Neum // Why Neum is Neum
Neum, Bosnia and Herzegovina // © Alexey Fedorenko // Shutterstock.com
‘I had a Welshman stay before, he was very nice. He didn’t like it when I called him English though, but he worked in London! I said to him that it is the same when you call us Bosnian or Serbian’. That cleared that up then. Josip considered himself a Croat, a grown man who spoke the Croatian language with his Croatian wife and Croatian kids. He was born in Čapljina, and he owned property in Neum. If you want to feel like you are in Croatia without leaving Bosnia and Herzegovina, Neum is perfect for you.
That last part isn’t exactly true, as in order to get to Neum, you do need to leave BiH, dipping into Croatia for 20 minutes before popping back in at Neum. Bosnia’s seaside town is quite literally deserving of that singular title, being the only town on the country’s meagre 12 miles of coastline. In Europe, only Monaco has a smaller coast. When the entire world is taken into account, you’ll only find Navassa Island, Clipperton Island, Gibraltar, Wake Island and the aforementioned Monaco that possess a shorter coast. Those first four aren’t independent states, of course, so BiH’s coastline is the second shortest in the world.
BiH came to own this tiny slither of the Adriatic Sea thanks to the peculiarities of history, as the powers that surround the region sought to weaken each other and make war unlikely, at least for the time being. The Great Turkish War came to an end at the climax of January in 1699, a conflict that represented a real turning point for Europe, as for the first time, the Ottomans had been repelled. Land had been regained by continental powers. The war was also the first time Russia had decided to get involved in European affairs, putting its weight behind the Holy Roman Empire to ward off Islamic incursions into its own territory.
The view from this tower // © John Bills
The Treaty of Karlowitz (Sremski Karlovci today) officially brought the curtain down on the war, a document that simultaneously removed the Ottoman Empire from Central Europe and established the Habsburg Dynasty as the major power in the heart of the continent. Where did Neum fit into all of this? The small Adriatic corridor had previously been a possession of the Republic of Ragusa (modern-day Dubrovnik), a republic that had put its eggs in the Ottoman basket only to see them crash and crack on the battlefield. Ragusa was massively weakened following the war, and the prospect of Venice advancing on its territory was one that its leaders could not countenance. Concessions had to be made. Neum was one, and the corridor was offered up as a buffer zone to create space between Ragusa and Venice’s Dalmatian territories. The Ottoman Empire took control of the fishing port, making it a part of its Bosnian province. The thinking of the Ragusans is obvious, not to mention sound; the Great Turkish War had exhausted all the powers of the continent, and the leaders of the city-state believed that Venice was too weak to risk another war with a still-strong Ottoman Empire. Ragusa remained a rich prize and source of desire for Venice, but it wasn’t about to poke the seething Ottomans in order to get to it. Ragusa gambled, and Ragusa won (for a century or so).
I felt like I had won as I spread out on the bed of my apartment in Neum. The journey from Mostar had been painless, but even a painless journey needs to be recovered from. Josip had been very courteous in making sure I understood where we were and what was around us, but his insistence on being a fine host meant that he essentially repeated himself over and over again. The pizzeria was here, the walk down to the beach was there, the bus leaves from where it dropped you off, and the pizzeria was there. Thank you, but I was desperate for him to leave. I wanted to use the toilet, lie down on the bed and stare longingly at the Adriatic Sea. He eventually did, and I eventually did.
A setting sun in Neum // © John Bills
The apartment looked right out onto the sweeping blue of the Adriatic, directly opposite Pelješac and Croatia proper. The red and white šahovnica of the Croatian flag was carved into the side of the landmass, the colours of dirt replacing the colours of history, but the peninsula itself was little more than an island of earth jutting into the sea, obstructing what would otherwise be the perfect ocean view. For that view, I paid a fraction of what one would expect to part with quite literally anywhere else on the Adriatic coastline. Neum didn’t have much going for it in terms of attractions and amenities, but it had the most affordable and tranquil view of the sea that you could possibly hope for.
With the languid breaks stretching out in front of me, I took a seat on the balcony of the apartment and thought about Bosnia and Herzegovina. What else had I been thinking of recently? The country was like that fungus that takes over insects and essentially uses them as a vessel, sucking out all the nutrients before discarding the body and moving on. It was an analogy that had quickly gotten out of control and was clearly a little over the top, but it was intense enough to jolt me out of my Adriatic-induced slumber and into the town itself. I left the apartment and headed down to the sea, unsure if I was doing so on my own accord or whether the Bosnia fungus had taken over and was going to walk me into the water. I clearly needed a drink.
