October 19, 2016 by Rae

Getting Orientated in Barcelona

I don’t know if it’s residual jet lag despite my having been in Europe four months, but I tend to wake up about five hours after going to sleep, read a bit, and then manage to sleep for another two to three hours. I went to sleep around 2AM this morning and when I groggily woke up some time later, I thought there was no way it would be 7:00. It was 7:30! I couldn’t believe how dark my room was. I heard my host get up at some point, but managed to get back to sleep until about 10:00, when things got really loud in the building. Not a great night, but not terrible either.

Since I had no food with me and hadn’t eaten since my sandwich last night, that was my first priority. I pulled up directions on my phone to the nearest tourist info centre so I could get a paper map and headed out.

I’ve chosen to approach Barcelona rather like I did London. I never thought I’d get here and there isn’t anything I feel I must do. Moreover, I am not on a vacation budget and having spoiled myself rotten in the last four months in the affordable Balkans, it doesn’t feel like a punishment to do Barcelona on a shoestring. So I’m happy with spending my free time ambling around and seeing what I come across. I will take a free walking tour tomorrow, though.

This church is on my street.

I’d done my research on mealtimes in Barcelona and knew that I wouldn’t do better than a coffee and pastry for breakfast at 11AM. So I popped into the first café I found (at the end of my street). Prices were terrifying, but it is what it is. A normal coffee was a small mugful and had milk in it, a pleasant surprise on both counts.

I made my way to Plaça de Catalunya, an important square in downtown Barcelona on the edge of the old city. I knew I would find there not just the tourist info centre, but also a SIM card for my phone. I’ve been doing without phone service since I arrived in Sarajevo, not having been in any one country long enough to make it worth getting one, and I’ve really missed it. Since I will be in Spain at least two months, it was worth getting one here.

Here is a fountain in Catalonia Square:

And one of the many buildings around it.

There was a huge lineup at the tourist info centre, which is underground, so I just grabbed a free map and went back above ground to Movistar’s Mobile World Centre store in the hope of getting a SIM card. The set up was similar to a Telcel store in Mexico, where you go to an info desk to say what you want and are assigned a number and a queue based on your enquiry. This first attendant asked me if I had my passport as, like in Bulgaria, your SIM has to be registered. It was then a longish wait to be told they were out of rechargeable mobile SIMs. Since the attendant got snappy with me when I asked her at one point to please slow down, I was glad to have an excuse not to give Movistar my business. But the attendant did redeem herself a bit when she said that the El Cortes Inglés department store next door has a telecom section on the seventh floor, but she had no info beyond that.

I went into the fancy schmancy store and up seven very slow escalators to find a whole floor devoted to telecom with counters by different companies. I’d done some preliminary research and knew that everyone has comparable prices and coverage. So when an attendant from Vodafone asked if she could help me, that was that. For 21 euro, I got a rechargeable SIM with 2GB good for one month, 100 minutes anywhere in Spain, and I think unlimited text messaging. I asked if I could get an Almería number and she said that the numbers are good for all of Spain. She registered the SIM using my passport info and then did her thing to put the SIM in and get it set up. The process was much quicker than it is in Mexico and comparable to what I experienced in the Balkans.

Phone sorted, I headed to the Gothic Quarter, the old part of Barcelona.

I wasn’t really “feeling” how touristy and full of expensive shops the area was so I started to duck into narrow alleys to get a tiny bit off the tourist track.

But it was hard to get lost. 🙂

I LOVE Gothic architecture. I’ve seen some gorgeous churches in the Balkans, but there’s just something about Gothic design that makes my heart skip a beat.

I’m not sure how I managed to fill three whole hours from leaving home, but I did! 2PM is the start of lunch hour here and I knew to look for a “menú del día,” a three-course menu for a set price, usually around 10 euro. I’d seen a few menus by the time I was ready to eat and had gotten an idea of what to expect. So I just went into the first restaurant I saw that had a menu with things that sounded good and that would be good value, that had no English on the menu, and that didn’t have tourists!

For my first course, I went with Greek salad. I wasn’t expecting just tomatoes and cheese, but it was very good and the included bread was perfect for mopping up the dressing. Yes, that’s a beer behind my plate, included in my 10 Euro cost! I got the beer because it was more monetary value than a soft drink and, well, you know me and beer. 🙂

My second course wasn’t worth a photo, just soggy frozen fries with a very generous portion of moist grilled chicken breasts without any sauce or seasonings. Like in the Balkans, there was oil and vinegar on the table, so I used the vinegar (balsamic) to spice up my meal a bit and make the fries nicer. The chicken really hit the spot!

There were a lot of options for dessert, including cake and fresh fruit. The waiter and I shared a laugh when, after he listed all the dessert options, I said, “The first one, please,” and he had to remember what it was!

It was a vanilla cake with nuts and really good!

And the menu. Which, thankfully, was in Spanish, not Catalan! The first thing on the menu is peas sautéd with ham. I was surprised by how many people were eating that as they were not even nice fresh sweet peas. The first item for the second course is rabbit and I have to say I was tempted to try it.

One thing I will like about eating out in Barcelona that I also liked in London is that you don’t have to tip!

I then decided to amble over to Barcelona’s most famed landmark, the Sagrada Familia Basilica.

“A coffee a day is the key to happiness.”

These little motorcycles seem to be a very popular mode of transportation in Barcelona.

Now, this is how you do an Arch of Triumph!

This part of Barcelona is a feast for the eyes!

I was rather underwhelmed by the Sagrada Familia Basilica…

Until I got closer!

I was tired and had about a 5KM walk back home so the plan was to route myself home from here with my phone. But my phone went from 20% battery capacity to dead as I was doing that!!! My street was not on the map! I decided that I would use my map to route myself back to Catalonia Square and from there try to retrace my steps from the morning. Once I got closer to Poble Sec, I could ask for directions if I got stuck.

This is the scooter I’d buy. 🙂

I like seeing the name of my country when out of it.

Catalan really does look like a hybrid of French and Spanish. “Sweet Catalonia, homeland of my heart…” and off to Google translate I go. 😀 Okay, I did better than it as I don’t agree with the translation although it’s on the right track. “Sweet Catalonia, homeland of my heart, when I’m away from you, I die of longing.”

