Bosnia and Herzegovina has made considerable progress in improving its infrastructure since the war
which ended at the end of 1995 and hotels are available
in Sarajevo and in other major towns.
Bosnia
and Herzegovina has long been the crossroads of many
civilizations and cultures. It is these centuries of
culturally diversity that has melted it into one of the
most fascinating, interesting, and beautiful countries
in Europe.People are mostly all of Slavic origin with
small numbers of Roma, Albanian plus other mixed
communities further enhancing the\is magical mix of many
cultures, races, and nations. Bosnia and Herzegovina has
luckily succeeded in preserving many of its most
precious natural and cultural heritage's in their
original form. Some of these gems of unique beauty, such
as the Una River and its magical waterfalls, the wild
canyon of the upper Neretva, or the pristine beauty of
the River Sutjeska that flows through the oldest
National Park in the country, even meet the criteria of
world natural heritage sites.
Bosnia
& Herzegovina’s religious heritage - In few places has
history created such an unusual society tying centuries
long contacts of different peoples,cultures, religions,
and customs together. In the Illyrian-classical, pre
Slavic period, the cults of the East, Roman Pantheon and
young Christianity met in a very creative way. Elements
of East and West met here and intertwined. There was
Catholicism and Orthodoxy versus the Bosnian Church; the
Cyrillic, Latin, and Glagolithic writing versus the
Bosnian Cyrillic writing (Bosancica). Byzantium Serbian
fine arts, western European Romanesque and Gothicism
brought by the Croatian coastal practice versus the
native artistic traditions like the hand-carved
tombstones that line the countryside (stecak). A
completely new spiritual and cultural framework was
created. In a small territory and among a small number
of inhabitants, all speaking the same language and all
of similar Slavic origin, the three great Mediterranean
civilizations met: Western European in the form of
Catholicism, Byzantine in the form of Orthodoxy, and
Islam in the form of the Ottoman State. When the Jews
were banished from Spain and Portugal at the end of the
15th century, the Ottomans offered them asylum and a
fourth cultural component was introduced to Bosnia and
Herzegovina. The country’s religious traditions are
testament to a rich cultural, religious and historical
heritage. It is here that you will find the mystical and
quaint Orthodox monasteries in pristine natural
surroundings, the Franciscan monks serving their
communities in the same fashion as their medieval
predecessors, the beautiful Ottoman style mosques and
minarets that dot the skyline, and the small but
significant influence of the Jewish settlers and their
ancient trades. And Medjugorje, the religious shrine near the southern border with Croatia,
still draws thousands of pilgrims a year.