Europe

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A Walking Tour of Sarajevo

This morning, I took Neno’s free walking tour of Sarajevo. This was a really interesting tour as I got all the answers I wanted about Bosnian history. Neno remembers the war of ’92 to ’95 quite well since he was seven to eleven years old at the time and his family spent all 44 months in Sarajevo. But I’m betting ahead of myself.

The tour starts in front of the National Theatre at Susan Sontag Square. I had no trouble finding it even though it was off my map of old town. En route, I passed a few things of interest, like this clothesline. Can you imagine a city or even suburban town in Canada or the US permitting this?! For all we think we are forward thinking, we are incredibly short-sighted.

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The hills on the other side of a river looked like a Hollywood backdrop, they were so beautiful.

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Don’t they?!

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I wish I knew more about these ruins. There is a dearth of signage in Sarajevo, something Neno brought up. Part of the reason is that there are disputes about who should pay for signs.

Sarajevo comes from two Turkish words, Saraj, palace or seat of assembly, and evo, valley. As I said in another post, I find that Sarajevo’s position in a valley is unusual. It definitely limits its growth.

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Here’s the National Theatre:

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I was surprised to see Cyrillic. Neno would later explain to me that there is a part of Sarajevo, where the airport and East bus station are located, that is called Republika Srpska. It is a Serbian part of BiH and almost autonomous (think of Quebec in Canada, an example Neno brought up, not just my interpretation!). They favour the Cyrillic script while the rest of BiH favours the Latin script.

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Neno started with a really comprehensive history of BiH. Surprisingly, it was a much easier narrative to follow than that of Bulgaria! In a nutshell:

The Ottoman Empire ruled here for  500 years, from the end of the 14th century to the end of the 19th century.

Austria-Hungary then came in for 40 years, which is when Sarajevo was modernized. Streets were widened, structures like the National Theatre were built, tram cars came in, street lighting was installed, etc.

After WWI was the first Yugoslavia, which was considered a period of stagnation. The capital was Belgrade and Sarajevo was neglected. There are no examples of Art Deco buildings in Sarajevo like you can see in Belgrade because there was barely any construction during the ’20s and ’30s.

After WWII came the second Yugoslavia, under the dictator Tito. Older Bosnians today think fondly of the ’60s and ’70s, remembering them as being more prosperous times. Tito died in 1980 and things went downhill over the next decade and a half, with the member states of Yugoslavia declaring independence one after the other.

The Siege of Sarajevo, “the longest siege of a capital history in the history of modern warfare” was started by the leadership of Republika Srpska, the Serbs, one of many ethnic groups in the area. They were vanquished by the Bosnians and Croats. The siege lasted 44 months, almost four years.

Neno comes from a mixed marriage, a Bosniak (Muslim) mother and a Serb (Orthodox) father. His father insisted on staying because Sarjevo was his home and, besides, there was no way the war would last more than a week… The family lives in “Communist blocks” about three kilometres from downtown on the eighth floor, so they rode out the war living in the basement of the building with their neighbours. Notice the tense I used at the start of that last sentence. It was not a typo. Neno still lives in the building in which he rode out the Sarajevo Siege.

He promised to tell us about how they got food and water later in the tour, so I will hold off on that, but said that they kept warm and cooked using firewood, essentially cutting down all the trees in their neighbourhood, then moving onto the furniture and books. He went to a makeshift school in the basement and his mother still put on a full face of makeup and nice clothes every day to go to work. Life went on.

Our first stop was one of the “Sarajevo roses.” These are spots where mortar shells hit and which have been preserved by residents who feel that such little memorials are more significant than any statue. Neno poured water on it to make it stand out more. We are right by the National Theatre here. People died here.

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Looking up to the hill where the bombings originated. It’s where the bobsled track from the ’84 Olympics is located. Which reminds me that Neno said that from his experience, people know Sarajevo for the Olympics, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, and the Siege. I was rather ashamed that I did not know about the Olympics!

 

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A very powerful message on this sign…

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This is the older and largest Orthodox church in Sarjevo. It was recently renovated thanks to money that came from Greece (before its economic collapse).

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This statue was a gift from Italy after the war. The man is naked, so there was a lot of fuss made about it, similar to The Victor in Belgrade. Shortly after the statue was installed, someone put red pants on it!

