Cheap Cigarettes and Elegant Minarets. Mostar's Old Town.

I think the expression 'East meets West' is wildly overused.

I am guilty as charged, but was still stuck to find a more appropriate description after visiting Mostar's UNESCO-listed Old Town (well, its famous bridge which straddles the Neretva river is listed). This historic settlement, which developed in the 15th and 16th centuries on the western fringes of the Ottoman Empire, is a striking blend of Slavic and Turkish Islamic influence. The language, faces and fashion feel distinctly Balkan, whilst the architecture, bountiful feasts of chargrilled meat and pickled vegetables, domes and minarets which pepper the skyline, and abundance of gift shops selling Turkish delight, syrupy Baklava and evil eyes, exude a familiar Ottoman ambience.

I think there's no place on earth quite like Mostar and its Old Town. The meeting of two worlds in this rather remote, insignificant town lost in the Bosnian wilderness. The flocks of Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, Eastern and Western tourists alike. This pocket of medieval history clinging onto a war-scarred, austere city centre.

By far my favourite aspect of this destination, was the cost of living. I am talking a quarter of the price of life in the UK, notably ridiculously cheap tobacco, and heaps of succulent ice cream of the most exotic and inventive flavours, for the equivalent of a few pennies. Naturally, we pounced on both.