Bayeux has its tapestry. Pisa has its leaning tower. Mostar had a bridge. It, too, was a thing of beauty — a span to swoon over, visited by 2m tourists a year. They came to marvel at the medieval town and its clear green river, but crossing the 16th-century Stari Most, or Old Bridge, was the highlight — everyone treading carefully over stones worn glassy by the soles of five centuries.

Yet it was more than decorative, or even practical: the bridge at Mostar was a symbol of the unity of Bosnia, the ability of Muslims, Croats and Serbs to share the country in peace.

Then, in 1993, it disappeared — blown to pieces by a Croatian tank in the civil war.

So, when a replica of the bridge was opened on Friday, it wasn’t just portentous ceremonial. The symbolism for the locals, in a country still recovering from the bitterest of wars, hardly needs explanation.

The message to the outside world was just as important. The citizens of Bosnia have come back from the brink; now they would like us to come back and visit.

Their plea was carried to London recently by the High Representative of the UN to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown. He had a tough sell. The horrors of 1991-95 are still the first thing most of us associate with the country. Not surprisingly, the High Rep-cum-tour rep had to fend off questions such as “Is it safe?” (yes); “Does it feel like a battered war zone?” (well, in places); “What about the mines?” (they are there in some areas, but clearly marked); and, oddly, “Why isn’t there a motorway?”

The opening ceremony, after years of meticulous work requiring a budget of £10m, has inevitably led to a flurry of flashback footage and syrupy sound bites on our screens — but will it be enough to tempt anyone into taking a holiday in Bosnia? And if it is, what will they find? Last week, I went to see.

AFTER ARRIVING at the smart new Sarajevo airport, I hail a cab and ask for Kob Bibana, a restaurant that overlooks the city. We speed off up steep lanes, winding through fields as green as England’s, stopping at the bottom of what looks like a little orchard.

“There...” he says. The driver is pointing to a small cabin through the trees.

“You what?” I say.

“Yes,” he smiles. “There.”

Sure enough, at the end of a garden path, I find alfresco trestle tables where groups of people are laughing and drinking. Cat Stevens’s Lady D’Arbanville is playing, and the pine-scented air is suffused with the delicious smell of food being cooked on a wood-burning stove.

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