Sarajevo

Standing outside a service station, 2:00 am, somewhere in Croatia I realised my lastest common phrase…”So sorry, I’m English”. With the Austin Powers accent of course. It usually happens when someone asks me for directions, obviously I don’t look like a tourist despite the obvious tourist backpack with lock!
We left Vienna, our favourite city so far by overnight bus getting between 10-20 minutes of sleep arriving in Sarajevo at 5:30am! Eleanor took out money from the local cash point and instead of giving her a variety of notes it gave her one huge denomination – luckily it was needed to pay for the hostel! I’m writing the first bit of this post from a coffee shop that we’ve taken refuge in until the hostel opens when we can dump our bags to explore!

So what do people do when they’ve got time to burn and have had very little sleep. Climb the Sarajevo hills to see the Yellow Bastion and White Fortress of course. From the pictures below you can see the views were marvellous. Afterwards we went for lunch at a place recommended in the guidebook, Kadi…a 10 inch pizza, shakshuka, fresh onion rings and two fresh lemonades all for £10. As an added bonus it was the server’s birthday so half way through the meal his family sang and presented him with a cake giving two slices to us for pudding! Safe to say we left a large tip.

Time to finally check in and we were shown around our new hostel by the small child of the owner. We were told her English was superb…considering my Bosnian is non-existant we were impressed. She introduced each room with a further excitable “TA-DAHHH!”

Every person we have talked to and met so far in Sarajevo have been so friendly. Tomorrow we’re off on a guided tour and visiting museums relating to the Bosnian war, a period of history Eleanor and I are ashamed to know extremely little about.

Day 2

Let’s be a tourist…with a free tour! We met our tour guide at the Latin bridge…well, the tourist office next to the Latin bridge after the Mexican and German from our hostel informed us we were probably at the wrong place, but saw us in the wrong place presuming we were in the right place when we were actually in the wrong place! Tongue twister!

The tour was great, it was nice wandering the small streets and learning about the history of Sarejevo, from the Ottoman empire, the assasination of Archduke Ferdinand on a Sarajevo street corner to Bosnian coffee making! 

In the afternoon we went to Gallery 11/07/95, a harrowing museum on the Srebrenica massacre. It was a new feeling considering how we were both alive as children when it happened but as adults we had no knowledge of this event occuring. Needless to say I didn’t take many pictures.

It was a day of two halves. Sarajevo is a beautiful city, but after today I can’t help but look at it differently. Tomorrow we will learn about the siege of Sarajevo, go up the cable car to see the bobsleigh from the 1984 Olympics and hopefully walk back to see the sunset over this amazing city.

Day 3

Walking back to the hostel last night we decided to get some money out to cover us for the day. Bosnia and Herzegovina doesn’t do Euros and we couldn’t get any of the local currency in advance! Out comes the 50 mark note not realising there was the tiniest corner missing…this apparently makes the note invalid! So this morning straight to the bank where they very helpfully exchanged it, phew!

Our first activity was the “Museum of crimes against humanity and genocide 1992-1995” which gave a more intimate and personal experience to the atrocities of the Bosnian War detailing personal stories. It also had a detailed section on the Siege of Sarajevo. From knowing absolutely nothing when we arrived we can both leave Sarajevo with a lot more understanding. From our two museum experiences I’m amazed at how much the city has bounced back in such a short space of time. 

Next we were up the cable car to see the 1984 Olympic bobsleigh track! I’ve used the word “stunning” multiple times on this blog when describing high views over cities. But this…it took my breath away. Hopefully the pictures below can convey just how high up we were going and how extroadinary the whole city looked.
The trip up the cable car gave us a chance to get out of the city for a while and have a lovely walk through the forest. My usual impeccable map skills failed me initially in locating the bobsleigh (I miss 4G data) but the walk was worth it. At the bottom of the cable car there was traffic chaos as a wedding party decided to stop traffic and have pictures outside the town house. The amount of horns from other cars (either in celebration, or in my opinion, annoyance) amused me greatly. A lovely meal at Klopa followed before packing for Dubrovnik tomorrow! Goodbye Sarajevo!