The new Pelješac Bridge over the Bay of Mali Ston will save holidaymakers from an exhausting drive through Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Anyone travelling from Zagreb to Dubrovnik is in for a pleasant surprise: the journey time from the Croatian capital to the southern coastal city has been reduced to around four hours, cutting the driving time by a third. The reason for the extended six-hour journey – longer during summer weekends – was the small corner of Bosnia-Herzegovina that juts out into the sea, with travellers heading from one Croatian city to the other forced to cross into another country, namely Bosnia-Herzegovina; added to which is the fact that Bosnia-Herzegovina is not an EU member.
The trip is now much quicker: the new bridge over the Bay of Mali Ston saves travellers a trip along the winding coast road through the Neum Corridor. This week, on Tuesday evening to be precise, the huge new bridge was officially opened, and even if the route to the south still leads through the middle of the city of Ston with the potential for accompanying traffic jams, the journey will still be shorter and more comfortable! And by the next summer season at the latest, the Ston bottleneck will also be eliminated with a bypass.
The bridge was primarily financed by the EU, at a total cost of around 550 million euros, with the contract awarded to a Chinese company, – the China Road and Bridge Corporation – a decision which caused criticism at the EU. Bidders such as the Austrian construction company Strabag were rejected, with the growing influence of China in South Eastern Europe observed with scepticism by EU states. The tourists, however, who are now able to use the bridge, are likely to be far less concerned.
