After a week sailing in Croatia which had been amazing, we were ready to get off the boat. Turns out that Michelle and Gerrad from the boat had also planed their next stop to be Sarajevo, they had hired a car and offered us a lift, rather than us taking a bus. This was a much easier and comfortable method of transport and also gave us the opportunity to stop at Mostar.
From Split we drove East, across the border into Bosnia and Hercegovina. The GPS (fondly named Valerie) was generally quite helpful, only getting us off track a few times. The worst of which was taking us off the freeway onto a ramp that actually ended, the ash felt finished and dropped away to a gravel track, not the best for an overloaded compact model. After about 3 hours we arrived in Mostar, we parked the car in a side street and decided to walk into town.
The reality of the recent conflict was apparent instantly. We had parked in a residential area of ten story apartment blocks. The walls of the building had hundreds of divots in them, ranging from golf ball to baseball sized, which was where an array of bullets and rockets had hit the building. Walking through the peaceful streets we saw the same divots in the pavement, the road and even trees.
The next street we walked along happened to be what used to be the front line. The street was lined, on both sides with building ranging from rubble to newly restored. These included apartment blocks, schools, churches and a hospital. Often you wondered how they could possibly still be standing due to the extent of the damage. As shocking and horrible as the street scene is, it is so interesting, like a living history book. Personally I hope they maintain some buildings in the post war state as a reminder of what occurred. 
We continued on in amazement, it’s like nothing we had ever seen, apart from on TV. Once we found the old town, which had been restored to it’s pre-war condition, we sat down to our first Bosnian meal, mmmmm… meat! We ate Cevapi sausages and steaks in bread and a side of salad for the ladies!
The old town of Mostar has lovely pebble stone streets, but no cars, small stone buildings with small restaurants, art and tourist shops. Mostar is famous for it’s Stari Most or “old bridge” built in Medieval times. It is a very pretty bridge with a point in the
middle that is 21 meters above the river that locals sometimes dive into to impress the tourists. Sadly no divers on our visit. The bridge was completely destroyed in November 1993, after surviving 427 years including both World Wars. Needless to say they have rebuilt it and it looks great. After a quick visit to the old Bridge Museum we headed back to the car and hit the road.
It was 2 hours to Sarajevo and unexpectedly, an unreal drive. The whole country is scattered with ruined buildings, but what we were not expecting is how beautiful the country side is. Similar to Switzerland there are mountains and rock formations that follow rivers and lakes with bright blue water. Except for the shortage of time and the threat of landmines, we would have loved to do some hiking. 
The first couple of hours were a pain in Sarajevo, finding a car park and accommodation (we hadn’t booked anything and most places were full) we did find a hotel so it wasn’t the end of the world. We met back up with Gerrad and Michelle for drinks, a look about town and meat platters for dinner. The next morning, after a big breakfast (inc sausages and fried eggs) after all the plain breakfasts on the boat, we met up with Gerrad and Michelle. We found out the ‘Times of misfortune’ tour was starting in 20 minutes. It cost €25 but was worth every cent.
Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia and Hercegovina and only 15 year ago was a war torn city of rubble. Today it has been 98% restored, looks quite nice, with only a few indicators of war. The tour was in a mini van, seven people in ours, and focuses on the recent siege which lasted 1992-1995. Our guide joined the army when the war began, aged 16. His parents spent their last 500 mark (€250) to buy him a gun so he could join. His uniform was a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He survived the war, just, towards the end he was shot in the chest and stomach and spent 6 months in hospital.
The war began when Bosnia and Hercegovina became independent from Yugoslavia. At the time Bosnia and Hercegovina did not even have an army. The Serbs surrounded the city, which is situated in the valley of a number of mountains and cut off all connections with the outside world. After days of air strikes the UN decided Sarajevo was a no fly zone.
Over the next 4 years, Serb snipers and rockets terrorized the city. Over 10,000 people died, mostly civilians including 2,000 children. They cut power, water and gas to the city and destroyed churches, hospitals, schools basically anything to crush the people. The locals managed to defend the city with the limited resources supplied by the police and local criminals, but were unable to push the Serbs back.