I love the random owl on the building!

“Her only crime was to be a free woman.” Need to check out this book!

Such quirky buildings!

So many scooters! This is back at Catalonia Place.

From there, I knew I had to take the famous La Rambla pedestrian street. I racked my brain trying to remember the name of the street I’d taken to turn off onto La Rambla and suddenly remembered that it was similar to the name of one of Contessa‘s dogs, Carme (the dog is Carmeh!). From there, I very slowly retraced my steps, looking for familiar landmarks and names I could remember.

I did really well until I got to one large boulevard that did not look familiar at all. I was in an area that was still on the map, but which did not have the names of the little streets. I was able to locate that boulevard and then another big one that I recognised, which was in the opposite direction than I’d turned down the first boulevard. I turned around, made my way to the second boulevard, and from there, I recognised the café where I’d had breakfast. Behold, the church on my street! 😀

It was a lovely low-key first day in Barcelona. I’ll admit that I’m having a bit of sticker shock, which is tamping down my enthusiasm a bit. I wish I could have made the 11AM walking tour of the Gothic Quarter today, but it will happen tomorrow and I will have more juicy details to share rather than just general impressions. But I am very happy to be here, thrilled that I can understand people and they me, the weather is gorgeous, there’s palm trees, and the city is so much more walkable than many Balkan cities I’ve been to (sidewalks!!!).

I’m going to attempt to call it an early night so that I can get the bulk of tomorrow’s work done before my tour… I have two nice workspaces here, the kitchen table and the terrace, so I should be comfortable.

October 13, 2016 by Rae

A Stopover in Lovely Prizren, Kosovo

Kosovo is another area that was recently under major conflict and that has negative connotations overseas. It is also a disputed territory in that while it declared its independence in 2008 and is recognised as a nation by many, it is seen as still part of Serbia by Serbia, Russia, and others. I wanted to travel here to see what it’s like and how it differs from Serbia, but I did not want it to be another “conflict tour.”

I picked Prizren, a small and ancient town that is considered an underrated gem, because it is en route between Kotor and Skopje and also because a day here would be sufficient. So today was all about enjoying the sites and sounds of Prizren without delving into any bloody history. There aren’t any museums to speak of or many attractions besides many mosques and a fortress high above the city. So what a perfect place to spend a day after a very, very late night. 🙂

I was up by about 9:30 this morning, tired but thankfully not hung over. I went down to the lobby area hoping to get a map of town or at least some basic directions and pointers, but there was no one at the desk. I chose to wait a bit since there was a nice book about Prizren for me to leaf through.

One of the staff came in after a few minutes and asked if I wanted breakfast. Yes, breakfast was included. OMG! He brought me a coffee, a basket of lightly toasted bread, and a plate with a lutenitsa-type spicy red pepper spread, a small dish of sour cream, a wedge of cheese, a few slices of sausage, and a dish of a hazelnut-chocolate spread (not like Nutella, the two flavours are separate). It might not sound like much, but it was quite the spread! I loved the pepper spread mixed with the sour cream.

When I was done, he had me settle up my bill (13 euro per night!) and then pulled out a map with all the highlights on it. I decided to start by going up to the fortress so I could walk off some of my breakfast.

Prizen’s touristy core is small and is divided by a river. You can see the fortress in the background at the top of the shorter mountain.

Like Sarajevo, this is a city of mosques.

This is where we had dinner last night. The TripAdvisor reviews are pretty negative, but I had a great time and good meal. I think it’s because I ate what the local people eat.

I found the road up to the fortress and was amused that someone had graffitied some directional signage.

It was a very steep climb! This man didn’t seem to break a sweat, just taking tiny steps until he got there.

This was the first really sunny day I’ve had since my first morning in Sarajevo and I was so happy to pull out my sunglasses!

It was so much fun to poke around the old ruins! There were workers on site doing restoration, so I suspect that there will be a lot more to this place in a few years.

It was a very steep walk back down!

Someone had a fire recently.

This is the ubiquitous skip you see all over the Balkans, but this was the first time I’ve seen one painted!

This is what I mean about Albanian obviously having some Romance language roots. In Mexico, this sign would read Restaurante Familiar Verona…

This is what Google Translate has to say about this: “I am here for you are free struggled and sacrificed to live among you at the forefront of the freedom of the motherland!”

I stopped for a coffee by the river at a place with no English speakers or menu for me to point to. Do I know how to pick ’em or what? I guessed, correctly, that coffee would be “kah-fay” in Albanian and the server said, “Espresso?” Yay for Italian, the universal language of coffee. 🙂

I then walked across the river and found a little temporary artisan market. Lots of pretty things! Thank goodness I’m committed to traveling light.

I continued walking and met Mr. Zanzi, a shoeshiner who wanted me to tell you about him! He spoke very good English and knows many other languages, including Spanish! He told me to put a foot up onto his shoeshine stand. I was wearing my Keens and so curious as to what he wanted to do with them. Well…

Over the course of about 15 minutes, he talked my ear off about the people he’s met over the years (including a Mountie who came to have his shoes shined daily!), and how he lost everything in the war and now has to shine shoes to support his diabetic wife. While he was telling me all this, he was brushing my shoes and applying what I’m assuming is polish to the rubber part before spraying a sealant over everything.

I could not believe what he did to my sandals! Look at how new they look!

I’ve covered a lot of miles in these and so the rubber was dulled and the fabric was dingy. I am absurdly pleased with Mr. Zanzi’s ministration to my Keens. The price was what I was willing to pay. I had 3 Euro in change and I know that was a lot based on how grateful he was and what 3 Euro can buy here, but that’s what his work was worth to me and I was happy to pass on some of the generosity I have received.

I then wandered into the non-touristy part of town and was fascinated by the mix of new and old construction and the narrow streets. Like Sarajevo, the size of Prizren makes it very walkable, but there are few sidewalks.

The license plates here have RKS on them, further separating Kosovo from Serbia, which has SRB on the plate.

My host keeps referring to this one as the Stone Bridge.

Turns out that is its name, not just a description.

This church is a UNESCO protected site and appears to be undergoing renovations.

This is a clocktower.

The amount of overheard wiring in the Balkans astounds me.

Look at the odd little bubbles on the domes.

I made my way back to the area of the Stone Bridge to find a light lunch, ideally a burger.