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People play with this massive chess set every day, rain or shine.

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Here is the only synagogue in all of BiH. It was originally built by Sephardic (Spanish) Jews and then Ashkenazi (German) Jews joined it later. BiH has a very small Jewish population, only 700 people, and the synagogue is barely used. The last wedding in it was 60 years ago!

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Next to it is the “ugliest building in Sarajevo,” an unusual piece of Communist architecture dating to the time of the Olympics. It is called the Parrot! Amusingly, rent in this monstrosity is a bit more than in the lovely Austro-Hungarian flats across the river because the view is better on this side.

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Now, we get to the good stuff that made me so happy I took a tour. As it turned out, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia was NOT on the Latin bridge, but right at the corner of what is now the museum and what was then a café. Neno explained how it all went down and I could not help but think of the assassination of JFK.

The Archduke, in an open motorcade,  came down the road in the direction of this museum towards city hall. Members of the Serbian Black Hand group were positioned in two places to assassinate him. The first group left off a hand grenade that injured people, but did not kill the Archduke. The driver sped off and the second group did not get its chance.

The Archduke had his meeting and insisted on canceling lunch so that he could go to the hospital to visit the wounded. However, he forgot to inform the driver of this. So on the way back towards the hospital, the driver started to turn right here at the museum, which, again, was a café… where Black Hand member Gavrilo Princip was despondently pondering the failed coup. The car stopped and the assassin was able to kill the Archduke and his wife, which was the triggering factor for World War I. There is a definite sense of fate/destiny in the tale.

Because Princip was two weeks shy of his 20th birthday, the age of majority, he was only sentenced to 20 years in prison, rather than death as were the ones who made the initial attempt. He died four years later of tuberculosis.

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We then moved on to the oldest mosque in Sarajevo, also recently refurbished, this time with money from Turkey. There are about 200 mosques in Sarajevo and the vast majority of Sarajevans identify as Muslim, although not all are practicing.

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We acquired a mascot on our walk. Can you see the plastic tag on the dog’s ear? This dog is a stray and that tag indicates that s/he was sterilised. The stray dog issue dates from the war and they are dealing with it through sterilisation. This dog was incredibly sweet and just about everyone on the tour adopted it!

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Here’s that oldest mosque again:

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And here is the largest Roman-Catholic church in Sarajevo, with a Franciscan monastery next to it. All are welcome to worship here. Neno identifies as agnostic and says that he comes here on Christmas Eve with his Muslim friends to enjoy the service!

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Across from the church is a beer brewery.

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This beer brewery  was critical during the war as it sits over a large spring of good drinking water. This is where Sarajevans got their water during the war. Food came from the UN, which had a protected landing strip at the airport. Neno said his parents never had to pay for food, but it was very basic and they couldn’t afford anything on the black market. He recalls that some months after the war, his mother traded her gold earrings for the first chocolate he’d had in years and that it was the best chocolate of his life. The lesson he learned there was to appreciate the little things as they can be the most precious.

There is a pub next to the brewery and I will make a point to have a pint there!

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Continuing on, he pointed out buildings that still have shrapnel damage.

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We went on to the oldest Muslim cemetery in the city.

It’s kind of hard to see in this picture, but the slope of that parking lot was enough that I was seriously concerned about that van tipping over!

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This is an ancient Ottoman road that led to Constantinople/Istanbul!

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This is the oldest road in Sarajevo:

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The Muslim graves show the head and feet, with the head pointing towards Mecca.

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Here’s city hall:

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This is the Spite House. Eminent domain of sorts of practised to get the land on which sits the city hall. One owner said that he didn’t just want money, he wanted his house moved brick by brick across the river. It was and is now a restaurant!

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Our tour ended here and Neno gave us a map of eateries to try out in Old Town. I headed off in search of a bathroom and then lunch! A bathroom was surprisingly easy to find and cost 1KM to use. I was going into one of these stalls when the attendant yelled out, “No!” to me and then made a motion of “go around the corner.”

