Sarajevo — The road liss traveled

I’d had about enough of hostels and booked myself an airbnb studio in Sarajevo, about halfway between the old town and the bus station. Although I didn’t realize I’d have to walk straight uphill to get there. The downtown area of Sarajevo is only a few blocks wide, which are flat, but it seems like every residential area is somewhere up on a hill from the city center. The airbnb owner was friendly, it was a pretty new place, she made sure I knew how to use the espresso machine and where the closest coffee shops and grocery stores were. On this whole trip, no matter where I stay, I’m always a few blocks away from a grocery store. In Europe it’s basically always this way.

After waiting out the first big rainstorm of the trip, I finally got around to checking out the old town. It’s a pretty interesting city, you first pass through a part of town that looks more European with churches and baroque architecture, as they were controlled by the Hapsburg dynasty from the late 1800’s to WW1, which definitely left it’s mark. Then a few minutes later your feet hit the cobblestones of the old town, which is from the Ottoman era (1400’s to late 1800’s) with lots of mosques and bazaars and domed building typical of the style.

definitely has a different vibe than the Croatian cities

Sebilj Public Fountain, from the Ottoman Era (1753). These are Arab tourists

It is pretty unique that the Jewish synagogue is literally across the street from the central mosque, which is just a few minutes walking from huge Catholic and Old Orthodox cathedrals. Which means that the city has lived with a large degree of religious pluralism for a many centuries. Apparently in Islamic areas they had specific laws for governing Christians and Jews, who had to pay a tax, and were basically 2nd class citizens, but freedom of religion and being able to build synagogues and cathedrals was legally allowed. In Christian controlled parts of Europe, there weren’t any specific laws in place, so treatment of religious minorities varied a bit more from place to place, but was considered to be generally worse.

So even though it’s cliché, it’s certainly true that Sarajevo basically fits the definition of a city where East meets West. After wandering around for a bit I stopped by a place that had some Bosnian style dumplings (every country seems to have their own slightly different style of dumplings), this one was bathed in a thin cream sauce. Plus I added some goulash to go with it. It’s nice being able to try out some different foods without every basic dish costing 15E like in Croatia! And then I was off to a shisha place that had live music. Bosnians love the shisha cafes, they’re always jammed at night. But then again, the bar district a few blocks away in the ‘european’ part of town was also crazy busy. Maybe Bosnians just like to go out!

Over the next two more days I’d be taking it pretty easy. When I travel, cities are mostly to relax and stop in cafes, bars, local spots etc, I really like these canteen style lunch spots where you can just pick and choose whatever you want, and they’re super cheap. I did venture into some of the museums, which you can basically pick which atrocity you want to learn about.

My first stop was to the interesection where the archduke Franz Ferdinand got assassinated in one of the most poorly planned, unlikely to be successful assassination attempts that did somehow work out - pictured above. Next was the photo gallery museum about the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995, where 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were systematically murdered over the course of few weeks and 25,000 women and children displaced. So yeah, a lot of the museums in BiH are not exactly for lightening up the mood. It’s still crazy to think that happened less than 30 years ago. And it was in a NATO protected area. Good work there, NATO.

The other museum was the National Museum, which teneded to favor things like ancient artifacts, Ottoman life, and a huge collections of stuffed dead animals, as well as collections of dead animals in glass formaldehyde jars. So I guess that’s a bit less morbid!

I was hoping to take a day trip to go hiking in Sarajevo, but man, getting out to the wilderness areas is just not easy! You mostly need to have your own transportation, (just like the US I guess). I was just hoping there would be some buses or something, but nope. So what I ended up doing was booking a bus to a nearby city called Konjic, which is a popular outdoor adventure spot for Bosnians, nestled in the mountains. It’s popular for rafting, but from what I’ve seen from Croatia, rafting in summer in the Balkans is like class 2 rapids, tops. So I’ll pass on that.

The first afternoon I was there I did make it out to Josip Broz Tito’s bunker, who ruled Yugoslavia from 1945-1980, and they did everything they could to make sure they were going to survive a nuclear strike! He spent billions on this thing, carved out into the mountains just south of Sarajevo, designed to protect him and (only) of 350 members of his inner circle. So it was a pretty fascinating place. Very functional, but extremely sterile. They certainly did not have any interior decorators. And because it’s Bosnia, there were no buses going there, the place that rented bikes didn’t have any (what?) so walking the 3 miles there and then back would be what I would do. But I’ve gotten used to doing a lot of walking…

So the next day I had a hike in mind that I really wanted to do, which was mostly the reason I was staying in Konjic. But I had to start super early, before the taxis would be out, up at 5am to do the 6 mile walk to the trailhead. Which to be fair was a really nice walk, especially when the sun start rising at about 6am. From there it was a few hours straight uphill, over 5,000 feet or a vertical mile, before I got to the highest point of my hike. I did run into a big Bosnian hiking club, which I was basically stuck behind for a while, so I made friends with a few people with me at the back of the queue, very friendly people! I remember talking to someone about the Bulls, and I said it was definitely a good time to be a Bulls fan in the early 90’s! Which then immediately felt awkward about considering what was going on in Bosnia in the early 90’s.

Those mountains are looking pretty far away

The old stone farmhouses were pretty neat

But anyway the hike was gorgeous, the trail once you made it past the treeline was a loop in a rocky, alpine amphitheater, and was really really suberb hiking. A lot of effort to get up there, but worth it. There was also a hiker’s hut which you could sleep in, that is if you had your own sleeping bag/pad/stove/food etc, and man I really wish I had some more gear instead of doing this monster hiking day. It’s so much nicer to sleep up in the mountains than to do a super long day hike. But I did need to get back by dark, so down I went. For the last 6 miles once I was on the road I stuck my thumb out for the very few cars passing by to try and hitchhike, but nobody stopped. So I was resigned to pump out the last of it on foot, on mostly flat downhill road at least. All in all the day turned out to be over 60,000 steps (new record!), which I think is about 25 or 26 miles maybe? So kinda crazy day. For dinner I order a massive plate of shish kebabs, salad, fries, bread, sauces, large beer, the works. So that would be my last day in Bosnia! Overall it was a country that I really liked!