This is the bar where we went out last night. And I didn’t notice when I took this picture that the guy in the background, right at the window, is one of the guys I met there!

I don’t think I’ve ever caught two minarets in one shot before.

I found a burger joint! It wasn’t a fantastic burger like I had in Belgrade, but it hit the spot. I liked that it had sweet bread and butter pickles in it, a flavour I’ve missed! The cost was only 1.80 Euro (2.75CAD).

This is a traditional house style:

I went back to the hostel for the rest of the afternoon to rest, work on the blog post for yesterday, and find my accommodation in Skopje. Around 5:00, I went downstairs to get a recommendation for dinner and then headed out again.

This is the hammam (Turkish baths), but they are not functioning.

I loved this display of rubber stamps in a shop literally attached to the hammam.

My host recommended the Fish House restaurant, especially the trout, which sounded good. I love trout, but rarely have occasion to have it.

They only had a half litre of wine, not just a glass. It was very good!

I ordered the Greek salad because I knew that the trout would be just trout. I wish they had crumbled the cheese over it, but otherwise, yum! I am going to miss the produce out here so much.

And here’s dinner. I bet Croft and Contessa are drooling. 🙂 It was so good! I haven’t yet mastered how to eat a whole fish, though, and how to deal with the bones so I must have looked like a savage. I had a bite of the potatoes, but they were cold and not to my liking (I’m really starting to give up on potatoes in my advancing age) and instead had some of that bread. I actually ate some of the fish skin, something I’ve never done before!

As I was finishing up, I heard, “Hello, my friend from Canada!” I looked up and it was Mr. Zanzi waving at me as he walked by!

Now the bill. Y’all might want to sit down for this one.

Yeah. That’s just under 11CAD!!!

I was initially put off by the price of accommodation in Prizren (there wasn’t a single hotel that was less than what I’d pay in Canada, hence why I went with the hostel) and almost didn’t come because I thought everything would be expensive. Nope!

I have to be out the door early tomorrow for a 9:00 AM bus, so I decided to call it a night, pausing to listen to the adhan from this minaret and to watch the sunset.

October 9, 2016 by Rae

A Salvaged Day in Kotor

Let me tell you, I’ll take the adhan at 5:30 am over church bells at 8:00 am any day… I had a late night and that was a rather rude awakening! I tried to go back to sleep, but failed. So I got up and my only thought was food. I woke up in the middle of the night to raid the peanut butter jar! I can’t believe I’ve woken up twice in as many nights to eat. I’m pretty sure I’ve never done that in my life!

I’m in Kotor for three days and there’s endless rain in the forecast. Today seemed to be the lightest day of it and my best bet for heading out and exploring as it would also be the warmest day. Moreover, I needed food! It made sense to go find some breakfast and then come back with some groceries as there is a conveniently located fridge right by my hostel room.

I debated what to wear as I knew I was going to get soaked and settled on my iPanema sandals (gals, remind me to do a shoe review), a pair of jeans, a long-sleeve top, my fleece hoodie, and the “rain coat” that was wonderful in London but has since failed me. 🙁 I thought I might be able to pick up a cheap umbrella “in town,” about 3KM away. I specifically picked this hostel because it’s walking distance to Old Town Kotor, so I was in the mindset of walking there this morning, needing a leg stretch after yesterday’s long bus ride. The rain had let up somewhat, so I figured the stroll would do me some good. I obviously get stupid when I’m hungry because any sane person without adequate rain gear would have taken a taxi to as near an umbrella shop as possible. No… I walked the whole way, it started to pour halfway there, and I arrived soaked in Kotor.

The directions to my hostel said it’s above the cemetery. Literally!

Even English-only speakers should be able to recognise what part of this sign made my French self cringe.

Let me pause here to say that I’ve never been a fan of umbrellas as I tend to be in climates that are rainy and windy. I don’t really have a lot of extra room in my luggage, so I decided I would get a cheap folding umbrella along the way if I needed one. Today was apparently the day. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So how did I come to be in Kotor? The Serbian couple I met in Zemun told me about it and it seemed a good alternative to very expensive Dubrovnik as a scenic destination on the Adriatic Coast. I had hoped this would be a bit of a working holiday by the sea, but it’s not looking that way yet.

The mist does give Kotor quite a bit of atmosphere. Here, I am approaching the walled Old Town.

There are three gates into the city. This is the main one.

I wandered a bit looking for that elusive place that serves both real food before lunch and coffee. I was shocked that I found it, a cosy restaurant called “Museum Cafe” that serves a full menu all day and knows how to make me a coffee with just “a little” milk. I had two coffees by the time my delicious balsamic vinaigrette chicken and roasted veggie wrap came. The food did me a world of good! But, of course, going back out into the rain was uncomfortable and I felt chilled after the warmth of the restaurant.

In my wanderings to find food, I’d spotted the Maritime Museum and decided that if I could find it again very quickly, I would head there. Otherwise, I was going to find a food store and head home to change.

Old Kotor was purposely built like a maze for defensive purposes and is full of alleys going off in all sorts of directions. One of the things I looked forward to was getting thoroughly lost and disoriented in it. I figured it would be easy because I never did manage to truly orientate myself in Baščaršija, even with all the walking I did in it. But for some reason, I had no trouble with orientation in Old Kotor today, probably because it’s so small. So I refound the museum without any trouble. It is inside a beautiful old house.

The entry fee of 5Eur surprised me, but made more sense when I learned that that included an audio guide.

Let me digress here for a second to say that Kotor is very expensive compared to what I’ve experienced since coming to the Balkans. I don’t know if this is because of the touristy location or because they use the Euro, but I would feel the pinch if I was here for any length of time and trying to keep up the pace of the last few months. Western Europeans seem to find prices cheap, but they are expensive by what I’ve been used to. 1Eur is 1.53CAD (almost at par with USD), so something like a cab ride that is “only” 5Eur is almost 8CAD. I found bathrooms, ice cream, and groceries to be comparably-ish priced to what I’ve been used to, but coffee, beer, and restaurant meals have been high.

So back to the museum. There are two large floors of exhibits, plus a few things to see on the ground floor. I was thrilled when I was told to, “Please, make many pictures!” But here’s a tip: do not get too close to the exit door with your audio guide or it will start shrieking and the museum personnel will get very cross with you…

I headed up the first flight of stairs to start my tour. The walls were lined with old maps of the area.