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Where I found this. Personally, I would have preferred to squat and have toilet paper… 🙂

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I found one of Neno’s recommendations for ćevapčići, Bosnia’s answer to the kebapche. I was the only tourist, no one spoke English, and the menu was entirely in Bosnian so I’m going to take his word that this was an authentic eatery! I pointed to the five-piece (kom) ćevapčići and asked for water. Unlike last night, when I got a bottle of water, I was brought tap water here (which was fine!).

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Lunch underwhelmed me even though it was really tasty. I love the bread and the little sausages were actually more flavourful than kebache, but I could have used a little sauce, even if it was just ketchup. It was a cheap filling lunch after a long walk, but not something I’d want to eat regularly. I thought that  maybe I forgot to ask for something to go with the ćevapčići, but as I wandered around after and saw heaps of people eating it, I saw that that wasn’t the case. This is just how you eat it.

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It was a little late in the afternoon for coffee, but I was in the mood. So after wandering around for a bit, I sat down at a cafe and ordered Bosnian coffee with a piece of hazelnut baklava. They had tons of different kinds, from Nutella and other chocolates to all sorts of nuts. I like pistachio the best and that was 2KM, which I was going to pay, then realised I’d never had it with hazelnut, which was only 1KM. So I decided to try something new! Like at lunch, pointing at the menu (which did have English) worked.

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The coffee is simmered in this pot. I know I drank it wrong, but it was really good! I prefer milk to sugar in my coffee, but had the sugar for authenticity’s sake. Be careful as you drink as there is a lot of sludge at the bottom!

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This is just what was in my cup and there was more in the pot. I poured some back into the pot to show on the cup walls how thick the sludge is.

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I had a headache starting at this point and work to do, so I headed home for the afternoon. Now, I’m regretting not getting stuff to make dinner at home as it is pouring and cold outside. I think I’ll go through the pantry here and see if I can cobble something together!

It was a very informative day and I don’t feel nearly as emotionally drained as I would have expected. I’m hoping my tour tomorrow is a go, but I haven’t heard back. I think I will wander down to their office tomorrow morning and see if I can join the tour…

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Being a Vegetarian or Pescatarian in the Balkans

I am not a vegetarian, but I have a few vegetarian and pescatarian readers, including Croft, who have asked if they would be hungry traveling through the Balkans so I thought the question merited a post. Just keep in mind that I haven’t specifically been looking for meat-free options, so these are just general observations based on things I’ve ordered or seen on menus in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

There is a huge difference between the offerings in small towns and those in larger cities, and fish/seafood availability depends on how far you are from a water source. Here are some of the basics you will find just about anywhere:

Salads

First of all, fresh produce here is cheap, excellent, and a matter of local pride. I don’t know what the food situation is like in the winter, but in the summer months and well into the autumn, you won’t have a problem getting a basic salad with tomato, lettuce, sweet peppers, cucumber, onion, oil, vinegar, and local cheese. The vegetarians I met in Bulgaria say they combine different salads and add in cheese and bread for a simple meal when eating out.

Pizza and pasta are ubiquitous and really good. So you can often get plain cheese pizza (or sometimes add olives or other veggies!), both in sit down restaurants and at takeaway spots. If a restaurant has pasta on the menu, there will usually be one with a plain tomato sauce or with a cheese sauce.

Savoury pastries, like the Bulgarian banitsa (flaky pastry filled with crumbly white cheese) are very filling and make a good breakfast. When I was in Nessebar, my “typical Bulgarian breakfast” (according to the menu) should have suited Croft just fine — fried dough (or crêpes) with cheese, jam, coffee, and fresh fruit.

Eggs

They are a major source of protein out here. I don’t eat them, but I’m pretty sure you could get an egg added to just about anything you want.

Bean soup (Bob)

I’ve only seen this in Bulgaria. I don’t know if, like in Mexico, the beans are cooking in animal fat/broth, but if you eat fish, you should be able to handle a little broth. I would imagine salad, bread, and bowl of bob would be a very filling meal.

Larger cities have all of the above, of course, but if you do research, you will find restaurants that specifically offer vegetarian food or with vegetarian options. You will also find fancier salads (I had one in Belgrade that had smoked salmon, capers, and broccoli, and more) and the ubiquitous doner shops usually have falafel on the menu. The Balkan version of Chinese food is pretty common in the larger centres and they have lots of veggie options.

