Mostar's culture runs far past the Old Bridge: Austro-Hungarian Moorish facades, a Yugoslav memorial cemetery of dry-stone terraces, lived-in Ottoman family houses and gig venues built inside shelled buildings on the 1993 line.
The 1902 Gymnasium is Mostar's Moorish-revival landmark: striped stonework, horseshoe arches and an arcaded courtyard, shelled in 1993 and restored in 2004. Now United World College; corridors and gallery open weekdays 09:00–15:00.
The Bulevar was the front line. Walk north from Španski trg past the shell-pocked Ljubljanska Banka tower, now covered floor to roof in graffiti and stencil work, then the gutted Hotel Neretva facade opposite.
Bogdan Bogdanović's 1965 necropolis for 630 WWII fighters is a hillside of dry-stone terraces, dry water channels and carved stone flowers — Yugoslav modernism at its strangest, repeatedly vandalised and slowly being repaired.
The 107 m campanile finished in 2000 is the tallest in the Balkans. A lift and a short stair reach a glazed gallery over the gorge, with the Ottoman quarter, Hum hill and the Neretva laid out below; entry about 5 KM.
Set in Džemal Bijedić's family villa on Bajatova, the collection covers Ottoman-era photography, stećci tombstone casts, regional costume and archaeology, plus a short film of the 1993 bridge collapse filmed from the east bank.
Mostar's 1889 Sephardic synagogue survived the wars and has housed the Lutkarsko pozorište since 1952, one of the oldest puppet companies in the former Yugoslavia. Arched windows and the original hall shell are still visible inside.
Built in 1997 by Luciano Pavarotti and War Child inside a bombed school on Maršala Tita, the centre gives free lessons to Bosniak and Croat children together. Studio, mosaic courtyard and rehearsal rooms open weekday afternoons.
The Kralja Zvonimira theatre house shares its stage between the Croatian National Theatre and the Narodno pozorište, with drama in both languages and the Mostarska liska comedy festival each autumn. Box office opens two hours before curtain.
A 16th-century Ottoman residence on Gaše Ilića still owned by the Kajtaz family: divanhana with low sofas, carved wooden ceilings, separate harem quarters and a walled garden, shown by a descendant of the household.
The everyday Ottoman street day-trippers skip: Karađoz Bey Mosque of 1557 with its medresa and cemetery, old-style kafanas serving Bosnian coffee in džezva, buregdžinice and shopfronts unchanged since Yugoslav days.
Founded as a workers' cultural society in 1926 and reopened in 2003 directly on the former front line, Abrašević is Mostar's independent scene — punk and jazz gigs, film nights, gallery shows and a volunteer-run courtyard bar.
The 1834 church on the Bjelušine hillside was blown up in 1992 and is being rebuilt stone by numbered stone beside the old bishop's residence. The terrace gives the widest dusk view over minarets, campanile and gorge.