The exhibits are themed and of high quality. I was very impressed by this museum. There wasn’t a ton of signage as you get most of the material from the audio guide So I don’t have much to remind me of what things are and all the interesting stories I heard, sorry. Guess you need to come to Kotor and visit its Maritime Museum for yourselves. 🙂 The audio guide, by the way, was really good, narrated by a native English speaker and quite entertaining.

This guy was interesting. He was a slave of the Turks for eight years and eventually rose up against them.

Some of the shields of Kotor.

I had never heard of lemonwood before today, but a bit of Googling tells me it can refer to many different species from all over the world, so I still have no idea what this furniture is made of!

Original flooring. Stunning!

This is an oil lamp, not a candlestick.

I love this painting!

I had never seen black on white “blue willow” before! For those of you who haven’t been following me since forever, I used to collect blue willow china in my pre-RVing days of travel and still have it all.

If I ever get a “forever house,” I’d love to get a desk like this as a statement piece for my office!

Amazing pottery from “the Orient.”

The little boy in this painting? He would become the best known photographer in the region! What an amazing overlap of time periods. He was born the year photography eventually started (1830s, I believe).

I have to say that firearms used to be works of art…

This is Herceg Novi. Another gorgeous painting.

Here, I am on the second floor of the museum.

This captain circumnavigated the globe!

My favourite thing about history museums is seeing period documents showing the mundane details of daily life at the time. This is a travel permit/log book for a sailor.

A navigator made this incredible log book with exquisite drawings detailing the Bay of Kotor and environs.

This painting is almost photographic in nature!

Especially when compared to this one!

This top floor was dedicated to maritime education, as symbolised by this painting of a captain with his students.

Notice all the modern, for the time, tools of the trade.

A French atlas of the ports of the Mediterranean.

Here’s my audio guide. You hold it up to your ear to listen.

I took a second to peek out the front door to see if it was still raining. Yes. Harder. So I went through the museum a second time!

The museum covers maritime history in the area through the Second World War, so you get photographs of captains in addition to paintings.

You can see in my reflection that I took off my top layer in the hope that my fleece would dry out a bit… I have to say I was shocked by how comfy my jeans were, even when wet. I tend not to like to wear jeans because I don’t have the body type for them, but I went to a jean store and had a professional look me over and find the best style for me. So I have “skinny jeans,” which are rather like socially acceptable leggings. I’d avoided jeans all summer, but am rather happy to find them now as I’m getting rather sick of my skirts!

I thought it was neat how the lock on this door is curved.

It was still pouring when I was done, so I decided my day was done. 🙁 I managed to get a picture of the exterior the museum and then ducked into a conveniently located full service grocery store almost right beside it!

I picked up a few things to leave in the fridge by my room and I came out of the store by its exit door to find myself facing another store that sold cheap foldable umbrellas at a price I was willing to pay (5Eur).

I wandered around a bit more, but I was soaked through. My bottom half wasn’t uncomfortable in the least (not even my wet bare feet!) as it was quite warm (in the low 20s), but my shoulders were for some reason. I conceded that the weather had won and that it was time to back to the hostel.

I had no trouble getting a taxi and the ride was just under 4Eur. I had the driver let me off at the bottom of a very short hill to save him the trouble of trying to turn around at the top. I got in one last picture before I hurriedly headed off in direction of a hot shower when…

I got “ambushed” by the owner who offered me coffee!!! I wasn’t that cold, so I happily accepted and went to wait on the covered terrace. She brought me a small pot of coffee (about 1.5 mugs worth), milk, sugar, and this:

The mandarins come from her garden! They were fresh picked this morning! After I enjoyed my coffee and thanked her profusely, she sent me upstairs with the fruit! I just had several pieces of both fruit with my picnic supper. YUM. I think the purple things are a sort of prune. She said they come from the store. I like them too. 🙂

I had a hot shower and changed into dry clothes, which included my second pair of jeans! It was that or my skirt, and, let me tell you, a heavy soaking wet skirt wrapped around your ankles isn’t very comfortable!

Then, get this, the sky freaking CLEARED. The forecast had been adamant it would be 100% rain for 10 days straight and was worsening, not improving. Yet, after about an hour, the rain hadn’t picked up again! So I decided to head back out and try to get a bit of dry time in Kotor.

There were cruise ships in port.

What an unusual cemetery!

It is about 2KM to the end of my road and the limits of Kotor and then about 1KM to Old Town. I barely got away from the hostel when a man pulled over and offered me a ride. Funny how this is something I’m okay with here in the Balkans, but would never consider back home! It’s just part of the culture. The man spoke English, was very nice, and had no “creep” factor. He said he would drive me to the end of the road/to Kotor town limits as his house was right at the corner, and that’s what he did, saving me about 20 minutes of walking.

Can you see the fortress?

How about now?

BLUE SKY!!!

Since it wasn’t raining, I was able to enjoy my amble and actually notice things, like these fish in the river by the entrance to Old Town.

Kotor’s Old Town is a UNESCO heritage site. I was starting to understand why!

The old town is roughly triangular in shape. It must be incredible to live here. Can you imagine trying to give directions to your house?!

What a difference sun made!

So many alleys leading into squares!

This is where I had my breakfast.

This is the way up to the fortress. I wasn’t shod for that and didn’t want to get caught on slick rock when it would start pouring again, so I didn’t head up.

This is their garbage truck! There are a few golf carts for folks to get around, most of them being affiliated with the hotels.

It took a bit of work, but I finally found a restaurant that was happy to serve me a late lunch. One of you lovely readers who knows who she is sent me a gift this week that was expressly for a meal out, so thanks for lunch today! 😀

I was going to go with some sort of seafood, but couldn’t believe the prices. This is grilled veggies (same as what was in my wrap this morning — peppers, eggplant, and zucchini), with chicken breasts, and smothered in gorgonzola sauce. I had picked out a pasta with shrimp even though this is what I really wanted (I mean, gorgonzola!), but when the server came to take my order, he asked if he could make a recommendation. I said sure and this is what he pointed out! It was almost half the cost of the pasta, so it was a no-brainer. I did not eat the potatoes since the garlic bread was so much better (but, no, I did not eat the entire basket of it!). It was a pretty pricy meal by Balkan standards, but still quite reasonable (almost 20CAD with the beer).

