Bosnia and Herzegovina: Sarajevo

So if you think that the Sea-to-Sky Highway used to be narrow and windy, think again. The road between Belgrade and Sarajevo would have put it to shame. Our bus covered the distance of approximately 325km in just under 8 hours. The reason for this was twofold: firstly we seemed to be traveling through every small village possible; and secondly, once we crossed into BiH the road was so narrow and eternally S shaped, that there simply was no way to cover the distance any quicker. That last stretch of road was at the bottom of a valley with steep mountains on either side of a narrow one lane road (which in fact was a two lane road). Immediately to our left would be a giant green wall continuing seemingly eternally upwards, on the immediate right was a little mountain river with an equally giant green wall on its other side.

And once again I must admit that I have been taken completely by surprise. Just as I had certain preconceptions about the appearance of the Middle East, I also had a preconceived image in my mind about Sarajevo. This turned out to be completely false. I must say that I don’t think there are many capital cities that could compete with Sarajevo in terms of charm.

The guidebook describes Sarajevo as a cozy, vibrant capital whose humanity, wonderful café scene, attractive contours and East-meets-West ambiance are increasingly making it a favorite summer traveler destination. This description is definitely accurate. The green hills rise out almost from the very center of the city. There are virtually no high-rise buildings, no office center. Instead, the hills are spotted with little white houses with red shingled roofs with an occasional minaret interspersed amongst them. It feels like a cross of an Austrian alpine town with a Muslim accent. Half of the center is in a European Austro-Hungarian style and the other half with more of a Turkish character.

The very recent turbulent history is evident on almost every step. Although many buildings have been rebuild and there are very few completely destroyed buildings left, there is no shortage of shelled walls. In the outskirts of the city nearly all blocks and buildings are dotted with bullet holes and holes from the artillery shells that hit them. Many have patched up sections where bricks were used to fill in the larger holes or to rebuild parts of the walls. Other buildings still contain numerous apartments that remain deserted, burnt out during the war or destroyed to such an extent that there was little to save.

For some further info, please check out the following couple of links. The first is a compilation of documentary footage from the war put together to "Crazy" by Seal. The second is a website with photographs from throughout the war. There are various albums on the website all with amazing shots. The photo that is linked to directly entitled Novo Sarajevo shows the building in which we were hosted. Dario lives, and at time time of the war, lived in the building on the left on the 9th floor.

We spent the day roaming the old town and the many pedestrian streets. However, our sightseeing was primarily contained to a two block radius filled with fanatic cafes and restaurants. We started with a traditional Bosnian lunch comprised of cevapi. From there we walked about 20 meters to another restaurant for some delicious Sarajevsko pivo. Feeling too guilty to simply move over to the seats on our right we decided to walk around the block and came back to a third restaurant for some fantastic Bosnian ice cream. From there we went on to meet up with Dario, our amazing CS host and with him swung by a fruit market where we stocked up on strawberries, bananas and apples only to proceed home and make another trip to a bakery for some bread. At least we made up for it by walking up the 9 flights of stairs.