Trebinje

Trebinje lies on the Trebišnjica in the rocky country of southern Hum, close to the roads from Dubrovnik and the Adriatic into the Balkan interior. In the later Middle Ages it passed from the Pavlović family to the Kosača lords, before the Ottomans took the district in 1466. The river and its crossings helped sustain the movement of merchants between the coast and Herzegovina.

In the 1570s a stone bridge was built across the Trebišnjica under the direction of Mehmed Pasha Sokolović. Travellers could cross it on the route carrying salt from Herceg Novi into the interior. After Venice took Herceg Novi and Risan in the late seventeenth century, the Ottomans strengthened Trebinje as a frontier centre. Its walled quarter, known as the Kastel, was built with craftsmen brought from Dubrovnik and labourers from the surrounding country.