Coastal areas (which include places along rivers, like Zemun, Serbia) have excellent fish and seafood and I’ve seen trout or other fish on the menu further inland, but it tends to be a special of the day. When I was on the Black Sea Coast, you could get many different fish, octopus, squid, shrimps, etc.

I haven’t seen tofu or mock meat here (and I did look for tofu when I was in Sofia because I like it for breakfast, but failed), but have seen ingredients like quinoa on the menu in some places. If you are cooking for yourself, you can find natural food shops all over the large cities with ancient grains and more.

The local food tends to be pretty bland, relying on salt for its flavour, so I’ve had better luck eating the more “international” cuisines. But there’s enough choice that even a strict vegetarian should be able to find something to their liking. If you like pizza, the Balkans will be heaven for you as the pizza here is super inexpensive and crazy good. Pasta has also consistently been a safe bet.

All told, I think that a vegetarian could get a filling meal at any restaurant they walk into. It might not be the most original or tastiest meal of their life, though. But in the summer months, with the tomatoes being as delicious as they are out here, even the basic “shopska salata” is an experience.

Thanks for the question, Croft!

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Finding Dinner in Old Town Sarajevo

Yes, two posts today! 🙂

I headed down the hill around seven in search of dinner. I thought I might be in the mood for sushi, but the day had gone from torrid to frigid and I was no longer in the mood. I wandered into Baščaršija Square and combed its alleys for what felt like an eternity looking for dinner. It was rather like my first night in Sofia, where I had a hard time getting service. It didn’t help that I wasn’t committed to any place I tried. I really didn’t know what I was in the mood for and everything looked “fast foody” and boring, like Serbian and Bulgarian food, or was pizza and pasta. I’m actually getting a little tired of the Balkan pizza diet!

After some time, I was just done and ready to head home to have peanut butter toast as I was getting a hunger headache. As I orientated myself, I passed a little restaurant called “Minder” that had a really cosy decor and menus on the table outside. I picked one up and a second later, a girl came out and, in English, asked if I needed help with the menu. The food list was very similar to a dozen other food lists I’d seen all evening, but she was the first friendly face I’d seen all evening so I said I would eat at her establishment.

The Bosnian-language menu was bigger and more elaborate. I saw from it that they had a large and small “chicken fillets” portion. I knew from seeing enough pictures that the “chicken fillets” were grilled chicken tenders and that appealed to me as I’m just about done with all the overly processed sausagy offerings each country has had. The girl explained that the small portion has salad and the chicken, while the bigger one has salad and rice. I haven’t had rice except at home in Malak Izvor or in sushi in ages so that was very appealing.

My expectations for dinner were really low. So maybe that and my hunger combined played tricks on me, but, DANG. I could not believe how good this was! The chicken was actually marinated to have some flavour. The rice was exactly like Mexican chicken broth rice, which I adore. The salad had cabbage and two kinds of peppers in it, plus cucumber and tomato, and it had a dressing! The bread was chewy and yummy. The only way this would have been better is if the mayo had been sour cream and the ketchup lutenitsa. A very funny case of my not knowing what I was in the mood for and being directed to exactly the right place. With the tip, dinner was only 9KM (7CAD)!!!

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I rather felt like I was in a souk. Well, I guess I was…

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I’m having a hard time resisting all the textiles and especially scarves that I’m seeing!

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It’s been an emotionally difficult first day in Sarajevo and I expect the next few will be just as hard as I join tours and learn more about the history of this city. So I’m putting myself on a light sightseeing schedule, especially since I do have work to do. Now, to see if I can get to bed early. Or maybe I’ll learn to sleep through the muezzin’s call?

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An Afternoon Wandering Around Sarajevo

It was a very late night and I didn’t get to sleep until around midnight. I woke up around 5:45AM to the sound of a muezzin leading the adhan (ezan in BiH), the call to prayer of the Muslims in the city. It was so beautiful!

I listened for a bit and it lulled me back to sleep. I managed to sleep until about nine when the child upstairs woke me up. I checked my emails and there was one from a client who has been very quiet the last few weeks asking if I’d mind “cleaning up” some files that came in late in the day so that they’d have them by their morning. There are advantages to my working during their night!

