Resilient, Beautiful Bosnia
Background (T)
Some people may wonder, “Bosnia? Why Bosnia?” We’ve been asked that. Or some people have simply said “Bosnia. I wouldn’t have guessed Bosnia would be on your itinerary.” We get it. Bosnia survived a brutal war and genocide less than 30 years ago. This fact isn’t hidden when you visit. Honestly, it shouldn’t be. (A VERY simplified recap of what happened can be found here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17632399)
As you walk through the streets of Sarajevo, the tragic realities of the past are evident in the markings of shrapnel bursts pitted in the walls of some buildings scattered around the city. It looks as though there are still literally millions of these markings present today. Other buildings show coverups waiting to be painted, and some look good as new. The 1984 winter Olympics billboard still stands boldly in front of the run-down train station. Blasted with bullets and worn with time, it’s a reminder of what was, both the proud location of the Olympics and the violence that followed less than a decade later, and it’s also a symbol of hope that Bosnia will again globally be widely recognized and accepted for the beautiful country it is.
Bosnia is still rebuilding and recovering, but tourists are warmly welcomed to their country. Trust us, it’s well worth the visit.
So, why was Bosnia on our itinerary?
Well, we lived in St. Louis for two years and St. Louis happens to have the largest Bosnian population in the US. We were fortunate to make a couple of wonderful friends who moved to St. Louis during the war. While working with them and getting to know them, they taught us about their country, their culture, shared some Bosnian food, and even taught us a few phrases (I love learning languages), so Bosnia has been on our list of places to visit for a while. It exceeded expectations.
August 17, 2022 - Sarajevo
We arrived at the airport in the afternoon, where our friend’s cousin was waiting for us. We were driven to the apartment where we’d be staying for the next 4 nights. This apartment had been in the family for a while and was only a 10-minute walk from the old town. On the way, she asked if we were afraid of dogs, to which we happily replied “no”. She informed us a friendly, elderly dog named “Blackie” lived in the garden of the apartments and we were delighted to have a K-9 companion for the week. Soon enough, we were dropped off at the apartment, which quickly proved to be much more comfortable and spacious than the hostel we had just come from in Vienna. Hostels have their charm, but sometimes it’s nice to have your own place.
We settled in and relaxed for a bit, then spent the evening walking around the old town. Our first destination was the Latin Bridge, where World War 1 started after Archduke of Austria, Franz Ferdinand, and his wife Sophie were assassinated right on that bridge.
After visiting the bridge, we walked around for a couple of hours, ate dinner, then returned to the apartment.
There were two things that really stood out to us as we went on our own walking tour of the city. The first thing was that we felt very safe. Many people were walking around before and after dark and they really keep to themselves, even those who are trying to sell something. We were less worried about violent or petty crime in Sarajevo than we have been in other well-known and popular European cities like Paris, Rome, London, Barcelona, or Brussels (G actually saw someone get pickpocketed in Brussels). The other thing was the amount of coexisting diversity. It’s one of the few places we’ve been where there are truly people of different religions and races in such close proximity to each other doing their own thing and that was refreshing to experience.
August 18, 2022 - Sarajevo
Another pro for visiting Bosnia is it’s quite affordable. We decided to go out for breakfast and we went to a place in the old town that had delicious omelets and coffee.
Next on the agenda was to go to the War Childhood Museum, the only museum in the world that focuses exclusively on children’s experiences with war. We believe it’s important to try to understand this tragic and important piece of Bosnia’s past and how it has impacted them. This museum has a very large collection of short stories of people’s memories from the war when they were children along with a visual representation of those memories consisting of personal items that the writers donated. 50 stories/items are displayed at a time. Most of the stories are from the Bosnian War, but they showcase a few stories from other countries as well. When we visited, they had a few stories from Ukraine when Crimea was annexed. We highly recommend visiting this museum. If you go, you’ll likely need to take some tissues that are strategically placed throughout the museum. Here are some of the stories that impacted us.
We needed to decompress after the museum, so we returned to the apartment for a while where we relaxed, planned, and worked on the blog. We liked these buildings and this street near the museum.
Our friend’s cousin gave us contact info for a local guide to take us hiking in the mountains nearby. We contacted him and set up an excursion for the following day. Now, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was getting into, but I knew it involved hiking and walking across a bridge suspended between two cliffs high up in the mountains.
Every summer, Sarajevo hosts a large film festival which is widely recognized around Europe. Its first year was in 1995, the last year of the war, and it’s another shining example of Bosnia’s resilience. From their website https://www.sff.ba/stranica/o-festivalu, “Towards the end of the four-year siege of Sarajevo, with the desire to help rebuild civil society and thus maintain the cosmopolitan spirit of the city, in 1995 the Obala Art Center launched the Sarajevo Film Festival. Two decades later, the Sarajevo Film Festival has grown into an international film festival with a special focus on the region of Southeast Europe (Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo*, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine) thanks to which films, talents and future projects from the region reach the center of attention of the international film public.”
