So, Friday afternoon the group that I went to Montenegro with solidified a trip to Sarajevo for this weekend. It was a snap decision to go, and I am so glad that I did. It was such an amazing weekend. We left our hotel at 7:15am. Marco drove us to the Dubrovnik bus station and we got an 8am (2am Indiana time) bus to Sarajevo.
We drove along the coast of Croatia for about an hour or so and then hit the border of Bosnia and Herzegovina (another former Yugoslav country). We passed through Mostar, a beautiful city, which I wish we would have been able to see (maybe on another trip) and arrived in Sarajevo around 2:30pm (8:30am Indiana time). Bosnia is incredibly beautiful. Our road went along a river through the mountains. I hope some of the many pictures I took from the bus turned out because I want to remember the views forever.
When we arrived in Sarajevo, it was definitely a shock. This major city of 400,000 people (it had about a million before the war) had a pretty crappy looking international bus terminal, next to a train station (which also wasn't in great shape). Another shock was the amount of people begging for money right off the bat. Often the parents would sit under a tree and send their children to beg for money from people who got off of the buses. Also, not nearly as many people spoke English as in any of the other places I had been in Europe. It was very obvious that this was not a tourist city like all of the others I had visited so far on my journeys.
It took us a few minutes to get our bearings (and our return tickets for the next day) and find the tram which would take us to the Old Town of Sarajevo, where our hostel was located. It was only about a 10-15 minute tram ride. Once we got to the Old Town area, I felt much more comfortable. It looked so adorable! There were so many little shops with crafts and little restaurants.
It took us a little while but we found our hostel. I had never stayed in a hostel before, so it was a bit of an experience. We were split into two rooms (me, Jeanna and Katie in one, Raymond, Matt and Jody in the other). Each room had three twin beds and a private bathroom. It was pretty comfortable in my opinion, but I did notice strange red spots near my ankles the next day (which thankfully are fading, so I'm hoping they were just bug bites or something). We really didn't spend much time there, just enough to drop off our stuff so we could walk around for a while.
We found a restaurant nearby our hostel and enjoyed a late lunch/early dinner around 4:30pm (for a very reasonable price, by the way). I hadn't eaten since breakfast (except for a little snack on the bus) so I was starving! I had a mixed grill which consisted of beef, pork, veal and chicken. I ate the entire thing...it was pretty tasty. Next, we just wandered around looking at the shops and some of the major buildings in the Old Town (and just outside of it across the Miljacka River).
Some of the major things we saw were the City Hall (which still has boards covering up the windows), St. Anthony's church (a beautiful red church), Atmerydan Park (where there was a small concert going on), Sefardi Temple (a lovely yellow building), the Roman Catholic Cathedral and the Gazi Husrev Bey's Mosque (the most beautiful of the many mosques we saw).
We also saw a few wedding parties going in and out of the various houses of worship. It was really amazing to see the churches and mosques, as well as synagogues, in such close proximity to each other.
After wandering for quite some time, we found the modern shopping district where I bought a few things. We then headed back to the Old Town area and wandered around for a bit there. Then we went back to the hostel, freshened up and headed out to experience the Sarajevo nightlife. We headed back to the shopping district first and found an outdoor bar to sit in.
It was nice to just enjoy the people watching and have a few beverages. I had a bit of a headache so I stuck with Coca-Cola Light (the Diet Coke of Europe), at least initially. I did try a sip of the Sarajevska beer, which tasted like Miller Light to me. Give me an Oijusko any day (one of the major Croatian beers). We also talked about a bunch of stuff. It's been really important for me to get to know all of them and I found out that we have a lot in common.
Next we wandered around again for a while. We went to a bar we saw advertised in the shopping district, called Tabu. It was playing good music and I had an amazing cocktail with Midori and Peach Schnapps but there weren't many people there, so we decided to move on. Jody and Matt headed back to the hostel and Raymond, Jeanna, Katie and I walked around Old Town and found a whole row of bars playing fun music that were packed with people.
We went in one that wasn't too packed and stayed there for a little while. The name of it started with a "B" but I have no idea what the name of it was. It had a map of Bosnia painted on the floor and a saxaphone player who played along with the DJ. It also had an outdoor area. We all loved the fact that the temperature was so cool there in the evening. It felt great and just added to our good moods. We would have stayed at the bar longer, but we decided to head back to our hostel, which was only a couple blocks away, because we had decided to get up pretty early to do more stuff the next day.
The next day, we were woken up by a very loud man right outside of our hostel window at 7:30am. It could have been worse, since we were planning on getting up around then anyway. We planned to go on a tour of a tunnel that had been built during the war by the Bosnians in order to get supplies to the people in Sarajevo when they had been surrounded for 3 years by the Serbian army.
I was the first one ready so I asked our hostel guy to see if he knew where we needed to go. He ended up calling the place and I reserved a private tour for us (for about 14 Euros a piece). We even had some extra time to eat breakfast before the guide picked us up at the hostel. We found a little pastry shop that had some really good stuff for less than $1 a piece. Jeanna stayed back at the hostel because she wasn't a fan of underground stuff and she could check us out of the hostel if we didn't make it back in time.
