Beautiful Bosnia

Arrived in Sarajevo, Bosnia after probably the worst train ride I have ever taken. Not trying to be dramatic - but let's say it was 13 hours in a car roughly 90 degrees all day, dirty windows with condensation so you couldn't see, toilets that backed up and repeated stops every 30 feet for no reason..... arghhhh ! I gladly overpaid for a hotel so I could shower and watch CNN while I drank gallons of liquids to recover. But I have learned that bad arrivals for me usually turn into great visits, and Sarajevo is no exception.

This is a stunning town - and all the more sad that it is still so war damaged (huh,is that superficial of me, like being sadder when an attractive person dies vs an ugly one... hmmmm). Sarajevo is situated between mountains ranges with a river running through it. Houses run up the side of the hills and overlook the modern downtown as well as the old Turkish town, shown in the pics to the side. Bosnia (as I am sure ALL of you know), is mix of Muslims, Catholics (Croats) and Serbs (Orthodox) people. Sarajevo is in the Muslim area and heavily influenced by the Turkish occupations over the centuries.

A few blocks from my hotel as I walked down the hill, I already saw evidence of the damage of the war. Here are sniper bullet marks still showing.. you see them all over. In 1991, the Bosnian Serbs, with help from the former Yugoslavian army and Slobodan Milosevic, surrounded mostly Muslim Sarajevo, and began a deliberate war of terror on its citizens. The serb commanders told their troops to fire, fire fire and completely break the spirit of the Sarajevans.

It really shook me to see apartment buildings like the one to the left. The walls would be completely pocked by bullet marks.... and you realize looking at this that the Serbs were targeting people in their homes. Not only walking out on the street on Sniper Alley, the main thoroughfare through town, but trying to kill people in their homes. Just trying to live and raise their kids. Pure terror. I hate the Serbs... that is simplistic but I just can't get to a point where I can understand dehumanizing people to this degree without some complicity.

Here is a famous spot - the Latin Bridge. Here, on June 28th, 1914 (yes, my birthday) a Bosnian Serb shot and killed Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria - he was the heir apparent to the Austrio-Hungarian empire, which occupied Bosnia at the time, and the Serb shot him to draw attention to Serbian independence. This local Bosnia incident had a domino effect when aligned countries fell in step.... and thus World War I started. Winston Churchill said, "The Balkans are able to generate more history than they can absorb". This was pointed to this incident but recent events show it continues.

It was about 137 degrees that day - so hot - but this local woman was walking in a coat......

Between hydrating, I shopping in the many little stalls and alleyways. The speciality here is very beautiful and detailed silver work, especially little Turkish coffee sets. Having to live out of a suitcase for 4 months prevented any purchases!

One thing that surprised me is how unbelievably gorgeous the country is. Here is a shot on the way from Sarajevo to Mostar, following a lovely river with spectacular views of the mountains. Bosnia would make a great playground for sporty tourists that like biking, hiking and rafting..... if it weren't for all the land mines that remain off the more beaten tracks.

Last war shot, I swear. A bombed out building in Mostar - only this city was not bombed by the Serbs, but by the Catholic Croats. The Muslims are simply caught between two more nationalistically violent groups. More musings on the war in a later section.

Mostar was another lovely city -again, between mountains, with a river in the middle. The town is divided along Croat and Muslim lines to this day. I spent my time in the Muslim Turkish old town and the bridge. Here is a shot at dusk walking around the Turkish Old town. It was an overwhelming sensory experience - could see so many exotic things and people, smell incense, and hear music of all types. Amazing. Note the minaret of a mosque in the background.

Ahhhhh , the Mostar Bridge at last - see it behind me in the distance. Its called Stari Most - and is 700 years old. The Croats made a symbolically deliberate and militarily pointless decision to destroy it. The people rebuilt the bridge using at much of the original stone as possible after retrieving it from the river, and had a huge ceremony to mark that occasion (thank you Azur for the video).

Its surrounded by several buildings that have been used as prisons or armories over the years.




Young men in town jump from the bridge - yikes!

Sitting at dinner looking at the bridge with the view to the left and below - I was delighted to see fireworks go off on the hill across the way. I kinda have a crush on this bridge -can you tell?









Next up, Medagorie, Bosnia. I met some guys in Sarajevo that were headed to Mostar, so I got a ride with them. They invited me to keep going so I got to see stuff like Medagorie, which I wouldn't have seen otherwise. A very weird place. In 19814, 6 kids saw a vision of the Virgin Mary on the hill above their small town. (hmmmm, does anyone else suspect they had homework to do?). They told people and from there things snowballed and Medagorie has thousands and thousands of Catholic tourists visit each day! Its not sanctioned by the Vatican, but people come anyway. If for no other reason, I appreciated the fact that they had slightly different tourist trinkets here than most places - see below.

Also stopped at a nice waterfall oasis near the border with Croatia.

On to the Croatian coast and Dubrovnik next!