We happened to be there during the film festival (one of our friends gave us the dates in advance) so, of course, we had to watch some films. We decided to watch a couple of documentaries and make the 45-minute walk to the theater. One documentary was about the research into the longevity of the habitants of Stravos and the impact of that research on the residents, called Microbiome, and the other was about the journey of a middle-aged couple in Hungary after they won a lottery, Paying a Visit to Fortuna. We really liked Microbiome. By this time, it was around 9PM and I was very hungry.
We slowly made our way back to the apartment, stopping at a local restaurant for dinner.
August 19, 2022 - Sarajevo and Mt Trebevic
We set out for breakfast, stopping by a bakery and then a local baklava place, where we ended up buying a kilo of baklava and eating it all in 2 days. Not our proudest moment. Worth it though.
Then we ventured to a Bosnian cafe tucked away in a side street. If you visit Bosnia, drinking Bosnian coffee is a must. The barista graciously taught us how to properly drink the coffee. It’s served with sugar cubes, a sweet drink, and a piece of candy (Turkish delight). First, you shallowly scoop the top of the coffee in the pot up and down in the pot a few times to get the grounds to settle, then you pour the coffee. If you want sugar, then you take a sugar cube, dip part of it in the coffee, lick the sugar cube, then drink the coffee. Then you take a drink of the sweet drink and repeat! At the end, you eat the piece of candy.
After we finished our coffee, we took a taxi to the train station to ensure our tickets we purchased online from Sarajevo to Mostar were valid, at the advice of our friend’s cousin. When we arrived at the train station, it felt like we stepped back in time. I provided the confirmation number for our tickets at the information desk, and the lady helping us expertly navigated through their paper filing system. She located our name and number, then opened a long cabinet drawer and sorted through numerous other paper files and tickets to find our tickets. Honestly, G and I were impressed with how efficiently she did this. If you purchase train tickets online, it can be done, but make sure you visit the train station prior to your trip to get your actual ticket. Then, we returned to the apartment where we got ready for our hiking adventure and hung out with Blackie.
Our guide and his brother picked us up right on time and within 30 minutes we were getting out of the car, putting on our harnesses, and starting our hike. Sarajevo is surrounded by mountains and there is great hiking, climbing, camping, and skiing spots all around. We hiked for about 20 minutes up a pretty steep trail until we made it to the climbing portion. G and I have both been outdoor rock climbing before, though G is much more experienced with it than I am.
At first glance, this route didn’t seem scary. It looked like a ladder of horizontal U shape metal attached to the mountain in most places and there was a sturdy cable next to it going all the way up. However, it didn’t take long for me to learn I’m a little scared of this type of climbing because we had to clip our carabiners on the cable as we climbed and sometimes the cable was about 15 feet (5 meters) long before we had to clip in again. So while I knew I wouldn’t die if I fell, I kept thinking about how far I could fall and what all I would hit on the way down and that freaked me out. I don’t think I would’ve been scared if I was being belayed. G was totally fine, of course. I entertained our guide as I invented a stabilizing strategy he had never seen before. Sometimes I would put one foot inside the ladder so I could lean back slightly on that leg. A couple of times our guide chuckled and said “I’ve never seen anyone do that before.” It worked because I managed to keep my balance and grip the entire way up and never fell.
We made it to the bridge which was really cool. This part didn’t make me nervous at all.
After crossing the bridge we had one more short climb up to the very top which had spectacular views. We enjoyed the views for a few minutes, ate a candy bar, packed up our climbing gear, and continued to hike for a ways through woods and a valley until we reached the edge of another side of the mountain that had a little rest area. There was a small building with a kitchen and living room and an observation deck outside. A big derpy dog that looked like Chewbacca, a smaller dog, and a black and white cat lived there. I wish we had taken some photos of them. Near the house was what looked like a life-size yellow toy truck that G was very amused by. We relaxed for a while on the observation deck, pet the cat, threw a ball for the dog, then began our hike back to the car.
The hike down was much easier and it felt like we made it to the car really fast. Part of that may have been because our guides were tall and I had to trail run (a bit of a hyperbole) a few times to catch up to them, especially if I paused to take a photo. When we made it back to the car there was a pleasant surprise waiting for us. Wild Bosnian horses! I walked over to them with one of the guides and got very close to them. They’re tame and friendly. It’s usually safe to pet them and you can feed them but I opted to just observe.
Then we headed over to the car and drove back to Sarajevo. On the way back the sun was beginning to set and a beautiful, warm pastel yellow hue highlighted the city below. We pulled over near Sunnyland, an amusement park on the mountain with a funny-looking rollercoaster that had one little car go at a time. We climbed up on a convenient rock on the side of the road and basked in the yellow light for 10-15 minutes then continued the drive back to Sarajevo.
