The Gomionica is a Serbian Orthodox monastery dedicated to the Presentation of Mary and located at the village of Kmećani, 42 kilometres west of Banja Luka, in the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The monastery is the spiritual centre of the region known as Zmijanje.
It was founded before 1536, though the exact date of its foundation is unknown. It was referred to as Zalužje in 16th-century sources, while its current name comes from a nearby river. In the second half of the 16th century, the abbot of the monastery was credited by the Ottomans for the peaceful attitude of the population of a wide area around Gomionica.
The monastery may have been abandoned, at least partially, at the end of the 17th century (after the Great Turkish War), and during the 1730s. The church was refurbished several times during the 18th and 19th centuries. Writer Petar Kočić attended the elementary school organised at the monastery. It was badly damaged during World War II, and its abbot, Serafim Štrkić, was murdered in 1941 by the Nazi-affiliated Croatian Ustaše.
After the war, Gomionica became a female monastery. In 1953, it was designated as a cultural monument of Yugoslavia, and in 2006, it was proclaimed a National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The treasury of Gomionica contains icons created in the 16th to 19th centuries, as well as manuscripts and printed books created in the 14th to 17th centuries. A silver-gilt cross formerly owned by the monastery, made in 1640, is now in the collection of the University of London, which acquired it from the private collection of Thomas Gambier Parry.
References:Manarola is a small town, a frazione of the comune of Riomaggiore. It is the second-smallest of the famous Cinque Terre towns frequented by tourists, with a population of 353.
Manarola may be the oldest of the towns in the Cinque Terre, with the cornerstone of the church, San Lorenzo, dating from 1338. The local dialect is Manarolese, which is marginally different from the dialects in the nearby area. The name 'Manarola' is probably a dialectical evolution of the Latin, 'magna rota'. In the Manarolese dialect this was changed to 'magna roea' which means 'large wheel', in reference to the mill wheel in the town.
Manarola's primary industries have traditionally been fishing and wine-making. The local wine, called Sciacchetrà, is especially renowned; references from Roman writings mention the high quality of the wine produced in the region.