Sarajevo, Bosnia

Thankfully, I have access to the internet here in Croatia and can begin writing the blog posts for the various cities I'm visiting on my epic adventure. Pictures taken by my beautiful girlfriend Rachel will of course have to wait for another time. Also, I will try to hit the big points of the trip (since so much happens that is worthy of mention) and as such my flow or style of writing may be hindered. So let's go!

Our journey began like any other in that we had problems with the train system. Instead of flying out of Frankfurt-Hahn like we normally do, we flew a different airline and flew out of Köln. Landing in Sarajevo was a little freaky as it's in a valley. A pretty tight valley at that and there were quite a few wind shears shaking the plane around. I am usually ok with pitch and even roll, but when yaw comes into play, that just freaks me out. Needless to say, I'd like to not ever fly to Sarajevo again. Once there though, we pace back and forth outside the airport trying to find the bus that we know would take us directly to our hostel. Instead, we finally give in and pay for a taxi (which turns out to be pretty cheap and quick, i.e. a good choice) and arrive at our hostel.

I should also mention briefly that I am sick and got sick one day before leaving. Fantastic. Anyway, Sarajevo is in a valley surrounded by beautiful mountains and cliffs that are dotted with houses. The signs of the recent wars are still visible. Houses are pock marked with bullet holes and there are depressions and blast patterns still in the streets and sidewalks. Many houses all around the city are still abandoned and we were taken one time into a neighborhood named the Court of Maria which had a large 3 story structure with no floors or roof. Only the walls remained. There were many vivid contrasts, old Eastern Bloc architecture with new constructions all right next to each other. There are a great many mosques. There was one every few hundred meters. Every now and then, depending on where we were, we would hear the calls to prayer. We visited the area where there is a mosque, cathedral, synagogue and orthodox church all within a hundred meters of each other. Really cool.

We hiked up both the north and south 'hills' and visited several of the cemetaries. The view from up these steep mountain sides was breathtaking and imagining how this city was under siege with artillary and snipers all along the mountain tops was moving. The local beer and brewery, which is made with a spring underneath the brewery, was amazing! We went two days in a row and paid, it seems, top dollar for this tasty dark beer. It's funny. We did not know how much English might be spoken here, but the first night we were there, we found the brewery and walked inside. We sat at the bar and Rachel and Jeff hesitated for just a moment when the barman came up so I blurted out the universal word: beer? He came back with "dark or light?" to which we said "dark." Then he said "big or small?" Of course we said "big." So there you go.

On our last night in Sarajevo, we were heading towards the brewery for a third time when Rachel stopped to take a picture of a church which is perhaps 70 meters from the brewery. A young man of our age (28-30) came up and commented on us taking a picture and how this church was one of his favorite spots. He was 'happy' drunk we think and before long we were talking about all manner of things and he was telling us all about his city. It was amazing and I will admit my initial hesitation to following him around but after a while I realized he really loved showing us around. We started on one end of the city, didn't go to the brewery (because he was going to take us somewhere better), and ended up walking through nearly the entirety of downtown and surrounding Sarajevo with this fellow for the next 2 hours. I wish we'd found him sooner, but now if we ever go back, he said he would put us up.

All in all, we enjoyed our trip to Sarajevo immensely. We learned a lot about how to get there and what to do while there. 3 days was a good amount of time and we do hope to go again. Once I have pictures, I will include a link or you can search the labels for Sarajevo.