The Tunnel tour was so great! Our guide picked us up and drove us for about 15-20 minutes to the outskirts of the city (near the airport). On the way he told us about a bunch of the buildings we passed, including "Snipper Alley" where snippers were lined up in hotels overlooking the major street we were driving on. He told us about what some of the buildings had been prior to and during the war. He also told us about some of the ones that had been rebuilt.
We arrived at the Tunnel Museum, a small home in one of the outer neighborhoods near the airport. It had so many holes in the cement from the artillery. The museum hasn't really been funded at all by the government, so it was very small. Our guide gave us a really good description of how the city became surrounded by the Serbian army and how many people were dying in the small area that connected Sarajevo with the rest of Bosnia during the war. So, that's why they decided to build a tunnel under the airport for the army to use for supplies, etc.
We watched a short movie with footage of the fighting in the city and then the building and use of the tunnel. It was about 800 meters long and you had to crouch down to walk in it. Only 20 meters of it was saved after the war ended, the rest of it collapsed (probably because of rebuilding on the airport.
We walked through the part that was saved and then met a woman we had seen in the video. She lived in the house and every day she handed out water to the soldiers coming from the other side. She still lives in the house and posed for a picture with our group. We also saw some pictures in the museum of famous people who had come to the museum, including Richard Gere and Daniel Craig.
After we finished at the museum our guide took us a different way back to our hostel. He took us through East Sarajevo a predominately Serbian area of the city. It was neat because even though they speak the same language as the rest of the people in Sarajevo, all of the signs had different characters. We also went past the mountains used for skiing in the 1984 Winter Olympics (a huge point of pride for the city, even still).
After we got back to the hostel, we got all of our stuff and wandered around the shopping areas in Old Town. I bought a really pretty scarf, two change purses and a necklace for a total of about $16 U.S. I got separated from our group for about 20 minutes, but I found them pretty easily once they came out of the store they were in.
We all walked over to the Latin Bridge, where we had been the day earlier but hadn't realized that's what it actually was. The Latin Bridge is near where Ferdinand and archduchess Sophie, the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne, was assassinated in 1914, which was the reason World War I began. There is a marker on the building where the shooter was.
We did a little more shopping in the Old Town and then headed back to the bus station.
We drove along the coast of Croatia for about an hour or so and then hit the border of Bosnia and Herzegovina (another former Yugoslav country). We passed through Mostar, a beautiful city, which I wish we would have been able to see (maybe on another trip) and arrived in Sarajevo around 2:30pm (8:30am Indiana time). Bosnia is incredibly beautiful. Our road went along a river through the mountains. I hope some of the many pictures I took from the bus turned out because I want to remember the views forever.
When we arrived in Sarajevo, it was definitely a shock. This major city of 400,000 people (it had about a million before the war) had a pretty crappy looking international bus terminal, next to a train station (which also wasn't in great shape). Another shock was the amount of people begging for money right off the bat. Often the parents would sit under a tree and send their children to beg for money from people who got off of the buses. Also, not nearly as many people spoke English as in any of the other places I had been in Europe. It was very obvious that this was not a tourist city like all of the others I had visited so far on my journeys.
It took us a few minutes to get our bearings (and our return tickets for the next day) and find the tram which would take us to the Old Town of Sarajevo, where our hostel was located. It was only about a 10-15 minute tram ride. Once we got to the Old Town area, I felt much more comfortable. It looked so adorable! There were so many little shops with crafts and little restaurants.
It took us a little while but we found our hostel. I had never stayed in a hostel before, so it was a bit of an experience. We were split into two rooms (me, Jeanna and Katie in one, Raymond, Matt and Jody in the other). Each room had three twin beds and a private bathroom. It was pretty comfortable in my opinion, but I did notice strange red spots near my ankles the next day (which thankfully are fading, so I'm hoping they were just bug bites or something). We really didn't spend much time there, just enough to drop off our stuff so we could walk around for a while.
We found a restaurant nearby our hostel and enjoyed a late lunch/early dinner around 4:30pm (for a very reasonable price, by the way). I hadn't eaten since breakfast (except for a little snack on the bus) so I was starving! I had a mixed grill which consisted of beef, pork, veal and chicken. I ate the entire thing...it was pretty tasty. Next, we just wandered around looking at the shops and some of the major buildings in the Old Town (and just outside of it across the Miljacka River).
Some of the major things we saw were the City Hall (which still has boards covering up the windows), St. Anthony's church (a beautiful red church), Atmerydan Park (where there was a small concert going on), Sefardi Temple (a lovely yellow building), the Roman Catholic Cathedral and the Gazi Husrev Bey's Mosque (the most beautiful of the many mosques we saw).
