Sarajevo (the rest)

so long time, no blog. I'm prepping for yet another exciting journey in a few weeks (Krakow, Poland!) so I need to get on the ball with the rest of my summer (and my half-term french travels in May). I had this brief and fleeting thought about how much money I might have if i chose not to travel. It'd probably be a lot. Then again, I might just have more shoes. And then, instead of being just boring, i'd be really boring with good shoes, and no one wants that.

Anyhoo, here's the rest of Sarajevo. I wish we would've stayed longer, possibly cutting out the Belgradian portion of our journey. But as I've left the blogging of the trip far too long, I'm relying on scant journal notes to relive funnier moments of the trip. Seeing as I couldn't find a journal until Belgrade, it's proving rather difficult to remember anything. Maybe I should stop drinking the cough syrup straight from the bottle and stick to the recommended dose.



the entrance to Begova dzamija (Bey's mosque), central Sarajevo's biggest mosque


fortunately i left my machine gun at home




Across the Latin Bridge, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed, sparking the start of WWI


keeping with tradition, Jen and I frequented 'Hacienda Cantina Mexicana' for the most unauthentic margaritas we've ever had. Which is, of course, part of the fun.


in the maze of pedestrianised streets peddling copper wares, smelly foods and tea


more market


Sebilj, a Turkish style fountain in the middle of 'Pigeon Square'. Suffice to say, we did not spend a whole lot of time anywhere near this place

we had a bit more luck with dinner this time and took Lonely Planet's dining recommedations. The vegetable platter was adorned in actual grilled vegetables, but we unfortunately ran into another issue:


i will have to disagree with this opinion, disguised as a fact.

So, other than the people, the place, the spirit, what did i love about Sarajevo? Ya no se. But I did. It felt like somewhere you could sit, be a fly on the wall and come out with three-hundred interesting observations. I loved the mix of religions, though jen and i had differing opinions on the sound of the call to prayer piped through the city five times a day--me: haunting, her: transfixing. Maybe it also had something to do with the eerily similar to British weather we had during our stay in the city. Is it possible to become used to rain, mist and fog?

We ended it all with a 5am taxi ride to the bus station, followed by an eight-hour bus ride snaking our way through the city's crammed cemetaries, monuments and post-war construction then out onto the open road of rocky precipes, deep valleys and blue, blue lakes. To make the experience truly authentic, we had a Bosnian rest stop, complete with toilets that one must strategically suss out before making a move:



Onto Serbia!

Sarajevo (mini history and first glimpses)

Following an eight-hour bus ride from Mostar, Jen and I arrived at a rather rundown bus/train stop on the derelict outskirts of a city that seemed twenty years behind the rest of the world i've known. Shoeless Roma children accosted us for money, and I felt very out of my depth. But we carried on...because at first glimpse, outer Saraevjo is rather sad--The Holiday Inn right next to the station stands as a monument of the war. It forms the outer curtain of something called 'Sniper Alley', where Serbian snipers incited terror upon the city's denizens for the best part of three years. Nearly 10,000 people were killed or went missing during this time.


In its history, the Sarajevo Holiday Inn also became the home for all foreign journalists and war correspondents from 1992-1995. It was the only working hotel in the city.

Similar to Mostar, the remnants of war were very visible--from pockmarked, shelled buildings to the deliberately bombed Bosnian National Library to the Sarajevo Roses.

A Sarajevo rose - the characteristic pattern of a mortar impact on pavement. Whenever a mortar killed more than three people the scar that the mortar shell left of the ground was filled in with red paint. These scars look like roses, thus the name. The main pedestrian shopping street in town was dotted with these up and down the boulevard.

From a less than auspicious start, we were directed to the tram and its tricky ticket system. If you've never made your way into a city blithely unaware of where you're headed or where you might sleep, let me recommend it to you now. The best adventures start here.