The tour drove us around town, pointing out significant buildings, and the city dotted with grave yards, as people were being shot during funerals so this had to be done under the cover of darkness in places that were formally parks, gardens and even a soccer stadium.
The tour also visited the tunnel museum. To survive the siege the Bosnians realized they needed to acquire aid and weapons independently of the UN. The solution was to dig a 800m tunnel 5m underground. This went from Sarajevo under the UN controlled Airport to another Bosnian held town. From here people could escape through Croatia and more importantly, weapons, food, gas and electricity was bought in.
The siege finally finished after NATO stepped in. The trigger was the massacre of 8000 civilians in a week in Srebrenica, a town that had downed arms with a UN promise of protection. Interestingly it was Bill Clinton who led the push for action to be finally taken, not what he’s remembered for! NATO hit the Serb bunkers with air strikes and within a week there was a peace agreement.
The Bosnian people cannot understand why it took nearly 4 years for the UN and NATO to act. My feeling is that they were nervous about Russia (and possibly other communist states) who were supporting the Serbs. Just my opinion but perhaps they didn’t want to get involved for fear of World War 3.
After the tour we grabbed a quick lunch and then said final thanks and goodbye to Michelle and Gerrad. Sarajevo is also the place where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, causing the start of WWI. At the site of this place is a plaque and a short movie recreating the scene. The afternoon was spent sorting some bus tickets, drinking Bosnian coffee, Christine did some shopping while Damien walked up one of the hills to an old well and fort with views over the city. He was pleasantly surprised to see a model doing a photo shoot in front of the sunset! For dinner we returned to the restaurant from the day before (‘Cevabdzinica Dzenita’ on Prote Bakovica). Our waiter, Jasmin, was happy to see us again and helped us to choose som
e more Bosnian dishes including a soup, a veal meat dish with paprika, tomatoes and champignons. We also ate the meat and vegetable platters again, which seemed a lot larger than the first night. All of this came with bread, and we didn’t finish it all so Jasmin packed it up for our lunch the next day. If your ever in town we HIGHLY recommend the tour and the restaurant. If you get to spend longer than us we would say head for the hills and do some walking, with a guild due to the possibility of landmines and say hi to Jasmin for us!
From Split we drove East, across the border into Bosnia and Hercegovina. The GPS (fondly named Valerie) was generally quite helpful, only getting us off track a few times. The worst of which was taking us off the freeway onto a ramp that actually ended, the ash felt finished and dropped away to a gravel track, not the best for an overloaded compact model. After about 3 hours we arrived in Mostar, we parked the car in a side street and decided to walk into town.
The reality of the recent conflict was apparent instantly. We had parked in a residential area of ten story apartment blocks. The walls of the building had hundreds of divots in them, ranging from golf ball to baseball sized, which was where an array of bullets and rockets had hit the building. Walking through the peaceful streets we saw the same divots in the pavement, the road and even trees.
The next street we walked along happened to be what used to be the front line. The street was lined, on both sides with building ranging from rubble to newly restored. These included apartment blocks, schools, churches and a hospital. Often you wondered how they could possibly still be standing due to the extent of the damage. As shocking and horrible as the street scene is, it is so interesting, like a living history book. Personally I hope they maintain some buildings in the post war state as a reminder of what occurred. 
We continued on in amazement, it’s like nothing we had ever seen, apart from on TV. Once we found the old town, which had been restored to it’s pre-war condition, we sat down to our first Bosnian meal, mmmmm… meat! We ate Cevapi sausages and steaks in bread and a side of salad for the ladies!The old town of Mostar has lovely pebble stone streets, but no cars, small stone buildings with small restaurants, art and tourist shops. Mostar is famous for it’s Stari Most or “old bridge” built in Medieval times. It is a very pretty bridge with a point in the
middle that is 21 meters above the river that locals sometimes dive into to impress the tourists. Sadly no divers on our visit. The bridge was completely destroyed in November 1993, after surviving 427 years including both World Wars. Needless to say they have rebuilt it and it looks great. After a quick visit to the old Bridge Museum we headed back to the car and hit the road.