We also saw a few wedding parties going in and out of the various houses of worship. It was really amazing to see the churches and mosques, as well as synagogues, in such close proximity to each other.After wandering for quite some time, we found the modern shopping district where I bought a few things. We then headed back to the Old Town area and wandered around for a bit there. Then we went back to the hostel, freshened up and headed out to experience the Sarajevo nightlife. We headed back to the shopping district first and found an outdoor bar to sit in.
It was nice to just enjoy the people watching and have a few beverages. I had a bit of a headache so I stuck with Coca-Cola Light (the Diet Coke of Europe), at least initially. I did try a sip of the Sarajevska beer, which tasted like Miller Light to me. Give me an Oijusko any day (one of the major Croatian beers). We also talked about a bunch of stuff. It's been really important for me to get to know all of them and I found out that we have a lot in common.
Next we wandered around again for a while. We went to a bar we saw advertised in the shopping district, called Tabu. It was playing good music and I had an amazing cocktail with Midori and Peach Schnapps but there weren't many people there, so we decided to move on. Jody and Matt headed back to the hostel and Raymond, Jeanna, Katie and I walked around Old Town and found a whole row of bars playing fun music that were packed with people.
We went in one that wasn't too packed and stayed there for a little while. The name of it started with a "B" but I have no idea what the name of it was. It had a map of Bosnia painted on the floor and a saxaphone player who played along with the DJ. It also had an outdoor area. We all loved the fact that the temperature was so cool there in the evening. It felt great and just added to our good moods. We would have stayed at the bar longer, but we decided to head back to our hostel, which was only a couple blocks away, because we had decided to get up pretty early to do more stuff the next day.
The next day, we were woken up by a very loud man right outside of our hostel window at 7:30am. It could have been worse, since we were planning on getting up around then anyway. We planned to go on a tour of a tunnel that had been built during the war by the Bosnians in order to get supplies to the people in Sarajevo when they had been surrounded for 3 years by the Serbian army.
I was the first one ready so I asked our hostel guy to see if he knew where we needed to go. He ended up calling the place and I reserved a private tour for us (for about 14 Euros a piece). We even had some extra time to eat breakfast before the guide picked us up at the hostel. We found a little pastry shop that had some really good stuff for less than $1 a piece. Jeanna stayed back at the hostel because she wasn't a fan of underground stuff and she could check us out of the hostel if we didn't make it back in time.
The Tunnel tour was so great! Our guide picked us up and drove us for about 15-20 minutes to the outskirts of the city (near the airport). On the way he told us about a bunch of the buildings we passed, including "Snipper Alley" where snippers were lined up in hotels overlooking the major street we were driving on. He told us about what some of the buildings had been prior to and during the war. He also told us about some of the ones that had been rebuilt.
We arrived at the Tunnel Museum, a small home in one of the outer neighborhoods near the airport. It had so many holes in the cement from the artillery. The museum hasn't really been funded at all by the government, so it was very small. Our guide gave us a really good description of how the city became surrounded by the Serbian army and how many people were dying in the small area that connected Sarajevo with the rest of Bosnia during the war. So, that's why they decided to build a tunnel under the airport for the army to use for supplies, etc.
We watched a short movie with footage of the fighting in the city and then the building and use of the tunnel. It was about 800 meters long and you had to crouch down to walk in it. Only 20 meters of it was saved after the war ended, the rest of it collapsed (probably because of rebuilding on the airport.
We walked through the part that was saved and then met a woman we had seen in the video. She lived in the house and every day she handed out water to the soldiers coming from the other side. She still lives in the house and posed for a picture with our group. We also saw some pictures in the museum of famous people who had come to the museum, including Richard Gere and Daniel Craig.
After we finished at the museum our guide took us a different way back to our hostel. He took us through East Sarajevo a predominately Serbian area of the city. It was neat because even though they speak the same language as the rest of the people in Sarajevo, all of the signs had different characters. We also went past the mountains used for skiing in the 1984 Winter Olympics (a huge point of pride for the city, even still).
After we got back to the hostel, we got all of our stuff and wandered around the shopping areas in Old Town. I bought a really pretty scarf, two change purses and a necklace for a total of about $16 U.S. I got separated from our group for about 20 minutes, but I found them pretty easily once they came out of the store they were in.
We all walked over to the Latin Bridge, where we had been the day earlier but hadn't realized that's what it actually was. The Latin Bridge is near where Ferdinand and archduchess Sophie, the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne, was assassinated in 1914, which was the reason World War I began. There is a marker on the building where the shooter was.
We did a little more shopping in the Old Town and then headed back to the bus station.
We had a quick lunch at a restaurant by the bus station and headed back to Dubrovnik. The bus left at 2:30pm and we arrived in Dubrovnik a little after 9pm (3pm Indiana time). We took another bus to Old Town Dubrovnik for dinner and then got back to our hotel around midnight. I was exhausted from all of the fun adventures (hence getting the blog entry done this evening) but it was well worth it.
1 comment:
Sounds so exciting and I knew you wouldn't be able to go 6 weeks without shopping. Can't wait to see all the pictures.
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