Straight off the tram we made friends with a rather dodgy looking local who offered us accomodation in his friend's private home located 15 minutes up a hill and next to one of the city's smaller mosques. Apparently the backpacks, hats and squinty eyes gave us away as tourists. We were greeted with sludgy cups of Bosnian coffee, a man who communicated with us in broken German and his daughter who spoke English. It was all rather confusing, but i'm still alive to tell the tale so nothing went too wrong.

When Jen was here five years ago, she was greeted by UN Peacekeepers guarding this cathedral:

and jobless, war-scarred men drinking tea near the monument dubbed 'Pigeon Square'. So today, despite any inward bitterness, Sarajevo has moved on, picked itself up and become what I imagine it was well before the war. Host of the 1986 Winter Olympics; haven to a thriving cafe culture and tourist industry; my favourite place in the Balkans; home.

more editing to come...


with the increase of altitude, the weather took a dip for the lower and we wore jumpers for the first (and only) time over the course of four weeks






Trg Oslobodenja, where everyone's an expert. I almost got caught in the fray of old, loud, shouty Bosnian men screaming to the players something that i translated in my head as 'don't move that piece, you stupid oaf, he'll put you in check mate in two moves!'

Mostar

Jen helped me kick off my month-long summer travels on the 1st of August when we headed to Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro via Zadar, Croatia. Our ten-day jaunt through the Balkans left very little to be desired; I'm officially in love with the region. Mostly Bosnia and Croatia, but I didn't get too far into Serbia to get a lasting impression.

Upon arrival in Zadar, we got picked up by a rather nice family who opened up their apartment to us for the small price of 120KN (£14, roughly). As is trusting area practise, we found accomodation coming off the airport bus. A rather nice man called Josip asked us if we needed a room, we negotiated the price and then hopped into his 1996 fiat, or something like that. It would never work in London, New York or the likes of the rest of the Western World, but somehow in Croatia, all is well.

After a night in Zadar with its lovely, lovely sea organ and pasta with prawns drenched in butter, we made our way to Mostar, Bosnia. On the map the two places look around roughly three inches away from one another. In real time, the bus journey took us roughly eight hours, including one three-hour stopover in Split, one dodgy rest stop and one change in currency (this proved problematic).

We arrived in Mostar around 10pm, struggled to find a place to sleep and then wandered into the Old Town, which all slants down or up depending on the way you walk. We met/stayed with a Canadian woman travelling solo and struggled to find veggie friendly food before I duked it out with HSBC for 25 minutes (and £72 worth of an international phone bill). In the end, they decided to let me take money out of my bank account, and the trip continued in all its splendour.

I left my heart in Bosnia for so many reasons that I'm not sure if I can quite put it into words. I had no expectations, which was probably part of it. The food definitely wasn't a highlight--i wasn't a fan of piled high cabbage masked as a 'Bosnian Salad' or deep fried vegetables with a side of fries, the highly recommended 'Vegetarian Platter'. But the confluence of eastern and western cultures and the pride and kindness of the people we met took me a long way.

In my naive little mind I still struggle to understand the sometimes cruel reality of human nature. The battle scars of war stood as bleak reminders of this all across the city, and the entire nation. My memory of the Bosnian War is limited to scant news reports and stories told by former students. But still, i guess i thought war happened in a vacuum devoid of regular civilians. I was therefore repeatedly humbled by the persistence of human nature.



on the streets of the old town


The City's biggest mosque and home to a sad graveyard, the resting place of hundreds of men who died during the Bosnian war


inside the Koski Mehmed pasa mosque


pretty view. what you cannot see is the pockmarked, shelled buildings, signs mandating 'no entry' with skull and crossbones and derelict outskirts


The Old Bridge (Stari Most)


up the skirt of the Old Bridge

The Old Bridge is actually not that old. It stood for 427 years, until 9 November 1993, when it was destroyed in the Bosnian War. The rebuild took place in 2004.