First, though, I had to figure out breakfast. I had buns from Belgrade and some of my Greek peanut butter from Bulgaria on me, so that was food sorted. Coffee was trickier since there wasn’t a single pot in the apartment!

This is what I ended up using to heat water!

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Here’s a quick tour of the interior of the apartment. I don’t feel comfortable doing the exterior since I didn’t realise last night that this is a private residence (owners or long-term tenants are upstairs). It just feels too invasive.

I love the floor in the entrance and the pink wall, which is also in the living room. Almost the same colour as my dressing room at home!

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From the entrance, you can access the kitchen and then the bathroom on the right, or turn left to go towards the other rooms.

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Here’s the little kitchen. The table there makes it difficult to use the stove and it appears there are two fridges. But it’s functional and clean. There was an American lady living here for three months, so she left behind a lot of food, like pasta, still in the packages, as well as seasonings. So if I want to cook, I’m in better shape than I was in Belgrade, where I had to buy salt. Behind the door is a bank of drawers with utensils in them. Not the best layout, but it would be my dream to have a house with a kitchen like this in its own room with a door that shuts!

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When I saw my driver this morning (I think that he is a tenant of my host) who lives upstairs, I asked about a pot to make hot water. There was a lot of miming involved because he did not understand me. Finally, he said that he got it and that he would put something in the kitchen. He understood! That’s a Turkish coffee pot at the top (what I used to make hot water in Belgrade), and a decent size pot if I want to make pasta. I don’t mind the discolouration, that’s old enamelware for you.

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The pink wall in the hallway.

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The bathroom is pretty good and has tons of storage, but the location of the shower head is really unfortunate. I was unable to avoid spraying the floor last night, so it was a very quick in and out shower!

 

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I am going to ask if I can use this washing machine before I leave!

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Looking down the hallway to the rooms. My bedroom is on the left, the dining/living/spare bedroom/office is at the end.

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The bedroom has too much furniture, but that gives me some surfaces to spread out. 🙂 The bed is terrible, two hard single beds pushed together. It was cold last night, so I added the blue and white duvet, which I found in the armoire in the hallway, and was then comfy.

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And here’s the last room. A table and hard back chair are actually not that great for long typing marathons, but fine for a couple of hours at a time. The futon is terrible. I think comfortable furniture is a Canadian/American concept…

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The far wall of this room is hideous, but I love the bedding on the bunk beds! The two rooms have numbers and keys, so I think that they are sometimes rented separately with shared kitchen and bathroom space.

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Needless to say, this place feel huge to me! I’m not crazy about having the family upstairs since the child cries a lot, but it’s fine for five days. The location isn’t as good as I would have hoped since I’m at the top of a super steep hill and there doesn’t appear to be any restaurants or shops immediately around me. Thankfully, I’m in great shape from all that Bulgarian hiking, so I shouldn’t have a problem going up and down a few times a day. I’ll be going back out later to find dinner.

So I put in about two hours of work this morning and have another two or so to do by the end of tomorrow my time. I was finally about to shut down and think about tourism around one. I did some research about tours and booked a walking tour for tomorrow morning and sent in a couple of requests for half-day driving tours. My first choice was booked solid for the week and I’m waiting for my second choice to get back to me.

Then, I set off to orientate myself and find some lunch. This is the first place I’ve stayed booked through Airbnb that had a map, which was really appreciated!

Here are some Bosnian Marks. The 5KM coin looks like the Canadian toonie! Some of you might recognise the change purse I bought in Mérida (I only showed it off on Facebook). Love it!

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Looking down my street towards Old Town.

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Sarajevo orientation tip: don’t bother using the minarets. They all start to look alike after a while!

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One of many, many cemeteries in Sarajevo.

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When I came home this afternoon, he was awake and very happy to have a bit of a scritch around the ears!

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This is a main street in Sarajevo. Very busy and there are no sidewalks. Thankfully, the traffic is in just one direction. So I can always get home, just not always the most efficient route. Even with the map, it’s really difficult to orientate yourself since there isn’t a ton of signage and all the streets go off in odd directions.

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Coming into the heart of Old Town, Baščaršija Square, Sarajevo’s old bazaar built in the 15th century.

