Sarajevo!

6.8.15

The blonde lady with the Opel spoke virtually no English, and we don’t speak Bosnian so it was a quiet journey, until her phone beeped and she was texting while driving. Up until then I was enjoying the journey, taking in the very run down impoverished Eastern Europeanness of it all. The texting continued and I was actually relieved when she said uh oh and steered slowly onto a heaven sent petrol forecourt. The Opel had lost all its acceleration. That was good as I wouldn’t have to worry any more about the oncoming traffic around the bends and be ready to tell her to be careful in my best Bosnian. She turned the engine off and on again, and all was well, or not really, and the texting and driving started again.

It was over 30 minutes from the airport and I was surprised at the size of the city and its one huge out of place ugly glass building towering over everything else.

We pulled up at The Guesthouse Kofrc and were shown to our room by a very pleasant lady, who also spoke no English, made friends with the Alsatian and the cats just at the same moment there was a big clap of thunder and a few rain spots. It was lovely to get away from the intense humidity and heat that we’ve been having in Fethiye, it’s hot, but not humid and nowhere near the same temperature.

Went inside to open my case and my dented suitcase was full of sugar, my sugar container took the brunt of whatever the baggage handlers crushed it with. Yes, I know, taking sugar on holiday is just weird anyway.

John carried the case outside to the patio where the lovely lady and the blonde lady were sitting having a chat. As he did so all my underwear which was in the lid of the case, but not zipped up fell across the patio, bras and pants everywhere, how to make an entrance. I might as well have said hi, My names Linda, and this is all my underwear. They were very polite and pretended not to notice, although I did catch nice lady trying not to laugh.

After emptying everything out and removing all the sugar we were given Bosnian coffee. Similar to Turkish coffee served in tiny cups with a decorative coffee pot, but not as thick and very drinkable. John drank 3 cups and he doesn’t even like coffee.

Time to explore, and we made our way down to the old town, past graves of hundreds and hundreds of people killed in the war 20 years ago. We stopped and looked and a man who was tending graves stopped to talk to us and was telling us some of what happened during those awful years.

The first part of the old town we found was the Turkish area. Seemed very strange but also made us feel very much at home. We found the tourist info office, and got maps, and know how to find the train station to book our ticket to Mostar, and where to find the best shops etc. We stopped for a well earned beer, a bit of wifi catchup and a phone call from Lauren telling me all about week 2 of her new job. 

I had read about Cevap eateries and saw lots of them, so we picked one to try this local delicacy. They’re basically meat shish meatballs and also long sausages, so we asked for a mix. It came with Ramadan style flat bread, finely chopped onions and mustard and was absolutely wonderful, so tasty and very cheap, just under £7 for both of us with ayran and a can of Schweppes bitter lemon, a real treat, haven’t had that for years.

We walked around all of the little lanes of touristy shops, undercover bazaars, hans, cafes, bars, restaurants and many shisha pipe cafes. The atmosphere was so lovely, really buzzy and vibrant. Further on there were some larger sports shops, clothes and furnishings, more cafes, bars, shisha areas, it reminded me a lot of the areas around Istanbuls Istiklal area.

There are many amazing mosques and churches and interesting looking buildings, all on our list to explore.

We decided to walk back along the main road rather than back through the vibrant streets, it was hard to imagine all that was behind the very ordinary buildings. Great excitement then as we spotted Hose supermarket. We love a foreign supermarket, and had a good browse, comparing prices to Turkish stores and made some alcohol purchases. The strangest had to be the malt pineapple beer. Looking forward to trying that tomorrow. Oooooh even  more exciting we found my favourite sponge cloths, 3 different brands to choose from. We can’t find them anywhere in Turkey so bought 2 packs of 5. Doesn’t get much better than that.

First impressions of Sarajevo

• Tragic to see so many gravestones, and apparently many many more cemeteries like the one near where we’re staying
• Very strong Turkish influence, lots of words very similar
• Very few English tourists, menus all in Bosnian
• Very multicultural, pizza, Turkish food, Spanish, Irish bars
• Amazing old buildings 
• Bullet holes everywhere 
• It feels like a country that’s rebuiding itself and so many people are out socialising and making the most of life, they’re not all tourists.
• Most of the busiest places weren’t serving alcohol, people don’t seem to need to be out drinking to be having a good time.

Home to shower, and type up blog. Boiler is making strange noises, and towels are the size of postage stamps, but otherwise life is great.

Really looking forward to tomorrow.