Izvor Buna

[At Mostar] Then we set off for the largest karst spring in Europe, Izvor Buna at Blagaj. From Mostar you take the Dubrovnik road, and turn off towards Nevesinje. Keep straight on past the airfield towards Blagaj, straight through the village, and park beside the trout farm. The cave is a few meters beyond this.

You cannot actually enter the cave, a wide rock arch about 4.5m high, from which the spring resurges, without a boat. It has a flow of 26-46 cubic litres per second, or a 6m wide rushing river to most of us, and soon sumps a little way into the cave. The engulfment is in the Nevisinjsko Polje, 19.5m away where the river Zalomska sinks.

There is a legend attached to the cave. A dragon used to live there and each year he came forth to capture and devour a local maiden. One year he chose Milica, daughter of the ruler Herceg Stefan. As he was about to carry her off, a local dervish, Sari Saltuk, who was madly in love with her, leapt to her rescue and killed the dragon. Her father was so grateful he allowed the couple to marry and a Tarka or Turkish House was built on the site. The cave entrance which can be seen higher up and 300m to the right of the spring is the Green Cave where Neolithic and other remains have been found.

from: Anne Oldham: Yugoslavia 1986. Published privately by the author. pp 63 illus. With kind permission.