MOSTAR AUGUST RECOMMENDATIONS: WHERE TO DINE & WHERE TO HAVE A CUP OF COFFEE AND A CAKE? & WHERE TO SWIM?

August 23, 2018

Today I'll be sharing a few restaurant and coffee bars reviews with you. If you're looking for nice places to dine or enjoyed a nice cup of coffee in Mostar, you've come to the right place. I will also share my experience of the city's pool. These are my August Mostar recommendations.

RESTAURANT MEGI

I'm often asked to recommend good restaurants in Mostar, so I figured I might as well start with this one. Megi is an Italian and European food restaurant located in Mostar city. Most of the dishes offered have a distinct Italian cuisine flavor. I have already dinned at Megi twice this August. Who knows I might stop there again before the end of the month? Over the years, I have dinned at Megi many many times, so I feel like I can really recommend this place. Megi has 105 reviews on Trip Adviser site and from what I've seen they're mostly positive ones. If your favourite meals include: pizza, salads and risotto, than this is the right restaurant for you. They also have lovely desserts. I tried most of them and was never disappointed.

Last time we were there, we sat on the terrace. The terrace is lovely as you can see, but if you're not accustomed to the heat, better to dine inside. Mostar in August is extremely warm, with temperatures going over 40 degrees Celsius. We braved the heat this time and sat outside. I ordered a tuna salad, and my husband ordered a pizza. If your have Chron's disease, in most cases your menu is quite limited by it. Raw food is a no-no in most cases, which is a shame because I love fresh veggies and vegetable. I'm not allowed to eat salad (my favourite thing!) so I usually order a tuna salad and eat the tuna and eggs, and maybe just a tiny bit of salad. Sometimes my husband eats the rest but often I just have to leave the majority of salad there which is obviously a waste but it can't be helped.

Chron's disease makes dining hard, but since my husband loves to eat is restaurants so much, I will typically make an effort to join him. I do feel safer dining in Mostar because most restaurants I dined in understand when I tell them that I can't eat something or when I asked them to make some small changes. In general I had very good experiences with the restaurant staff and chefs in Mostar. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that my husband knows most of them? I don't know, I can just say that my restaurant experiences in Mostar have been largely positive. As I said dining with a Chron disease can be somewhat of a gamble but I think I learned a lot over the years. Self-discipline is so important. In addition, when you're ordering something you have to be clear and firm. If sometimes arrives on your plate that you're not supposed to eat, you don't have to eat it. You can always avoid the things you are not supposed to it. This also applies to cooking for yourself. You can always change up a recipe a bit. Fortunately, I love to cook and over the years I've came up with some pretty good options. But back to the topic. Here are a few more photographs of the terrace, and then we'll move indoors.

On the other occasion we dined here this August, we sat indoors. The photographs are a bit darker and of lesser quality, because the sun was already setting down. My husband ordered a steak salad and I ordered just focaccia because I wasn't that hungry. Both dishes were yummy. As I said, I always have had good experience dining in this restaurant. There was only one thing that bothered me that time. On this particular occasion, there were some foreign tourists and they were so loud they gave me a headache. I don't know why foreign tourists are always so loud in restaurants. Maybe it's a cultural difference? I mean we're not exactly quiet either, but typically people here aren't that loud in restaurants. Maybe we're just more serious about our food?

CAFE SCHOOL

The main attraction of this cafe for me is definitely the stunning view. More precisely, the view of Neretva river. Sitting in cafe School, you get to enjoy a wonderful view of Neretva river and one of Mostar's most beautiful bridges: Carinski Most (see more photos of this bridge here and here). The espresso coffee served here is also quite fabulous. We love to come here around 7 pm, before anyone else. Seeing the sun come slowly come up over the city while you're sipping coffee, what can be more perfect? Aren't these flowers really lovely as well? The lower part of this cafe is hidden in an olive tree garden. If you love olive trees, visiting it is a must. I would recommend that lower part of the cafe too just keep in mind that you can't order coffee in the lower part of the cafe, just drinks and cocktails. To order coffee you need to sit here. Both areas of this cafe are beautiful in their way.

THE CAKE BAR MOSTAR

Next on our review list is The Cake Bar Mostar. The cakes here are lovely. I particularly enjoyed the cheese cake. Their espresso is great too. Are you a coffee addict like myself? I can't live without coffee, and I always treasure a good expresso. What else to say about this place? Not a good idea to sit outside if you can't take the heat. That applies to any cafe in Mostar really. My experiences with The Cake Bar Mostar were good. My husband doesn't like the staff at this cafe, though. So, we probably won't visit it that often next month.

I was in a pretty good mood the day these photographs were taken despite the fact that my neck was so swollen. Fortunately with the help of antibiotics, the swelling did go down. It's a shame about my surgical wound getting infected and all, because I ended up with a really bad scar. But well, that's life. My scar collection is quite impressive, actually. I have at least half a dozen large scars.

MOSTAR CITY PUBLIC POOL

I've only been to Mostar's city pool once this summer. I've been quite busy but that's not the only reason but I'll explain why later. Anyhow, the last time we were at the city pool, we stayed for quite a long time and had a nice time too. We also had a pizza at pool's fast food that also can boost of a great view of Neretva river. I always love it when a place has a view of Neretva river. Not only because that makes the view more beautiful, but because Neretva river has a cooling effect. If this city is in need of anything, that's some cooling down.

My experiences of Mostar's city pool are nice, but the truth is that in the last two summer, I've only been to the city's pool twice. The problem I have with this pool is that it opens late: at 10 am. In summer, I try to avoid the sun during its hottest hour: from 10 am to 4 pm. Obviously, this is not always possible, but when I can, I try to avoid direct sunlight when it's at its strongest. So, the fact that the pool opens at 10 am is a problem for me. I understand the reason why the pool opens late. It is because early in the morning kids have their swimming practice there and the pool is taken. It is understandable that the children need to have their swimming practice early in the morning. At any rate, protecting the kids from the sun is more important because they're even more vulnerable to sunburns.

The size and the maintenance of the city's pool is satisfactory. It is an Olympic size pool and there is also one more shallow pool in the vicinity of it, for those who aren't good swimmers. Because the pool is in the open, it is only opened during the summer months. The entrance fee is 1.50 euros and besides the fast food, there is also a bar where you can order a drink. As I said, the city's pool is nice, the only problem with it is that it opens late. I don't have any photographs of the pool itself, to protect the privacy of its visitors, but here are some photographs of the fast food where we had our pizza. As you can see, it is a very green area. If you visit Mostar city's public pool and want to have something to eat on the spot, this is where you can only to do. As the waiter informed us, this is a fast food not a restaurant so while they do serve you food, they don't have that many options on the menu. We ordered a mixed pizza, one side of it was regular (for my husband) and the other was only tuna because I can't eat anything else because of Chron disease. The pizza was yummy! It gave me the energy to swim even more!

Lastly, swimming in Neretva river is not completely safe. The river is quite possibly clean enough, but it is still too fast and dangerous for swimming. You can sunbathe on the banks on the river, you can even cool down yourself a bit by splashing its water on yourself, but I wouldn't recommend swimming as such. It is safer to swim in a pool. If you don't like the public pool's working hours, you can always opt for a hotel with a nice pool. That would be all for today, thank you for reading!

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