Don't just top-up your water bottle...

On virtually every street corner here there is a mosque - many of them open and live...

And so the tourists mill around in the courtyard - most tourists are either from the former Yugoslavian states or as far as I can tell from Italy. But my observational rule of thumb is that the Europeans/Italians (presumably mainly Catholic) don't go in... (they like the courtyard 'cause they can top up their water bottle in the cleansing fountain. :-)

So I'm going into these mosques - where it is much cooler :-) but also totally empty. I'm left with a desire to go out and usher the tourists in as the beauty, the art, the architecture is just superb quality, colour and design.

Many of the mosques date from the peak of the Ottoman culture (mid to late 16th century) and are small (communal). But this roundel dome (from Mostar) is not unusual, though at the better end of the beauty scale - but I can't help but think that in terms of the western tourist there is something interesting going on. The Orthodox and Catholic churches and cathedrals are busy with tourists and yet the mosques have only busy courtyards...

A small issue and not the whole picture I'm sure, but in terms of east-meets-west it feels a bit like west meets christianity but only looks on at the muslim traditions... That said, the synagogues were even quieter!