The story of Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge

For more than four centuries, the Drina has flowed beneath these eleven stone arches. The Grand Vizier Mehmed Paša Sokolović, who held power at the top of the Ottoman Empire under three sultans, commissioned the bridge as a tribute to his native region. The court architect Mimar Sinan designed it, and it was built between 1571 and 1577, where the road linked Bosnia with Constantinople.

It is 179.5 metres long, with arches spanning 11 to 15 metres. Look for the widened middle section, called the kapija or sofa, which soon became a favourite meeting place for people from Višegrad and around. The bridge has survived great floods, the worst in 1896, when the river rose 1.60 metres above it.

Wars were harder: three arches were destroyed in World War I and five damaged in World War II, later restored. Ivo Andrić made it famous in his 1945 novel The Bridge on the Drina, and in 2007 it joined UNESCO's World Heritage List.