Eggplant is not something I normally eat. I remember eating it once 20 years ago when I was in Colorado and possibly more recently (within the last 10 years) in an aunt’s ratatouille, but that’s it. It’s something I’ve been wanting to experiment with and with today’s experience with it being so positive, I’m further motivated to cook with it!

After lunch, I noticed that not only was the rain still holding off, but it was getting quite warm. I had a lunch to work off and inappropriate shoes be damned, I was going to climb to the fortress! I took a few detours along the way to the entrance, though, to make sure I covered as much of Kotor Old town as I could!

I like to send my friend Bast a postcard from every country I go through. I was unable to do so in BiH as I never found postcards for sale nor a post office. It seemed like their postal system is a mess as they have two. So I was hoping I’d have better luck in Montenegro. Well, what do you know, there were tons of postcards and the post office was open on a Sunday afternoon! The clerk stuck the stamp on the card for me and even mailed it herself instead of sending me out to the mailbox.

Kotor is known for its stray cats and there are a lot of collection boxes set up to support their feeding. The cats are necessary — I saw a rat evading a flood this morning!

The cats museum sounded interesting, but it was closed today.

I finally circled back to the entrance up to the fortress. 3Eur entry fee. I started to climb…

And climb some more. I was surprised by how “grippy” my iPanemas were and not as inappropriate for the climb as a rude man made them out to be.

There were often long columns of people coming down. I got out of the way when I could.

You can really see Kotor’s triangular shape here.

There was a woman selling cold drinks out of a cooler at this church. I decided that if she was still there on the way down, I would pay the hefty surcharge for a cold bottle of water to reward her enterprise for getting the cooler up there!

The climb wasn’t too difficult thanks to my Bulgarian conditioning, but I was not dressed for it at all as it was getting super hot! What a contrast to the morning!

I still had a surprising amount left to go when I checked the time and saw that it was past 5:00! That was it for me! I knew that even though it was blazingly sunny out (!), the sun would start to set any minute and it would get dark fast. There was no way I was going to pick my way back down to the bottom in the dark in the shoes I had on. It would have been great to reach the top, but I thought I wouldn’t get to climb at all and I was quitting for a valid reason, so I was okay with turning around.

The descent was slow and much more difficult. The water vendor was still at the church and a bottle was 1.50Eur. She accepted 1.20Eur as that’s all the change I had and would have otherwise had to pay with a tenner. Dang was that water good! 🙂

I knew I was taking a taxi home and with the guy this morning having a hard time giving me change off a 10Eur note, I decided to get an ice cream to break my bill. Ice creams tend to be very small, hence why they’re cheap, so I was shocked by how much the gal piled into my cone, thinking I’d been had. No, my cone was still 1Eur! She was very put upon with me for paying with a “large” note. Even the gal who sold me my umbrella this morning did not have 5Eur change for my umbrella. I am going to have to figure out a way to break my two remaining 50Eur notes! My host says there is a grocery store five minutes in the opposite direction from Kotor, so I’ll head there tomorrow for more food and see if they’ll break one of the notes.

Here’s the map of Old Town found outside of it by the main entrance. It’s much smaller than I expected. I’ve covered the whole of it.

I wandered a bit out front and along the water after coming out of Old Town.

The parking fee structure at a shopping centre was unusual. The bottom language is Russian, but, dang, it is super close to Bulgarian. I was bemused on the climb to the fortress that I noticed the Russian/Bulgarian word for “caution” (внимание) before the English word! On the way, I chatted with some Spanish, American, and French folks and frequently said “Excuse me” in Serbian, so I can say that I used six languages on my climb! 😀

I found a taxi stand by the mall and got one there knowing this was the point of no return for getting a taxi. My written instructions for getting to the hotel got destroyed after my bag got soaked (and transferred dye to everything!), but the driver knew where the hostel is and spoke a bit of English anyway.

Here is my host’s mandarin tree… and her lemon tree!!!

The carpark is over her apartment!

Kotor Old Town was as beautiful as I’d hoped it would be. All I wanted was one clear afternoon to explore it and I got it. The odds are ever in my favour!

There’s lots to see and do in the region, but I never meant for this to be a tourist stop because of the higher cost of living. The point was to get to the shores of the Adriatic and just breathe a bit. So what I’m hoping for is a work project to cover the next two days, but I know I can’t count on anything tomorrow as it won’t be Monday in North America. So I’m probably plop myself down on the terrace to catch up on bookkeeping and other admin tasks and also start working on a few blog posts I’ve been meaning to do. I also need to figure out how I’m going to get to Skopje!

I’ll be back to the shores of the Mediterranean before I know it!

October 4, 2016 by Rae

Sarajevo City Hall, Downtown, and Brewery

I awoke to a super cold, grey, foggy, damp day. Yuck. Last thing I wanted to do was go exploring and I was so grateful I had heaps of work to do! By 12:30, I’d put in a full day of work, could call off with only one hour more to do in the evening, and the sun had come out! Talk about timing!

It was only 10C outside (brr!), so I pulled out my jeans for the first time and paired them with a long-sleeved top, fleece hoodie, and my cosy Tiek flats, my expected “fall weather” attire.

My first thought as I headed out was lunch and I wanted to try burek, “Bosnian pie.” I’d had no interest in it, but so many people told me I was nuts for not having had it and also pointed me to Buregdzinica Sac that I decided to try the experience today. I made a few wrong turns but eventually found the restaurant. The server spoke English and told me she had meat or potato, cheese, and spinach. So heads up, my vegetarian readers, there’s a burek for you!

I went with the meat and accepted sour cream, which was unfortunate since she drowned my pie. I ended up scraping it all off and only having what had soaked in. But you can’t really ever have too much sour cream, so my complaint is only that you didn’t get to see this pretty thing in all its glory. 🙂 It’s basically phyllo pastry that is assembled in a spiral and has filling mixed in.

My meat burek tasted like the Bosnian answer to tourtière, with heaps of savoury and perfectly seasoned meat mixed in with caramelised onions. Absolutely amazing. I might not have been a fan of Bulgarian and Serbian food, but Bosnian is great!

