The Husein Pasha Mosque, Pljevlja's great Ottoman monument

If one building justifies the detour to Pljevlja, it’s this one. The town’s tourist board rates the Husein Pasha Mosque among the most harmonious monuments of Islamic architecture in the Balkans, and a look from the square tells you why. A slender minaret, domes over finely dressed stone walls and, beside them, the clock tower. It’s a sight that impresses without explanation, though the story behind it makes it better still.

A Pljevlja vizier and the architect from Mostar

The mosque was a pious foundation of Husein Pasha Boljanić, born in the village of Boljanići near Pljevlja, who rose to be an imperial vizier, governor of Baghdad and of the Herzegovina sanjak and the Bosnian eyalet, according to the Pljevlja tourist board. It went up in 1569, and the same source says it followed the plans of the architect Hajrudin, whom it also credits with the famous bridge at Mostar.

A mosque in Ottoman Pljevlja

When it was built, the town had been under Ottoman rule for a century and was called Taslidža, a name it took in 1465 according to its tourist board. The main street, the Čaršija, still carries the name from that time. The national tourist board presents Pljevlja as a meeting point of Christianity and Islam, and the mosque and the Orthodox Holy Trinity Monastery are, to my mind, the two buildings that tell that story best.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Pljevlja before prices climb.

What you see outside

The minaret is 42 metres tall, and the national tourist board calls it the tallest in the Balkans. The domes were built with marble shipped from Alexandria, according to the local tourist board, and the exterior stonework is carefully carved. Next to the mosque are an ablutions fountain, the šadrvan, and the clock tower, 25 metres tall, which the same source ranks among the largest in the Balkans.

What it keeps inside

Inside, the walls are painted with floral motifs and quotations from the Quran. The mosque holds some of the finest Islamic manuscripts in the area and several old books, and two pieces stand out. One is a 16th-century Quran written in Arabic script and decorated with gilded miniatures, which the national tourist board considers among the finest calligraphy of its time. The other is the carpet, ordered from Egypt around 1573, reinforced with leather and weighing 400 kilos.

If you would rather have a local show you round, book a guided tour in Husein Pasha Mosque and choose by the reviews.

Before you go

Official sources publish no opening hours or prices. It’s a place of worship, so I’d go outside prayer times, dressed to cover shoulders and legs, ask before going in and take my shoes off where indicated. The mosque is in the centre of Pljevlja, whose other great monument is the Holy Trinity Monastery, and from there it’s an easy run on to the Đurđevića Tara Bridge and the rest of northern Montenegro.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Pljevlja before prices climb.