It was 2 hours to Sarajevo and unexpectedly, an unreal drive. The whole country is scattered with ruined buildings, but what we were not expecting is how beautiful the country side is. Similar to Switzerland there are mountains and rock formations that follow rivers and lakes with bright blue water. Except for the shortage of time and the threat of landmines, we would have loved to do some hiking. The first couple of hours were a pain in Sarajevo, finding a car park and accommodation (we hadn’t booked anything and most places were full) we did find a hotel so it wasn’t the end of the world. We met back up with Gerrad and Michelle for drinks, a look about town and meat platters for dinner. The next morning, after a big breakfast (inc sausages and fried eggs) after all the plain breakfasts on the boat, we met up with Gerrad and Michelle. We found out the ‘Times of misfortune’ tour was starting in 20 minutes. It cost €25 but was worth every cent.
Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia and Hercegovina and only 15 year ago was a war torn city of rubble. Today it has been 98% restored, looks quite nice, with only a few indicators of war. The tour was in a mini van, seven people in ours, and focuses on the recent siege which lasted 1992-1995. Our guide joined the army when the war began, aged 16. His parents spent their last 500 mark (€250) to buy him a gun so he could join. His uniform was a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He survived the war, just, towards the end he was shot in the chest and stomach and spent 6 months in hospital.The war began when Bosnia and Hercegovina became independent from Yugoslavia. At the time Bosnia and Hercegovina did not even have an army. The Serbs surrounded the city, which is situated in the valley of a number of mountains and cut off all connections with the outside world. After days of air strikes the UN decided Sarajevo was a no fly zone.
Over the next 4 years, Serb snipers and rockets terrorized the city. Over 10,000 people died, mostly civilians including 2,000 children. They cut power, water and gas to the city and destroyed churches, hospitals, schools basically anything to crush the people. The locals managed to defend the city with the limited resources supplied by the police and local criminals, but were unable to push the Serbs back.
The tour drove us around town, pointing out significant buildings, and the city dotted with grave yards, as people were being shot during funerals so this had to be done under the cover of darkness in places that were formally parks, gardens and even a soccer stadium.
The tour also visited the tunnel museum. To survive the siege the Bosnians realized they needed to acquire aid and weapons independently of the UN. The solution was to dig a 800m tunnel 5m underground. This went from Sarajevo under the UN controlled Airport to another Bosnian held town. From here people could escape through Croatia and more importantly, weapons, food, gas and electricity was bought in.
The siege finally finished after NATO stepped in. The trigger was the massacre of 8000 civilians in a week in Srebrenica, a town that had downed arms with a UN promise of protection. Interestingly it was Bill Clinton who led the push for action to be finally taken, not what he’s remembered for! NATO hit the Serb bunkers with air strikes and within a week there was a peace agreement.The Bosnian people cannot understand why it took nearly 4 years for the UN and NATO to act. My feeling is that they were nervous about Russia (and possibly other communist states) who were supporting the Serbs. Just my opinion but perhaps they didn’t want to get involved for fear of World War 3.
After the tour we grabbed a quick lunch and then said final thanks and goodbye to Michelle and Gerrad. Sarajevo is also the place where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, causing the start of WWI. At the site of this place is a plaque and a short movie recreating the scene. The afternoon was spent sorting some bus tickets, drinking Bosnian coffee, Christine did some shopping while Damien walked up one of the hills to an old well and fort with views over the city. He was pleasantly surprised to see a model doing a photo shoot in front of the sunset! For dinner we returned to the restaurant from the day before (‘Cevabdzinica Dzenita’ on Prote Bakovica). Our waiter, Jasmin, was happy to see us again and helped us to choose som
e more Bosnian dishes including a soup, a veal meat dish with paprika, tomatoes and champignons. We also ate the meat and vegetable platters again, which seemed a lot larger than the first night. All of this came with bread, and we didn’t finish it all so Jasmin packed it up for our lunch the next day. If your ever in town we HIGHLY recommend the tour and the restaurant. If you get to spend longer than us we would say head for the hills and do some walking, with a guild due to the possibility of landmines and say hi to Jasmin for us!
Your trip sounds like it was amazing! I can't wait to go sailing in Croatia with my girlfriend next summer. We both have never been to Europe or out the country for that matter. Thank you for sharing your story with us Damien and Christine!
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