Croatia Travels - Neretva

The Neretva Valley is an area where tribes, nations and their armies have fought for dominance since the beginning of time. The trade routes have gone through Neretva Valley since prehistoric time. Those who controlled the valley and its many robbers and pirates could control the trade for all of presentday Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Neretva River emerges beneath Zelengora Mountain in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. Through canyons, cliffs and hollows in its upper and middle courses, it forces its way through the Dinaric

Alps to spread downstream of the village of Pocitelj in Hercegovina over a vast wetland valley and to flow through its large delta into the Adriatic Sea. Neretva is this largest river of the eastern part of the Adriatic Basin . It has been harnessed and controlled to a large extent by several hydroelectric power-plants and their storage lakes, but it still remains unique in its beauty and the diversity of its landscape.