A Little Home in Mostar
Mostar felt familiar before I understood why.
Stone streets.
Small shops.
Mosque minarets rising between old buildings.
Cats sitting everywhere as if they had been personally assigned to welcome tourists.
One rested beside the street without caring about the people passing by.
Another appeared a few minutes later.
Then another.
At some point, it felt less like we were exploring Mostar and more like the cats were watching us explore it.
We continued towards the old town.
A mosque stood between the stone buildings.
Farther away, a large cross could be seen above the city.
A mosque below.
A cross above.
Both present in the same view.
Mostar has carried different communities for centuries.
Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Jews have all been part of its history.
The city was shaped during the Ottoman period, and later under Austro-Hungarian rule.
You can still see both worlds in its streets.
Eastern details.
European buildings.
Arabic writing above mosque doors.
Cafés filled with tourists from everywhere.
But the moment Mostar truly felt different came without warning.
The adhan began.
I stopped.
It was the first time I had heard the call to prayer in Europe.
The same words.
The same rhythm.
The same sound that had always belonged to ordinary life back home.
But here, surrounded by unfamiliar streets, it did not feel ordinary.
It felt like someone had opened a small window towards home.
کبھی کبھی گھر کوئی جگہ نہیں ہوتا۔
بس ایک جانی پہچانی آواز ہوتی ہے۔Sometimes home is not a place.
It is simply a familiar sound.
For a few moments, Mostar no longer felt far away.
Then hunger brought us back to reality.
We found a restaurant and ordered ćevapi, small grilled kebabs served with bread and vegetables.
There was only one problem.
Cash.
The restaurant accepted cash, and our cash was sitting safely inside the car.
The same car parked around twenty minutes away.
We checked our bags again.
Nothing.
Checked our pockets.
Still nothing.
So someone had to walk twenty minutes back to the car.
Then twenty minutes again to return.
A complete forty-minute journey
Khair.
At least the ćevapi were worth waiting for.
Later, we tried traditional Bosnian coffee.
It arrived in a small copper pot with a tiny cup, served on a decorated tray.
Strong.
Dark.
Not something to drink quickly while walking.
Bosnian coffee asks you to sit.
Pour slowly.
Take one sip.
Then another.
As if coffee here is not only a drink.
It is a reason to remain at the table for a little longer.
The most famous part of Mostar waited nearby.
Stari Most.
The Old Bridge.
Mostar developed as an Ottoman town beside the Neretva River.
Its name comes from mostari, the bridge keepers who guarded an earlier crossing.
The Old Bridge became the heart of the city.
It was destroyed during the war in 1993.
Then rebuilt and reopened in 2004.
Today, it does more than connect two sides of the river.
It stands as a symbol of rebuilding and of different communities learning to exist beside one another again.
Near the bridge, the War Photo Museum carried the dates 1992–1995 on its wall.
The streets outside were alive again.
Restaurants open.
People taking pictures.
Coffee being poured.
Cats sleeping beside buildings.
But that small museum was a reminder that the peace around us had not always been there.
By night, the bridge glowed over the dark water.
The mosques were lit.
Arabic calligraphy appeared above old wooden doors.
And Mostar felt both European and deeply Muslim at the same time.
That was what stayed with me.
Not because Mostar felt exactly like home.
It didn’t.
But it carried small pieces of something familiar.
The adhan between European streets.
Halal food on the table.
Bosnian coffee served slowly.
A mosque sharing the same skyline with a cross.
Mostar did not make Europe feel less European.
It simply reminded me that being European and feeling Muslim were never opposite things.
And somewhere between the bridge, the coffee, and the first adhan I heard in Europe, a foreign city felt a little like home.
