leave gap before and after \hrule

Question

I'm using \hrule to draw a line that has the width of the text.

Is there a safe way to leave a gap before and after the line?

The plain code is:

blablabla
\hrule
blabla

And produces:

Coming closer to what I need is:

blablabla \\
\hrule
blabla

Which produces:

And, of course, I get error messages when I try:

blablabla \\
\hrule
\\ blabla

Answer 1

Try to avoid using \\ just end the paragraph and add space:

aaaaa

\vspace{1cm}
\hrule
\vspace{1cm}

aaaaaaa

If you want a spaced out line.