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Like in Belgrade, the pedestrian walk lights are not synchronized to get across a whole boulevard. You have to wait for one green light, cross to a median, then wait for another green light.

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This car decided to park right on the tram line and the tram was only just able to stop in time!

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This is a famous fountain in Sarajevo, Sebilj. There are replicas in Belgrade and St. Louis, MO. It was built in 1753 in a pseudo-Ottoman style. The pigeons took off just after I took this picture and it was like a scene in The Birds. I’m lucky that none of them crapped on me!

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Walking around this square, it is easy to get disorientated as there are so many little alleyways. I wandered randomly, eventually taking out 100KM from an ATM and being rather annoyed that it came as a single 100KM note!

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This little dog is paralysed and is still able to move easily thanks to this contraption. Can you imagine how much his parents love him?

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I found this lovely fruit and vegetable market that reminded me of Mexico.

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Here’s a fish shop. In this part of Sarajevo, the signage is all in Latin letters. Where I landed yesterday, near the airport, there is a lot of Cyrillic. My research tells me that using Latin letters is huge part of Bosnia’s identity as being European, as opposed to being aligned with the East (ie. cutting ties with a Communist past).

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Outside this mosque, I found a restaurant called Two for Tea that had all my comfort foods on the menu, hummus, tabouleh, and falafel!

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I ordered the Moroccan tea. So lovely! I loved the spicy (as in flavourful, not hot) tea with the sweet honey. The little cookie was really good too!

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And lunch! The hummus and tabouleh were spot on and incredibly wonderful. A party for the tastebuds! I was disappointed that like Bulgarian falafel, these were a little flat considering how good the rest of my plate was! I would have preferred pita, of course, but that bread was delicious and I may have had a few bites drizzled with the honey from my tea as a dessert. No, I did not eat that entire basket of bread!

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Lunch was 10.50KM, plus a 2KM tip. So reasonable! I asked the server if he could break my 100 note (I had 15KM left from yesterday, but didn’t want to give up my change if I had to!). He visibly blanched and said, “Euro?” I said, “No, marks!” and he laughed with relief and said it was absolutely not a problem.

I wandered some more and was impressed that Sarajevo does not shy away from its recent bloody history. I didn’t go in. I just wasn’t in the right head space for that yet.

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Standing on the spot on the Latin Bridge where Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated, precipitating the First World War. Talk about feeling the weight of history!

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Couples leave locks on the bridge.

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Another bridge.

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I headed up this pedestrian street towards a cemetery.

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And emerged into a neighbourhood of recently built houses.

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Terminating in a not so recently built house.

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The tour of the cemetery was shattering. So many graves of so many lives that started in the early ’70s and ended in the early to mid-’90s. Such a waste. This was a war that happened in our lifetimes, not in some far off past so that we can pretend we are so much more civilised than our ancestors were.

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There was music coming from a nearby mosque that really added to the ambiance. I’m not ashamed to say that I wept.

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The first line says “from nest to the stars” and the second “wife and daughter.” Fuad is a man’s name (Arabic for heart), so I believe that second line is a signature rather a description of the person buried.

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There was a sort of fortification at the top of the cemetery, with a lot of people heading up there, so I decided to check it out and found an astounding nearly 360 view of Sarajevo.

 

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This is yet another cemetery.

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These are the steps I took to come up to the viewpoint.

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I was ready to head home after this and thought I could use my map to plot a route that would avoid my having to backtrack and go back downhill. That plan failed and, most of the way home, I realised I had to go back down to a shop anyway to get bread and coffee!

I love how the newer houses are built in the old style.

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Old Vratnik Fort entrance.

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These neglected tombstones are across from the cemetery I visited.

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I finished my afternoon by finding a tiny shop where I was able to get the coffee and bread I need. Hopefully the coffee is good! I was disappointed I wasn’t able to find Tchibo in Belgrade.

My first impressions of Sarajevo are that it is really lovely and that the people are kind and welcoming (with many speaking good English!), but that its tragic recent history is still very present. I will have lots more after my walking tour tomorrow! Now, I’m off to find some dinner.

