Bosnia & Herzegovina

Today we were up and out early to head to the border. The border crossing timing depends on the guards on duty from day to day. With a coach load of 45, sometimes they decide to see everyone individually, sometimes they accept the pile of passports and scan them. Today it was the latter so only took around 20 minutes for each - going out of Croatia and then at the next border going into B&H. We luckily were in a line of only two coaches, by the time we left the border, there were five behind us.
We pressed on to Medugorje, our first stop and where our overnight hotel was. It's a very strange town, built, like Lourdes, on the story of the miraculous appearance of the Virgin Mary to some children in 1981, some of whom are still alive and living in the area. You can Google if you want to read more. The small village has become a huge pilgrimage centre and is full of pilgrims all year round . It is full of souvenir shops too! We explored it after our trip to Mostar. Extra 2 shows the church of St James the Great, which holds several hundred and it's also the site of an enormous outdoor church. They reckon there were around 5000 at this evening's service at 5. 30pm. There were also multi language confessional sessions going on around the site, in some cases in traditional booths but also in the outdoors with confessor and priest sitting together on chairs. Each confession point (I counted over 50 including the booths) had up to 20 people patiently waiting their turn. The large bronze statue is of the risen Christ. It is a focus for pilgrims too, its lower legs excrete some liquid and pilgrims looking for a cure rub a cloth over the legs of the statue to pick up the moisture and then over the affected areas of their body.
The small grotto is home to one of the illustrations of the Stations of the Cross.
I met a delightful lady from Country Cork who, when she heard we would only be in the town overnight, told me I should stay for a week, it was a wonderful place -she'd been coming for over 40 years. I've also included a picture of a pomegranate tree just because I love to see them.
After dropping off bags at tonight's less exciting hotel, we headed for Mostar. One of the major visiting highlights of the tour. I didn't know what to expect. Mostar was a centre for the fighting in the civil war 1991-95, until then it had been a place where the different ethnicities lived together fairly happily. During the civil war though it was all but destroyed. The iconic bridge in the centre from which young men dive into the freezing river below, was completely destroyed and rebuilt afterwards from the same stones which were rescued from the river. The town is a mixture of tourist spots and restaurants, the streets are paved in fist sized pebbles (apart from the bridge which is of polished limestone slabs) which are most uncomfortable to walk on. I couldn't resist the bling of the Turkish style coffee set in the main blip!
The locals still talk of the war which set neighbour against neighbour and which saw all three factions (Serb, Croat and Bosnian Herzegovinian) fighting here. Over 2000 were killed and 90,000 fled the city. Much has now been rebuilt but there are still bullet and shell damaged buildings all around, many people didn't come back but they don't know whether our not they died or are still alive. They aren't rebuild on the empty rooms though in case the original owners come back and reclaim them. So the ruins remain.
Extra 2 shows some extraordinary souvenirs made of spent shell and bullet cases.
The mural is on the end of a building where the Synagogue used to be, it is still to be rebuilt, the building behind has bullet and mortar damage still visible.
Btw I forgot to put in yesterday's extras so they are there now if you want to go back to look.