Then, I went back to the Baklava Shop to try their Nutella baklava and have the coffee I’d been craving all morning. The interior of the shop is so pretty. (pauses to listen to the adhan)

Love the alarm clock collection.

Next stop was Sarajevo City Hall as I was told the interior is impressive. It was devastated during the war and was rebuilt in stages.

Outside, there is a cable car and information on the plan to rebuild the cable car system to Trebević, the mountain I went up yesterday. Both of my tour guides are skeptical that it will happen and my guide yesterday reminisced fondly of taking the old cable car up the mountain with her family.

I was a bit surprised by the 5KM fee to enter city hall so I could take pictures, but figured that’s how they’re funding the reconstruction and, really, it’s a token amount. What I didn’t know is that city hall doubles as a museum and there are heaps of exhibits. So you get a lot of bang for your mark!

Austria-Hungary built the original city hall and felt it was their duty to help with the reconstruction. I’m trying to remember why Spain got involved, which I know one of my guides told me.

The ceiling mosaic. Wow!

One thing that I finally get after my two tours is why Sarajevans are so open to talking about the war and hold no punches. This is because they see themselves as victims, not as an equal culprits in the aggression. So when they talk about horrible events, they are not owning up to things that they did to themselves, but are pointing the finger at things that were done to them. That is my interpretation only and should not be taken as a judgement of the validity or not of this interpretation if it is accurate. But it makes a lot of sense and further helps me understand what happened here and why the impacts are so long-lasting.

City hall was the national library before becoming city hall again. It was the national library when it was bombed in the war. My guide yesterday said that this was an incomprehensible action by the Serbs because they were destroying their own heritage. Neno, from the walking tour, said that his grandmother still talks about seeing the ashes from all the books floating in the air.

This picture is of two soldiers on opposite sides of the war post-war at Srebrenica, site of the massacre of 8,000 Bosniak Muslims. I wonder what thoughts are going through their heads.

I was surprised by how much of city hall was open to visitors. Cordons and closed doors served as gentle guides telling us what areas were off limits.

This was a thorough exhibit about the history of city hall and Sarajevo in general. City hall was completed and opened in 1896. It was built in a pseudo-Moorish style, seen as a “cultural misunderstanding… regarded as a retarded form of foreign culture.”

Pardon the glare in these, but there’s too much information to just summarise it:

I saw video of the shelling in full colour. Tragic.

They began to rebuild almost immediately, just as it was one of the first major buildings to be destroyed.

There was an interesting section about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. The building that was a café and is now a museum has not changed much!

I was surprised that his marriage to Sophie Chotek was one of love and very controversial. She could not accompany him on official functions and their children could not inherit his title. To add a further sense of destiny to the assassination, it was the first time Sophie accompanied Franz Ferdinand on an official outing.

This photo of the lady running reminds me of something I forgot to share after the walk with Neno. He mentioned that his mother went to work in full makeup and heels even though her children begged her not to as she would not be able to outrun snipers. She said that she did so because she would be beautiful if she was left wounded on the street and also because there were reporters…

I learned yesterday, but forgot, that the peace accord was hammered out in Dayton, Ohio, of all places!

Those exhibits were essentially in the basement. I then went back to the main level and up to the first floor.

What am impressive building. I can understand how rebuilding it was important to Sarajevans and very likely boosted morale.

Next, I wanted to walk to New Sarajevo (across downtown down “Sniper Alley“) to photograph some of the things I saw on my tour yesterday. Sarajevo downtown is long and narrow as it is sandwiched by the mountains. There is a main thoroughfare that splits at the start of Old Town (Baščaršija), with traffic heading east passing south of Baščaršija along the river and traffic from the west passing to the north. Trolley cars go around Baščaršija in a loop. This map also happens to show the location of the brewery (pivara) across the river that I would visit later.

There are so many churches and mosques in this city that Sarajevo is known as Little Jerusalem.

Vicki, there are TONS of bakeries in Sarajevo. Look for signs that say “pekara”! 🙂

At the market I saw my first day, there is a memorial to the many dead in the war.

Loved the market!

Next up was the memorial to all the children killed in the war.

There’s a fountain but I just discovered I forgot to take a picture of it! There were fresh flowers all around it, with heartbreaking notes.

There was a row of these lists of names, births, and deaths. This is very much my generation.

I noticed this subtle bit of art on the sidewalk by the memorial.

The iconic (former) Holiday Inn. I remember seeing pictures of it after it was shelled because its yellow façade is so memorable. It was never a direct target.

A museum and I’m pretty sure something else even more important…

Our guide yesterday mentioned a building owned by a media magnate and I believe this is it. I stupidly stopped to take this picture in front of the huge US Embassy, but the guard who saw me do that did not speak up, so he must have realised I was not photographing the building.

I finally got to the building that so impressed me yesterday. Can you see the impact crater? This is just one of many.

Here’s another.

Without embiggening this picture, I can see at least three impact craters. How can the structure still be solid?! There’s a Costa Coffee on the ground floor, a major chain, so they must trust the building…

There was more I wanted to photograph, but I was getting tired and still had to walk back. I’d walked 3.5KM since city hall and had to walk it back. I could have taken the trolley, of course, but there was more I wanted to photograph on the return trip.

This is where the road splits as we come into Old Town.

This Courtyard Marriott is brand new.

This is the brand of coffee I bought the other day. There are billboards for it all over the city, so it must be popular. I don’t like it nearly as much as my usual brands, but it is very satisfactory, especially for the price.

By this point, I wanted a cold beer and decided to head to the Sarajevo Brewery, which for some reason wasn’t on my tourist map. I had a vague idea of where it was, but with the streets being as nonsensically laid out as they are, I knew I could wander around in circles for hours without getting to it. A half dozen, “Molim, pivo muzej?”s and pointing to passersby got me there. That’s, “Please, beer museum?” 😀

Entrance to the beer museum is 3KM, 5KM with a beer at the attached pub, or 25KM for lunch at the pub. I went with option two.

The museum was really tiny and was only about the history of the brewery, with no opportunity to actually visit its operations. I was rather disappointed.

Sarajevans boast about having the first café in Europe, but beer was slow to come.

