From the moment I entered Sarajevo I must admit I felt ashamed for not paying more attention to the Bosnian War. I've never experienced anything like it and doubt I ever will again. Many buildings in Sarajevo are covered with bullet holes or show signs of heavy shelling and bomb explosions. The front line was where the apartment is hence a lot of damage in the area. Over 1.2 million people were displaced, and over a hundred thousand killed.
Since the ending of the war, Bosnia has struggled economically to recover. We briefly passed through this country in 2010 driving only fifty kilometers along the Adriatic Coast whilst crossing through the Croatian borders so we really saw very little.
But Sarajevo is not just about war - it has many other interesting sights to offer. So despite being a wet, cold day we headed off with Ben who showed us the Old Town where Austria meets Turkey. There were some great old buildings and shops. We visited a Mosque, the domed market building selling lots of Turkish wares, the Sarajevo Cathedral, the Eternal Flame (and memorial to communism), Ilidza (a beautiful park which includes a promenade of 3.5 klms of trees planted from 1888) and walked the city in general. It is much, much bigger than I imagined with a population of around half a million.
We then drove to a lookout with a view over the city but the rain clouded our view somewhat. Without Ben we would not of seen or gained the knowledge that we did today so thank you again Ben.
We have been eating like real Bosnians. Last night we had Cevapi - small meat sausages served with onions in pita bread. Today for lunch we went to a buregdzenica and had Burke (meat pie wrapped in filo pastry), zeljanica (spinach and cheese), sirnica (homemade cheese) and krompirusa (diced potatoes with spices).
A great day except for the rain so hopefully it will stop by tomorrow morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment