees.

From apartments in the centre it is a few minutes' walk.

• Visit the morning market under the plane trees
• In summer, swim in the Trebišnjica below the floodlit walls