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My visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina was short, sweet and centred around the town of Mostar - made famous by the destruction of it's beautiful bridge during the breakup of Yugoslavia and it's subsequent rebuilding.
I stayed for two nights in the Muslibegovic House, which is a National Monument, it's been owned by the same family for generations, and they have all the paperwork to prove it - even a planning application to extend the house dating from the 1850's. All the rooms in the house have fantastic wooden ceilings make from slats of wood pieced together to form geometric patterns. It was a real privilege to stay there. The owner couldn't have been more helpful and organised a taxi tour of the local area for me.
The first stop on that tour was Blagaj which is the source of the Buna river which appears in a large pool at the base of a sheer cliff. Right by this is Dervish monastery dating back to the 1500's. The monastery resembles an ordinary house, and had a similar feel to the house I was staying in!
I also made it out to Pocitelj a smallish village set on the slopes of a river valley with a castle-come-look out tower at the top. The climb up was hard but the views were pretty good. Even this village didn't escape the war with it's mosque being deliberately blown up. Just like the bridge in Mostar it's be painstakingly rebuilt.
Another interesting place is Medjugorje where in 1981 six children claim to have seen a apparition of the Virgin Mary - the Catholic church hasn't made a "ruling" on this, but that hasn't stopped many pilgrims heading to the town to see if they can emulate the children.
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