After our guides dropped us off, we cleaned up then walked to old town in search of their recommendation for burek. It’s like a runza pastry meat pie. Our search was successful, and Nebraska, I’m sorry but burek is better than runzas.
We were tired so after we finished eating we walked back to the apartment and slept soundly for most of the night. It turns out we had timed our adventure well as storms were rolling in. The storm that awoke us around 4am reminded us much of the storms back home which we miss sometimes.
August 20, 2022 - Sarajevo
This day ended up being a relaxing rainy Saturday for us. We had been so very lucky with the weather on our trip thus far. Plus, Europe is in a pretty big drought so we really didn’t mind the rain… for the most part.
In the morning it was just overcast so we returned to the Bosnian cafe we visited the day before. We had a different barista this time who asked us if we knew how to drink Bosnian coffee and to our dismay we didn’t quite remember all the steps. She patiently showed us again. G and I enjoyed a slow morning sipping our coffee. Before we left, we spoke of St Louis and the Bosnians we know and the barista made a point to thank us for not only visiting her coffee shop but for visiting her country. Her generosity gave us the warm and fuzzies and reaffirmed our encounters with other locals were legit. Everyone was so welcoming to us and they really lit up like a Christmas tree at the few Bosnian words and phrases we would use and our desire to learn more. This is fairly common in other countries as well if you make an effort to speak their language, but the happiness on their faces in response to our efforts in Bosnia was much more evident than locals in most other countries we’ve been to.
We walked back to the apartment where we decided to spend the day catching up on the blog because we were pretty far behind. We knew this would take a long time. While I was working on the blog, G walked back into town to pick up some burek for lunch/dinner. On his way back, it began to downpour. According to him, water was shooting up an entire foot from the sewers in the streets. In a matter of minutes, the old town began to flood and G looked like he just finished a swim in the river. Since he was already soaked he decided to just trudge through the trek back to the apartment at the amusement of other bystanders. When the downpour started, I texted him our address just in case he wanted to take a taxi but when he walked through the door I saw he didn’t manage to escape the rain. He quickly dried off and changed. Then we ate and spent the rest of the evening finishing up the Norway post.
August 21, 2022 - Sarajevo to Mostar
It was another rainy day but we didn’t mind. We slept in and relaxed for the morning and early afternoon. We packed up our bags and cleaned the apartment. Our friend’s cousin was kind enough to give us another ride, this time to the train station. On the drive over, we had fun talking about the past few days together. We arrived in plenty of time for our train so we stopped for a coffee in the only cafe in the building. Soon enough our train was there and we were on our way to Mostar.
Across the aisle from us was a group of an American couple and a German and Spanish guy. I was dozing off and on, eavesdropping, and admiring the view out of the window.
We arrived in Mostar around sunset. We walked about 20 minutes from the train station to our hotel which was pretty close to the famous bridge, Stari Most.
We ate dinner and attempted to go to bed early, however, we unlocked a new travel pro-tip. When deciding where you’re going to stay, check a map to see if there are any clubs nearby. It was a Sunday night and a discoteque blared music until about 4am. Fortunately, we brought earplugs, but even they didn’t completely drown out the noise.
August 22, 2022 - Mostar
Our plans to wake up early and walk around failed due to the lack of sleep the night before. Instead, we woke up close to checkout time, quickly packed and drank coffee then checked out. We walked to the best view of the bridge which was surprisingly not crowded. I guess, try going at 11am on a Monday.
Stari Most holds significant history in Bosnia. It was built in the 16th century by the Ottomans. Then it was destroyed during the war in 1993. In the early 2000’s it was rebuilt to look exactly the same and they did a great job. Now, it’s also a popular diving spot. You can watch professional divers jump off of it and if you want to, you can try it as well. The professionals will have you do test jumps off a nearby platform to make sure you have the proper technique. I’m an adrenaline junkie, but we didn’t have much time and there is a risk of injury or death given that the bridge is 79 feet tall (24 meters). Maybe another time!
We walked back to the train station where we waited a little while for our bus at a cafe. We chatted with a couple of young Canadian women who were traveling and also waiting for the bus. When the bus arrived they had stepped away. G and I boarded and were in our seats when we realized the bus was overbooked. The Canadians and a few others were going to have to figure out another means of transportation. I considered giving our seats to them but then I remembered when I was their age (I sound old) I learned some valuable travel lessons due to strikes and unexpected cancelations or overbookings. They were smart, had smartphones, and were at a bus/train station, so I have no doubt they were able to find another bus or take a taxi. When I was in college and traveling alone, my flight was cancelled unexpectedly from Paris to London. I didn’t have a smartphone, so I followed the British accents and found my way to the Eurostar. Seriously though, I hope they made it to Dubrovnik ok.
Bosnia is most definitely on our return to list.