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Belgrade, Serbia, to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (or eight hours on a bus to do 300km)

I actually slept my last night in Serbia. Wow! I got up around 8:00 and had my coffee right away so that it would have time to percolate through me before my eight-hour bus ride. Needless to say, a final coffee off Trg Republike was out of the question! I then dressed and went out to get some vittles for the ride, going to the Maxi behind the National Museum.

It was only about nine when I got in. I finished most of my packing and spent some time enjoying the internet connection before packing my electronics bag and doing a final sweep of the apartment. I headed out around 10:30, with my bus being at 11:30.

I got to the bus station around 10:45, which sounds like I was super early, but I wanted to change some money and also be one of the first on the bus to ensure I’d get a window seat. First, I used the facilities so I could break up a 500RSD note to have some change for the day.

Here’s a woman’s bathroom stall at the Belgrade bus station:

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I knew I would eventually encounter these in my travels, but I hadn’t expected it to be in Belgrade! I had no trouble using it, but it felt incongruous to the modern world around me!

In the privacy of the stall, I sorted out my money, keeping 400 or 500RSD in small notes on me for the day, and then took the rest to one of the many money exchange windows. I asked the lady if she spoke English. She said said no very curtly and then started going through her phone. “Euros, please?” I asked her in Serbian and she blatantly ignored me. Okay, fine. I went to the next window and tried again with “Do you speak English?” Nope. But he didn’t dismiss me, so I said, in Serbian what I was pretty sure was, “Please, from dinar to euro.” The guy’s head whipped up and he quirked a smile. I passed him my bills and he sorted them, handing back a few small notes. “45 euro,” he said in perfect English! That was about what I expected to get, so I said okay, then thank you, in Serbian. He wished me a nice trip… in English.

Like in Nish, you need a ticket to go out to the platforms. Unlike in Nish, the system in Belgrade is more antiquated, so you get a token with your ticket rather than a bar code. I had been holding onto my token for dear life since I bought my ticket yesterday! A a security guard got my suitcase through the turnstile while I dealt with the token.

One of the reasons I made sure I had small notes on me was that I was putting a suitcase under the bus and I had to pay 50RSD for that in Nish. So I was thrown for a loop when the driver said, “Shto dinara.” I repeated what he said because I didn’t understand at first. “Da, shto,” he replied. I thought for a second and then trigged onto the fact that shto is 100! Well, 100 is sto in Bulgarian, but close enough. I pulled out a 100RSD note and said, “Shto?” The driver replied, in perfect English, “That’s it, thank you!”

I climbed on board and got one of the last window seats. The bus was packed.

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Pretty building by the bus station.

The bus station is right by the river, so we were quickly in New Belgrade and before I could blink, we were out in the country.

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I can’t remember why I took this picture!

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This part of Serbia is so flat and there are just cornfields as far as the eye can see. It’s rather like Iowa. 🙂

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We made a few stops along the way and eventually pulled into the bus station at Šabac. I’m not sure where the open seats came from as I was sure we were full, but more people sat down!

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Crossing the Sava yet again.

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Serbia feels more prosperous than does Bulgaria. All the Bulgarian towns and villages I visited looked rather alike, well tended, but only at the bare minimum. They were rather shabby or forlorn. The Serbian houses are in a similar style, but have more ornamentation. There are more flowers and greenery and the pavement is in better condition.

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This doesn’t look up to code…

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Two hours into our eight-hour trip, we pulled into a truck stop for smoke and pee breaks. I was happy about that since there was no bathroom on the bus!

Before long, we were at the Serbian/Bosnian border. Like the Alaska Highway along the Yukon/BC border, we went in and out of Bosnia a few times before getting to the official border crossing.

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First glimpse of Bosnia in the distance.

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Our side of the river was Serbia, the other side was Bosnia.

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A border officer boarded the bus and got our ID cards and passports. They were returned in short order with no stamps, so I figured that was the customs stamp. Sure enough, we moved ahead to another queue and had to give our documents back. The ID cards came back quickly, then the passports, this time with a stamp. And that was it. Welcome to BiH — Bosna i Hercegovina!

My first Bosnian mosque and minaret were right over the border.

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I was startled by how literal the border was in terms of geographic change. We moved into a lush green mountainous region that reminded me of “my” part of Bulgaria, only more prosperous (but less prosperous than Serbia).

