Sarajevo, Bosnia

Bosnia- We did not know what to expect.  All we knew is that we were happy to go to meet (and pick up) our friend Ana who lives and works in Sarajevo and whose island in Croatia we have crashed four times now.    I've read about the horrifying 4 year long siege of Sarajevo and have heard of it from our friends who lived through it, but there is something to be said for seeing the streets and the people who call this town their town.  And what I was NOT expecting was for so much beauty and energy to remain.  Driving from Pecs, Hungary to Sarajevo, we passed through part of Croatia and through farming countryside.  GPS disappeared in Bosnia and we navigated based on Ana's directions.  As we crossed the Bosnian border from Croatia we started to see scene after devastating scene of entire villages burned or bombed.  The girls were speechless.  It was shocking and meaningful to see these reminders of such a devastating time strung out along the side of the road.  And the fact that we were able to drive as- safe- tourists through their country is I suppose heartening, but it still moved us to see how quickly and completely war can burn out of control.

We spent one night in Sarajevo with Ana, then stole her to drive towards Hvar, Croatia- spending another night in Mostar, Bosnia.  Some images of our time:

Ana, who I attended St. Andrews with and now works as a consultant for Unicef.

Men watching the show as two opponents move gigantic chess pawns around the square.

View out the window of the 'Spite House' now turned into an absolutely STUNNING tea house.  The story goes that Prior to 1914, the Austro-Hungarians who ruled Sarajevo wanted land in the Sarajevo Old Town district to build a city hall and library.The land had a home on it and, despite offering the owner money, he refused and continued to refuse even when told that he had to move. When the officials threatened him, he moved the house and rebuilt it, piece by piece, on the other side of the Miljacka river, as a way of spiting the officials.

Old Town Muslim cemetery.

Brush fire just outside the city.

Old Town market.

One of the incredibly loud and squeaky teeter-totters in Ana's courtyard.

During the war these now bullet-riddled buildings would have windows blacked out against the snipers in the hills.  Reminders of that time.

Trying the famous Sarajevo specialty: Cevapi (grilled meat with pita & onions with fresh whey).

The eternal flame, which is a memorial to the military and civilian victims of the Second World War in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The memorial was dedicated on 6 April 1946, the first anniversary of the liberation of Sarajevo from the four year long occupation by Nazi Germany and the Independent State of Croatia.

Fish is at the spot where on 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife were shot dead in Sarajevo, by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of six Bosnian Serb assassins. The political objective of the assassination was to break off Austria-Hungary's south-Slav provinces so they could be combined into a Greater Serbia or a Yugoslavia.  This was, of course, the start of WWI.  Go Fish, go!

Images from the History Museum where there is a fantastic Roman & Ottoman collection:

Driving south from Sarajevo towards Mostar:

Stopping for lunch on the river along the way...

The absolutely STUNNING Neretva Valley, park of the Adriatic Sea drainage, which we drove through on the way from Sarajevo to the coast.  Beautiful lakes, rivers, mountains.  Jaw dropping.