Eleven stone arches cross the Drina at Višegrad, pale against the green water, and the bridge has been doing so since the 1570s. It was commissioned by Mehmed Paša Sokolović, a boy from a nearby village who was taken as a child into Ottoman service and rose to become Grand Vizier, the most powerful man in the empire after the sultan. He had it built by Mimar Sinan, the greatest architect of the Ottoman age, and it remains one of the masterpieces of that era, listed by UNESCO in 2007.
The bridge is famous across the world thanks to Ivo Andrić, whose novel The Bridge on the Drina tells the story of the town and its people across four centuries, using the bridge as the constant thread. Andrić won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961, and the book remains the best introduction to this region. In the town, the film director Emir Kusturica built Andrićgrad, a small stone town of shops, cafés and a cinema, intended as a tribute to the writer. It divides opinion, but it is worth a look.
The history of Višegrad also includes darker chapters. During the war in the 1990s the town saw terrible violence against its Bosniak population, some of it on the bridge itself. Many visitors find it right to be aware of this, and to treat the place with the respect such memories deserve.
The riding around Višegrad is superb. The road along the Drina is spectacular, with the river in a deep green gorge, tunnels cut through rock, and bends that follow every turn of the water. East towards the Serbian border and Mokra Gora, the road climbs into the mountains, with forests, meadows and views. Mokra Gora has the Šargan Eight, a restored narrow-gauge railway that loops in a figure of eight to climb the mountain. The surfaces are mixed, from smooth to potholed, and trucks and buses use the main roads, so take care in tunnels and on blind bends.
Višegrad has fuel, shops, cafés and restaurants. Try ćevapi or a plate of grilled trout from the river. Border crossings to Serbia are close, so carry your documents and green card. Sit on the bridge for a while, as Andrić's characters did, and watch the river slide past.