The Crooked Bridge (old bridge in miniature)


Bosnian Coffee, a local take on Turkish Coffee, and just as delightful


view of the icily cold Neretva River that locals dive into off the Old Bridge


a small reminder of the region's conflict


better than barbed wire?


residents of one of the oldest Turkish style houses in the city

Apologies, I'm feeling rather uninspired at the moment. More about Bosnia in the next entry.

summer 2010 in review

I arrived back to rain sodden London last night after twenty-six days of travel on the trot. The trip was...well, it just was. Highlights and lowlights forthcoming. I've still got photos from a week in France at half term in June to post, but just so I remember my itinerary was as such:

2 August: Mostar, Bosnia
4 August: Sarajevo, Bosnia
5-6 August: Belgrade, Serbia
7 August: Budva, Montenegro
8-9 August: Kotor, Montenegro
9-11 August: Dubrovnik, Croatia
12-13 August: Korcula, Croatia
14-17 August: Hvar, Croatia
18-19 August: Korcula, Croatia
19-21 August: Madrid, Spain
22-24 August: Barcelona, Spain
25-26 August: Santander, Spain

busy, busy.

Montaigne and the Market

but not together. on our last French night and day, we spent copious amounts of time getting to intimately love french cuisine. Not that it took that much convincing. This included a jaunt down to the local restaurant that had two choices on its chalkboard menu, both of which infused garlic into the seams of every ounce of sauce, included a delightful potage and three massive courses all for the delightful price of 15 euro.

I learned how to decapitate dead prawns soaked in garlic. Believe me, I was doing them a favour.

And then we sauntered back to Michele de Montaigne's chateaux and vineyard to take a look at one of chuck's personal heroes. He was underwhelmed, but I was pretty overwhelmed--my knowledge of chateaux relate back to the Charlie Brown days where Snoopy gets adopted (stolen?) by a French girl and Charlie Brown has to trek across the world to save his beloved beagle, falling in deep smit with Frenchy along the way. There was eerie music and dark lighting--the movie put me off big french houses for years!



these people are so my height

And then suddenly it was time to go back to England, put the sunny weather and funny speakers behind us to get on with the last six weeks of the school year. But since nothing is quite straightforward when we travel, we actually had to propel ourselves eight hours in the Peugot northwards to catch a mega early morning ferry. This involved the market...
with its purchases of cheese
olives
wine
and one very french hat


and several twirls around the roundabouts of greater Renne, Nantes, et al. and a late night encounter with the French equivalent to the Super 8 Motel. They played Scrubs dubbed in French in the lobby; Le Super 8 gained my instant approval.

With only minor stress and a much more comfortable cabin this time, we hit the high seas and napped our way across them. And we may have fit in one more bottle of St. Emilion and a salad nicoise for good measure. But who can blame us?

St. Emilion

On one of our last days in France, we wine stumbled into the stunning town of St Emilion. That sounds more drunk than it was. Chuck drove, didn't drink, Natasha and I sipped and gulped our rose and reds with gusto. The memories are scant, mostly because the trip was so long ago now, but it was way beautiful, beautiful.



I think the day and the trip was so perfect because we just closed our eyes, pointed to the map and went. It involved slightly more planning than that, but not that much more.

old roman city walls, i think






Then we sought the elusive chateaux of Michel de Montaigne, the famous, and long-dead french essayist. This involved another map pointing session, some gesticulated conversations and a hunch on the correct road to follow(not mine). We arrived an hour later.
gallic shrug, chuck just practising the ways of the french

It was closed. But on our last french day, it so wasn't.

Aubterre

Somewhere between days three and five of the great french roadtrip, Chuck, Natasha and I got back in the car to explore the lesser known villages 100km east of Bordeaux. In all reality, we were looking for a french restaurant where Chuck once had this amazing meal. Trouble was, he knew the village started with a C or was it an A? So really, our needle-in-a-haystack-expedition turned into two winding day trips through small villages.

We only almost ran entirely out of petrol once. We only crashed one anglo-french wedding taking place in the front of a beautiful restaurant with beautiful salad nicoises. And in the end we came back with beautiful wine from a bordeaux vineyard, blocks of cheese from the mean cheese lady, one hat and a sunburn. Success.





Fran(c)k the dyslexic butcher located in SW france's dodgiest small town
more ridiculously named villages
driving into the sunset

one more day in the pretty french towns.