Barrels were the most popular container for beer as for equal volume compared to bottles, the price was about 30% cheaper.

What a great painting of the brewery! Still looks like that.

This is the main newspaper in Sarajevo. We passed its building yesterday, but I didn’t get that far on foot.

The brewery had major operations until the start of the ’70s and then went into a steady decline. It continued with a token production during the war and was fully reconstructed and modernised after the war. There was a three-year contract with Coca-Cola to produce soft drinks, then a new contract was signed with PepsiCo.

The pub was dead, but pretty cosy.

It was rather a small beer and I wonder if I got taken as I have a hard time believing this was 2KM worth of beer (plus maybe a few sips as I think I’d tasted it by this time). This was a rather bitter lager, but tasty!

😀

I cut through the market to get home and made a purchase! My travel purse has been both a blessing and a curse. I love all the pockets in it and its generous size, but the overly padded straps tend to fall down my shoulders. I also miss not having a bag that I can wear cross-body, keeping my hands free, and in which I can stuff purchases. So it was inevitable that I would end up replacing the bag on my travels and decided I’d start shopping when my sewing job on the handles started to give way, which was here in Sarajevo. Now, this isn’t really a location to look for the kind of bag I wanted so there wasn’t a huge amount of choice. But as you know, I know what I like. 🙂

I’d seen this bag several times over the last few days and when I came upon it on the way across the market, I decided to ask about the price. I’d seen similar bags marked 30KM, which was way more than I was willing to pay. My budget was 20KM (about 15CAD). The storeowner came out of her shop almost the second I started prodding the bag and brought it down for me.

I loved the beading.

And the colour scheme.

She quickly showed me the pocket in the strap, which is brilliant. Shame it’s not just a tad wider so my phone could fit in it.

A zippered top is a must. I had to pass on a bag I loved even more because it didn’t have a zipper.

There’s also an interior pocket for things I need to keep handy. I will miss not having more pockets, but one is better than none.

The price was 25KM. but I noticed a slight imperfection in the stitching on the front, so I wasn’t willing to stretch my budget because I will need to fix it as the whole beaded panel could unravel. The clerk showed me other bags in the same style, but I found them hideous. After I passed on two or three of those, she pointed to the bag I liked, crossed out the 25 she’d written down and wrote, “20?” Yes, perfect! We were both very happy. 🙂

I bought dinner stuff and then headed up the hill, which felt about twice as steep as it did the other days. Boy was I tired!

For dinner, I put together a quick pasta that was the best pasta and sauce combo I’ve had since I got to the Balkans! I found these fresh Bosnian noodles and tossed them with a sauce that’s meant to be used as a dip that had much more complex flavours than any of the Italian jarred sauces I’ve tried.

Tomorrow was supposed to be my last day in Sarajevo, but a large work order came in, so I am staying till Saturday! This is a blessing because my next destination is expensive and will be difficult to get to, so I can travel there over a couple of days if I want to and then not feel like I have to take a private room with shared bathroom to save some money. I have to say that my last two weeks in the Balkans are growing murkier rather than clearer and that I’m no closer to knowing from where I’ll be flying to Madrid!

I think I’m done with tourism in Sarajevo because I have three solid days of work to do. I will venture out tomorrow to get groceries (and possibly a coffee if I go early enough), but the plan is to stay in all of Thursday with the hope of being able to finish early enough on Friday to hit a few museums. Somewhere in all of that, I will find time for another slice of Bosnian pie. I’d love to find the one with butternut squash!

October 3, 2016 by Rae

Sarajevo Siege Tour

Today was very much a lesson in the hard hitting truth that there are three sides to a story, yours, mine, and the truth that sits somewhere in between.

I went on a four-hour “Total Siege Tour” with Funky Sarajevo Tours. This felt like the best way to hit some sites that are just about not accessible by public transportation and at 40KM (plus 10KM for entrance to the war tunnel), it was better value than hiring a taxi. They were not my first choice for a tour, but could fit me in this morning, so that’s why I picked them.

I have such mixed feelings about my guide and the tour she gave us. Now that I’ve processed it all, I can say that the tour was a good experience and worth what I paid for it, but I think she needs a little guidance on what is appropriate to say or not. I am willing to give her a lot of slack for times that she said indelicate things that were perhaps lost in translation.

She was 23 when the siege started. The thing she said to us today that I will never forget is, “I was eating pizza when the first shell fell.” That says everything about how memorable the moment was, that she can remember it in such detail.

I think an issue I had with her tour is that I feel that such things should be neutral and represent both sides of an issue. But this war is very recent and the wounds are still raw. For her, there might not be war right now, but there is not peace and the Serbs were and still are very much the enemy. She invited us to get a Serbian perspective, repeating many times that there are two sides to a story, but it was very clear that she felt that she was a victim in the siege and the Serbs were aggressors.

Another thing that stuck out is that she told us many times how unfair the siege was, that they were a European country, not some uncivilised back water. I held my tongue at reminding her that the Bosnian War was just one of several terrible conflicts in Europe and among so-called civilised nations. But I said nothing because she was obviously so wounded and so marked by events that I cannot even begin to conjure. She was able to flee to France partway through the siege, but the damage was done.

She also seems to resent the foreign community, feeling that they didn’t care about the suffering of the Sarajevans and that they came in much too late. She also said something that I had to really process because I felt so insulted, but I’m going to chalk it up to a translation issue because of a conversation we had much later. I got the impression that she was saying that people are now coming to Bosnia, but where were we when Bosnia needed us, and that we’re basically rubber necking. But that is a lot of projection and interpretation on my part. Considering how many times she would later thank me for coming to Bosnia and Sarajevo and being a positive ambassador to her country, I think I totally misinterpreted her initial comment that threw me off.

So this was a very different account of the siege than that of a man who was but a young boy at the time. This is a woman who, if I understood her correctly, had many family members massacred, who had friends who were among the 20,000 women raped, who experienced the shelling and the privations. I am completely sympathetic to her and am grateful that she shared her story and reminded us many times that this interpretation is just one of many.

The day started off a bit rockily because I had a hard time finding Sarajevo Funky Tours office since it is a the end of an alley and there is no signage other than in a recessed window that you can’t see until you’re right up to it. It was frustrating to nearly be late when the location was so close and convenient for me, at the end of my street and about half a block over, that I didn’t give myself much extra time to get there for nine. But I could have been late since we had to wait for another couple anyway.

