Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Holiday Inn, a haven for journalists during the war

Travel Dates 31st May - 2nd June 2011.
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I have let too many old trips slide into obscurity without recording them. The next few posts will conclude my 2011 trip to Europe and Russia. After that I will add my 2008 trip to Mexico, which was part of the 'round-the-world trip at that time; it follows this past post on Egypt. I hope to add several nostalgia posts on past trips to the USA ('03, '06, '08, '10), Canada '06 and the UK ('03, '06, '08, '11) after that. Possibly I might slip Fiji '05 and New Zealand '06 in the midst of those.

This post follows this earlier report: Mostar to Sarajevo By Train. 

This impressive new building near the railway station was an indicator that the city was rebuilding after the terrible Balkan wars.

 

I took a cab from the station to the hotel I had reserved by internet based on tripadvisor reviews, but decided it was grossly over-priced. I cancelled on arrival (luckily I had not paid in advance) and strolled around the district. I quickly found the ETN hotel for half the price with better facilities. It had one rather strange feature: a full-size automobile lift in the lobby. I did not have a vehicle but it was also used as the passenger lift to higher floors.

 

The hotel was in Safet-Bega Basagica street a hundred metres from a major tram stop on Mula Mustafe Bašeskije street which made access to most of the older section of Sarajevo very simple. I bought a cheap daily tram pass each morning then wandered where the trams went. The district was hilly but not too steep and not far from the river.

Just across from the tram stop was a small shopping square which became a permanent market as I walked deeper into it. 

I was very interested in the history of the war and went looking for the museum dedicated to it. The museum was surprisingly hard to find, partly because none of the locals I asked for directions appeared to know about it, or did not want to discuss it. It is in this nondescript building with no signs on the front. The direction sign in the street sent me off on a walk through a nearby park until I realised the arrow was misleading.

 

I was almost alone in the museum, with occasional visitors arriving but not staying long. I can understand; the pictures and stories are horrifying and depressing but I believe visiting places like this remind us of the folly of war. Every politician should be required to visit this museum, Auschwitz, the many WWI and WWII graveyards in Belgium and France and the many other reminders of past horrors around the world. Maybe then they would be a little less prone to going to war. Yes, I know, a forlorn wish, but if only it could be true. Photographs were not allowed, but as I was alone I sneaked these small samples of the display.

After the museum I walked up the road to the famous Holiday Inn. It still bears some scars from the war.

I had an over-priced beer in the bar for the atmosphere but it slipped by; it was just another beer in just another four-star American-style hotel bar. I headed back downtown to the real Sarajevo.

The daytime and evening café culture was similar to Croatia. I do not know if the majority of the population are independently wealthy or just unemployed but most of them, especially males from teens to middle-aged, filled the cafés, sipping coffee and chatting, almost all day and well into the evening.

I like to take local buses, not knowing where they go, to see a little of the town outside the central and tourist districts. At the end of the line I get off, have a meal and hopefully find a bus heading back to the centre. This lunch was somewhere in the outer suburbs.

 

 

I enjoyed wandering along both sides of the river for long walks. As I walked the pleasant views of the surrounding hills took on a new meaning when occasional scars of battle reminded me that those hills were used as gun emplacements to shell the inhabitants.

 

 

 

 

I tried these delicious snacks as a light lunch. They are similar to our sausage rolls but much lighter in texture. The filling is minced meat and vegetables with some spices in a puff pastry. 

 

This old site reminded me that Bosnia is one of the oldest settled areas in Europe. The thin bricks imply a Roman presence, but I suspect some parts are much older than that.

Down-town is like any other modern European city.

I enjoyed my brief stay, but I found it impossible not to reflect on how easily this region descended into savagery so recently, and how often the Balkan region has been fought over in history. I left feeling sad, as I will never understand why that happens so often in Europe.

Cheers, Alan

Mostar to Sarajevo By Train

Travel Date31st May 2011.
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The journey from Mostar to Sarajevo was brief but with some spectacular scenery. I was there in spring, but it may look even better in winter when the peaks are clad in snow.

I bought my ticket the day before, after I arrived from Dubrovnik by bus. The station was almost deserted and a bit dilapidated. After I discovered the ticket window I bought the ticket without problems, despite the language barrier, by writing the date and destination down. It was cheap but I can't recall the exact price; I paid in BiH marka but it was less than $10 in my money.

The cab to the station from the centre of town was also inexpensive. Being cautious I arrived fairly early and again found the place deserted. I was a bit worried that I might end up on the wrong platform. I need not have worried as I joined the solitary other person waiting. Eventually a few more turned up. 

When the train arrived I found I could choose my own compartment; there was no need to worry about smokers when we each seemed to have a carriage to ourselves. Later, more boarded as we stopped at towns en-route but the train never got crowded and I still had my own compartment when I reached Sarajevo.

The train was elderly and a little grubby, but the seats were reasonably clean and comfortable. I was able to slide the top of the windows down to take photos so the dirty windows were not too much of a problem.

 

We followed the Neretva River upstream from Mostar for the first half of the journey, then other river valleys after we crossed the mountains about half way.

 

For the majority of the trip the scenes from the window ranged from spectacular to picturesque, with the occasional communist-era industrial town and associated high-rise accommodation interrupting the glorious views. I almost forgot the savage history of this idyllic land, but I was forcibly reminded as we reached Sarajevo and saw again the scars of war.

 

 

I recommend this trip to any travellers who enjoy scenic train rides. I enjoyed it just as much as my earlier trips on the Glacier and Bernina Expresses through the Swiss Alps.

 Cheers, Alan

Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Travel Dates 30th-31st May 2011.
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The bus from Dubrovnik to Mostar was cheap and comfortable.