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We continued to make stops and pack people on board. Some folks stood for the last three hours to Sarajevo! If there was free wifi and a city sign, I would check Google Maps to track my progress. Here’s Vlasenica, 90KM, or about three hours, from Sarajevo!

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And here’s Sokolac, 43KM and two hours away…

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The slow going was in part because we were doing a milk run and in part because of the super twisty mountain road that the driver took slowly while talking on his cell phone most of the way… The scenery, when I could see it, made up for some of the queasiness!

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One final detour (I forget where, but it was definitely a detour as we went the wrong way for Sarajevo and had to double back)…

 

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And then, Sarajevo, under a cover of darkness. I was stunned to see that the core of the city is in a valley, with buildings climbing up the sides. I stopped counting the number of lit up minarets at six.

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Incredibly, the bus had to climb even higher to get to the bus station. By this point, I was sure I was going to die on that bus and that we were never going to get there. But that said, I’m someone who enjoys the journey, especially when it’s new, and the day had really gone by very fast. I was just ready to land.

We’d had a lot of moments during the day when we could get off for a leg stretch or a pee, so when everyone seemed ready to get off at a stop, I was rather in disbelief that we’d arrived. “Istočno?” I asked my seat mate. She smiled and said, “Yes!” We had arrived!!!

My transfer was supposed to pick me up at 7:30 and we were a little early. I thought I might have time to get some food (I’d eaten snacks just before and after the border crossing, but was too queasy to do so again after), but, nope. There was a guy on the platform holding up a huge sign that said “MRS. REA.” I was pretty sure that was me, LOL!

It was indeed my transfer, Dennis, and he was super friendly. His English isn’t that good, but he did his best to point things out and engage in conversation. The traffic was unbelievable and the ride to old town took ages. I’m sure a taxi ride would have cost me a lot more than the 10 euro I was expected to pay him and was so happy I’d gone with the transfer.

I mentioned that I needed food and he offered to stop en route, but I said that if there was something close by that I could walk to, I preferred to get home and go out again. So as we came into old town, he pointed to what appeared to be a pedestrian street and said that that’s where I should go for dinner and that it was a straight shot down from the house (I didn’t realise just how literally he meant down — I should never have complained about the hill in Maluk Izvor!). Oh, and he did ask me what I wanted specifically, so he could send me straight there, but I said I’m not picky and would take whatever I found!

We got in and he explained a few things about the house to me. I passed him 20 euro for the ride and he gave me 20KM in change, telling me that anything I read about being able to use the euro might apply in downtown Sarajevo, but not in old town, so I better get some marks. I’ll hit an ATM tomorrow. The KM will actually be easier for me than the euro as they are roughly equal to BGN, so I’m used to the conversion rate. Then, I was left to settle in.

The apartment feels really huge (I’ll post pictures tomorrow) since it has a kitchen with a door, a bathroom, an L-shaped hallway, a bedroom, and a living/dining/second bedroom! Unlike other places I’ve stayed, this one isn’t bare and has had long-term tenants, so there is a lot of stuff lying around and I’ll have to be careful not spread out too much lest I forget something. The kitchen and bathroom aren’t as clean as I would have liked, but, really, it’s fine and I should be comfortable here for a week once I sort myself out.

I hiked down to the pedestrian street and look forward to going again when I’m not so knackered and famished as it’s a really interesting place! I heard a lot of Arabic and my headscarf was not out of place. I really didn’t want to overthink dinner so I went to the first place I saw the locals queuing up and ended up with a huge lamb donair sandwich for 2KM (about 1.50CAD). It was surprisingly bland (I’m glad I accepted the spicy stuff they offered), but hit the spot, offering a good balance of bread, light meat, and lots of veggies.

To get to the house, I have to open the pedestrian door to a garage, cross the garage, open another door, and cross a yard. Coming up my street, I realised with a sinking feeling that I hadn’t made note of any landmarks around my garage entrance. It was dark-coloured, but so were a lot of other doors. Just as I was ready to double back, sure that I’d missed it, I saw it! I was glad to get in as it was getting cold (the house is actually rather cold right now and I hope I’ll be comfortable tonight).

I cannot believe that I’m in Sarajevo!

Or that it takes eight hours to go from Belgrade to Sarajevo on a bus…