How many times have you passed from Mostar towards Chapljina and further towards the Adriatic Sea, without stopping at the Buna Canals? This protected nature monument is located near Buna, south of Mostar, along the main road M-17 Mostar.
The Buna Canals are slightly more than 12 kilometers from Mostar and it is possible to reach this locality by car. After turning off the main road, you need to drive another hundred meters to the Buna Bridge, where you can park your car, then cross the bridge on foot and descend over the rocky terrain to the canals.
The Buna Canals are one of the most beautiful places in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and this beauty is definitely worth seeing live, regardless of the fact that it is not yet fully organized for tourism and adapted for visits.
What is it all about? The Canals are the place where the Neretva River flows, and its left tributary, the Buna River, flows into it. What is particularly interesting is that Buna does not flow directly into the Neretva, but two rivers flow next to each other, and only one part of the Buna over travertine barriers creates beautiful waterfalls and joins the Neretva and flows further towards the Adriatic Sea.
In this locality there are beautiful rocks, you can hear the roar of the river, and the atmosphere is completed by a variety of greenery.
It is best to visit this place in the summer when the amount of water is low and the canals come to their full expression. The Neretva River is slightly more than three meters wide in that part, and the rivers join in a length of about 300 meters.
In the eighties of the last century, kayakers fought for world and European medals on these canals, because in that locality nature built what is usually artificially built in order to make the path as difficult and demanding as possible.
The place is a tourist attraction, because next to canals there is a bicycle path, which enthusiasts built on the route of the old Ćiro railway, which runs from Mostar all the way to Dubrovnik. The location has been protected by law since 1970, and it has been in the center of public attention since 2014, when the citizens’ struggle against the construction of mini-hydroelectric plants began and ended successfully.
Previously, only local fishermen and a few tourists knew about this place, and today, thanks to the struggle of the citizens of Herzegovina against the construction of hydroelectric power plants, this pearl was discovered, which is becoming more and more visited and attracts the admiration of tourists.