The route went through several border crossings, because Dubrovnik is separated from the rest of Croatia by a narrow extension of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) which gives that country an Adriatic coast. We stopped and showed our passports to the official who boarded the bus as we entered BiH, then again as we re-entered Croatia a few short kilometres later as we followed the coast, then again as we entered BiH on the way up the Neretva River to Mostar. We stopped for refreshments on the BiH side of that crossing. Actually, we stopped so that the driver could have lunch; I suspect it was laid on by the proprietors as thanks for providing a bus full of customers. I didn't mind; I was not in a hurry and it was a pleasant spot by the river. 

The scenery was interesting and varied on the bus ride, becoming increasingly hilly as we approched Mostar.

As we entered the outskirts of the city we were immediately reminded of its sad recent history by the new small graveyards and the many buildings still showing the scars of war.

To understand the terrible wars in the Balkans in the early 1990s some background is necessary. If the history does not interest you, skip to the picture of the bridge.

There have been settlements on the banks of the river Neretva where Mostar now stands since ancient times. Pre-Roman and Roman cemeteries and other ruins have been discovered under the old town by archaeologists. In the 15^th century the town and surrounding district of Bosnia and nearby Balkan states came under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for most of the next four centuries. The Ottomans allowed preservation of Bosnia's identity as an integral province of the Ottoman Empire; a unique arrangement in the Balkan coutries under the Ottomans.

Mostar was at a vital point on the trade routes through the Balkans; the name is derived from Mostari, the bridge-keepers. Wooden bridges crossed the river since ancient times. Suleiman the magnificent ordered the wooden bridge to be replaced by stone in 1566; that bridge became famous as the Stari Most (Old Bridge).

By the 19^th century a significant proportion of the population were Muslims although the majority were Christians of various sects and there was also a significant Jewish population. In the 19^th century Bosnia was absorbed into the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Under both regimes there was a fair degree of tolerance for the different religious groups, but there was still some friction which flared at times and the successive Islamic and Christian bureaucracies entrenched favouritism for their own religions in their eras.

During the early 20^th century, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire faded, the Balkans was a simmering powder-keg of nationalist and religious differences waiting to explode. One consequence was the assassination of the heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian Empire by a Serbian nationalist, an act which effectively lit the fuse for WWI.

Post WWII Tito, with his own version of autocratic communism, welded the various Balkan states into the single entity of Yugoslavia. But it seems only he was able to wield the authority to keep them all from literally killing each other. After the collapse of the USSR and the allied collapse of post-Tito Yugoslavia in the late '80s and early '90s they promptly started doing exactly that. In the confused and terrible conflicts Mostar suffered under two linked but separate extended battles.

In 1992 the Bosnians voted for a state of “of equal citizens and nations of Muslims, Serbs, Croats and others”. Almost immediately Sarajevo came under siege and Bosnian Serbs, who did not agree with that majority vote, formed a paramilitary force aided by Serbian military units which started a campaign of ethnic cleansing. They surrounded Mostar and shelled the city from the overlooking hills during May and June of 1992. 

Over 100,000 were forced from their homes, more than 1600 were killed and many ancient buildings were destroyed. Mosques were a favoured target. But the bridge still stood.

The city appeared to be saved when a Croat-Muslim Federation expelled the Serbian forces in June 1992. Sadly, an internal war, the second Battle of Mostar, was to follow as local Muslims and the Croats went to war. The Bosnian-Croatian Militia (the HVO) took over the more populous west bank of the river and commenced further ethnic cleansing. Many were expelled from their homes. Those who could fled to the east bank but more than 3,000 were killed and more than 10,000 were put in concentration camps. The shelling re-commenced and the bridge became one of the targets; it represented a symbol of hope to the citizens. It finally fell into the river on 9^th November 1993 when hit in a vital spot by a tank shell.

Eventually the war ended and Mostar became part of the new country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. International efforts by the World Bank and UNESCO, supported by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the World Monuments Fund assisted in restoring the bridge using original materials and techniques wherever possible.

I took a cab from the bus terminal to the Motel Kriva cuprija. I eventually found it after I realised the hotel was out of sight down steps from a restaurant which was apparently not part of the hotel. A clean and comfortable double room cost €39. The hotel is in the old town. It is only a short walk from the bridge on the western bank but be aware that everywhere in the hotel is up and down steps; it would not suit a wheelchair or a person with mobility problems.

I spent the afternoon wandering the old town, visiting the bridge museum (which included a movie presentation of the destruction of the bridge) the bazaar and the eastern bank shopping district.

Boys were diving from the bank below the bridge but I must have arrived on the wrong day to see the local youths diving from the bridge. People were using the beach below the bridge for sunning and swimming.

It was beautiful and idyllic. A lovely, peaceful, industrious town. But it was impossible not to recall the history every time I saw a pock-marked wall or a shell crater. This was the wall and roof of a mosque that I noticed while I was drinking coffee in a downtown cafe.

A rivulet, which can be seen in the beach picture, flowed past the hotel and into the main river. This bridge was across from the hotel. 

I have tried many styles of Middle Eastern and East European coffee. I think the Bosnian version is the thickest, strongest version I have come across. I tried several times, but it's not really to my taste. It reminded me of playing in mud puddles as a very young child, when I got a mouthful if I neglected to keep my mouth shut.

I ate the local version of ćevapi for lunch at a riverside restaurant; delicious and low-carb provided I left most of the chips on the plate. I ate it often for lunch in Croatia and BiH.

In one of my previous lives I was a cab-driver; I was intrigued to see this method of meter display in the cab that took me to the train station when I departed to Sarajevo.

Next, the train to Sarajevo.


Cheers, Alan