Grey limestone, thin grass, a scatter of oaks and juniper, and among them heavy blocks of carved stone lying where they were set some six or seven hundred years ago. Potkuk, near the hamlet of Bitunja in eastern Herzegovina, is one of the necropolises of stećci, the medieval tombstones that were added to the World Heritage list in 2016 together with sites across Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia.
Stećci were carved roughly between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, by communities whose faith historians still argue about: Catholic, Orthodox, members of the independent Bosnian Church, and often all of them in the same region. The stones take the form of slabs, chests and gabled houses, and the best are decorated with spirals, vines, crescents, crosses, shields, swords and lively figures of hunters, horsemen and circle dances. They are among the few things that speak directly for the ordinary people of medieval Bosnia.
The landscape here is high karst, the plateau country between Stolac, Nevesinje and Ljubinje. Water vanishes into the rock, so valleys are dry poljes, flat-floored basins that flood in winter and dry out to pasture in summer. Roads cross the plateaus on narrow strips of asphalt that are sometimes patched, sometimes gravel, often shared with sheep and the occasional slow car. In July and August the heat reflects off the white rock like an oven, while in winter the bura wind can be fierce. Spring, when the meadows bloom, and early autumn are the sweet spots.
Stolac, fourteen kilometres away, is the most rewarding town in the area. It sits in the green gorge of the Bregava river, with old mills, Ottoman houses and the ruins of a hilltop fort. Nearby are Radimlja, the best known stećci necropolis of all, right by the main road, and Daorson, a hilltop town of the Illyrian Daorsi with walls built of huge cut blocks. Vjetrenica, the largest cave in the country, lies to the south in Popovo polje.
One practical point matters more than any other. Bosnia and Herzegovina still has areas contaminated by mines from the 1990s war, so stay on roads, paths and clearly used tracks and respect any red warning signs. Stolac and Nevesinje both have fuel, bakeries and cafés; fill up before heading into the plateaus.