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Location
Where
is
Medjugorje?, by Google Maps. Google Maps has new very
detailed
satellite photos of Medjugorje! See the church,
Hill
of
Apparitions (Podbrdo) and Mountain
of
the Cross (Krizevac).
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Cheap flights to Sarajevo have started! Cheap
flights (tens of Euros including taxes) to or from Sarajevo,
Split or Dubrovnik can be found with Skyscanner. The
cheapest chairs you can find by choosing e.g. English,
one-way tickets and then keeping the search as broad as
possible, using "everywhere" and "whole year", then
narrowing your search. To use "everywhere" as departure
(e.g. to find out from which countries you can fly cheap to
a certain destination), search for flights from that
destination to "everywhere". A budget return ticket consists
simply of two budget one-way tickets, so you can also arrive
at e.g. Sarajevo, but depart from e.g. Split. Since
normal flight companies have started also with cheap
tickets, one has to look also at sites like Atp. From Sarajevo Airport
you can take a bus and switch on the main road to a tram to
the bus and train station in the middle of the city - the
real "city centre" is at the eastern part of Sarajevo. From
Split Airport run airport buses to the port/bus/train
station in the city centre. |

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Few people know, but the parish of Medjugorje has a
train station at � urmanci, on the train line
from Sarajevo to Ploče. This is one of the most beautiful
train lines of the Balkan, travelling through mountainous
regions alongside the Neretva river through the Neretva
valley. By train
to Medjugorje (only in Dutch so far) gives an
impression. European timetables can be found with the travel
planner of Die Bahn, the German Railways, or for the
mobile phone with the DB
Navigator App, both are in English (the planners know
no '� urmanci' or 'Mostar', use 'Sarajevo' or 'Ploce').
If you want to travel along the beautiful route along the
Rhine, choose via 'Koblenz' in the travel planner. An Interrail
ticket for 5 out of 15 days unlimited travel through
Europe (€200 for youth, €264 for adults, €238 for seniors)
costs half the price of a normal train return ticket to
Medjugorje, is cheaper than a two way ticket of a jet
liner, is valid in most high speed trains and can still be
bought on the day of departure. Usually it is from
Europe two days by train so you have one day left. Nowadays
one can travel in one day by train from for instance Holland
to Zagreb (in the advanced options of Die Bahn uncheck
everything that is slower then a fast train,
NV=NahVerkehr=stop train, buses, etc., otherwise you will
see only buses instead of trains to Zagreb). One can take
also a night train from Munich to Zagreb. In 2017 Bosnian-Herzegovinan Railways
confirmed by telephone that the train line
Sarajevo-Čapljina/Medjugorje (all inside Bosnia-Herzegovina,
map),
is reopened with a new, express train, now arriving in
Čapljina in summer before sunset (timetable).
So you can enjoy the most beautiful train line of Europe,
through the Neretva valley, now in full splendour. However,
the train does not stop any more in � urmanci (8 km
from and without buses to Medjugorje), but in Čapljina (16
km from and with buses to Medjugorje). The train line
Banja-Luka-Sarajevo also runs, but not at connecting times.
Cross border connections Zagreb (Croatia)-Banja-Luka
(Bosnia) and Čapljina (Bosnia)-Ploče (Croatia) are still
being negotiated. The resulting advice is to take the train
to Zagreb, possibly in one day (then one enjoys the Alps in
daylight), then sleep in Zagreb, then go to Sarajevo by bus
from the bus station in Zagreb, which is close to the train
station, and then take the express train from Sarajevo to
Čapljina, then take the bus to Medjugorje. In 2017 express
trains leave from Sarajevo at 7.01 AM and 4.26 PM to Mostar
and Čapljina. Express trains leave from Čapljina at 5.52 AM
and 7.25 PM to Mostar and Sarajevo. The train line extends
to the Adriatic coast at Ploče. Few people know Ploče has a
combined bus/train station/airport, but the airport is not
developed for Medjugorje. |

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Eurolines operates
international buses to Croatia and Bosnia. From Sarajevo,
Split or Dubrovnik it is three hours by regional bus (from
Sarajevo also by train) to Medjugorje for a few Euros. There
is at least one bus directly from these cities to Medjugorje
a day. E.g. In the summer of 2009 a direct bus leaves
Sarajevo for Medjugorje at 4.45 PM, stopping in Mostar at
the Muslim train/bus station and then at the Croatian bus
station, arriving before sunset in Medjugorje. But often
a quicker way to travel is to take a regional bus to a
city close to Medjugorje and then take a bus from there to
Medjugorje. For example, from Sarajevo to Mostar the
buses go every hour on the hour. And from Mostar to
Medjugorje there are 10 or so buses daily: 4 or so from the
Muslim train+bus station and 6 or so from the newly rebuilt
Croat bus station. If you have to travel from the Muslim
station in east Mostar to the Croat bus station in west
Mostar: it is a 2 km walk over the Neretva river, crossing
the former front line (Boulevard). From Split or Dubrovnik
the buses run at least every hour to Ploče, from Ploče buses
(or train) run several times a day to Medjugorje.
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Travel tip
Since cheap flights to Sarajevo have started, I advise to
take a cheap flight to Sarajevo, have a beautiful express
train ride to Čapljina and then either take the bus to
Medjugorje or have yourself picked up in Čapljina by car by
your pension keeper of Medjugorje. Čapljina, 16 km from
Medjugorje, has a large waiting room, café outside and some
buses and taxis. The flight departure times from e.g.
Cologne to Sarajevo are not so very early, so less people
have to spend a night sleeping in e.g. Cologne and more
people can travel cheap in one day to Medjugorje.
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