I can’t even begin to recall everything that she told us on our half-day tour. A huge chunk of it was as we were going down “Sniper Alley,” the main thoroughfare through Sarajevo, at too fast a clip to take pictures. I am definitely going to walk that way tomorrow afternoon and get pictures and more information on what I saw. It was just too rainy and I had too much work to do to go ahead with that plan today. So consider this post one of two. I cannot get out of my mind right now the sky-high apartment blocks that still have impact craters. How are they structurally sound?!

We saw and heard so much on that 20 or so minute drive. I was enrapt even if I found the guide’s rapid-fire delivery a bit much. But I appreciated how much she was trying to cram in. Being on site and having a guide who was right there brought history to life. It reminded me of a conversation I had with an Auschwitz survivor some years ago.

Our first stop of the day was the Tunnel of Life, by the airport. This was Sarajevo’s lifeline to the outside world and passed under the runway.

We saw this map quite a bit later in our tour of the War Tunnel, but I’m presenting it now so that you can get some visuals. I really didn’t understand the terrain until we got to this sign and then everything came together. So what you see is Sarajevo surrounded in red by the Serbian forces, with the airport (blue) at a narrow point to the south (top of the map is south, bottom is north). The tunnel was used to move everything from guns to food to medicine. People who had money were able to get out that way as well. The tunnel on both sides was in the basement of a private home. The tunnel museum is on the south side at the Kolar family residence and we can visit 25 of the 800 metres of the tunnel.

Sarajevo Airport.

The Kolar home, now the Tunnel Museum. Tunel Spasa means “tunnel of life.” We saw a 12-minute video of raw footage from ’92 that shows this house sitting in the middle of a mud field.

The video was incredible as I could see buildings being bombarded that have since been reconstructed. I was 13 years old when this war started and 17 when it ended. I remember the news reports, but we didn’t have the internet back then so we were limited in how much we knew and what we did know was biased.

I think I kind of sort of get what this sign is trying to say if you consider WWI as the start of the 20th century, with that conflict also being triggered in Sarajevo.

The tunnel entrance is under that metal piece at the back. We will return.

A Sarajevo rose.

Mockup of a land mine. Our guide confirmed my research that says that mines are still a problem in the wilder parts of the country and to make sure an area has been cleaned up before heading out in the wilderness. She also spoke about how Princess Diana came to Bosnia just before her death to protest landmines.

The tunnel runs under this field. There are plans to reopen the whole of it.

Sobering facts. Our guide did remember the ’84 Olympics very fondly. She was 16 at the time.

Here’s another moment where she just casually tossed out something that surprised me. This is what they cooked on and heated with during the siege. I forget what her exact quote was, but something along the lines of, “Can you imagine going from IKEA to this?” What a reminder that ’92 was not that far away. I spent a good chunk of the tour remembering what I was doing ’92 to ’95 (my high school years).

Tunnel entrance.

But first, we went into that little room.

One of the rebuilding aids that was sent to Sarajevo was PVC windows. That explains why every house in Sarjevo seems to have really nice new windows.

We went into the tunnel. I’m 5’6″ and I had to stoop. I had had enough of the experience about halfway through this 25-metre section. I can’t imagine going through all 800 metres with a 50-pound pack of supplies on my back…

Here, we were shown an example of how people lived in their basements. She again make the comment about how they went from IKEA to this.

This was a pump to get rid of the water in the tunnels. The video showed that the water was quite deep at times.

Here’s a model of the tunnel and area.

There were rails in the tunnel so that things and immobile people could be moved on wheels.

She talked to us a bit about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s work in Bosnia, including Jolie’s movie Land of Blood and Honey. I haven’t seen it, but have heard pretty terrible things about it. Our host seemed to think it represented reality and told us that the Serbs are working on a movie of their own in retaliation for how they were portrayed in Land of Blood and Honey.

From the war tunnel, we headed up into the mountains to get a better perspective on where the shells were coming from and to see the luge track from the ’84 Olympics. Speaking of which:

I was really disappointed that we didn’t even stop to look at it more closely…

And then, we pulled over to see Sarajevo spread out below us. There was light artillery here and on all the surrounding mountaintops. It’s “only” two kilometres as the crow flies to the city centre. Imagine yourself as one of the people in the city below in the sights of the big guns.

You can see the parrot building clearly in this shot.

City Hall stands out here. The movie we’d seen at the tunnel showed it, and many other buildings, on fire. The rebuilding effort has been amazing, but, like Neno said yesterday, our guide reminded us that there is a lot of corruption and in-fighting so the money isn’t going where it needs to go and rebuilding is very slow.

So many cemeteries…

Our next stop was the luge track! As it turns out, it’s now a walking path! What a lovely way to nearly end the tour, in all that fresh mountain air. Because of Sarjevo’s position in the valley and the fact that there is a lot of pollution, the air quality is terrible. I could not believe the difference up there.

So you can see the start of a track and some stands where people sat. Our guide said that she stood some distance down the track to get a better view.

The track was filled with insulation and then water to make slick ice.

What an incredible space to walk or mountain bike!

Our final official stop was this restaurant that was a headquarters of sorts during the war. It was destroyed by the retreating forces.

I don’t know why, but coming upon this text freaked me out!

She pointed out the Franciscan church and remarked on how unusual Sarajevo is because you can hear both church bells and the adhan. It seems like the many religions here have found a way to coexist and that this is very much a modern, European, Muslim population that cannot see itself in the more oppressive Islamic countries.

There was an impressive storm rolling in!

We were past our return time, so we then sped down the mountain into town. The Americans in our group wanted one last shot of the city and I took the time to take this shot of an old railway station.

And another minaret.

We were dropped off at the office, which, again, was convenient for me since it would be easy to get home. The threatening rain was holding off, so I decided to get lunch and buy a few groceries for a supper at home. I wound up wandering around in circles for too long looking for that Middle Eastern Tea For Two restaurant I ate at on Saturday and was just about to give up when I finally spotted it! Lunch was very good chicken kebabs. The Moroccan spice tea was was very welcome after that chilly walk!

(pausing to listen to the adhan)

It was spitting when I came out of the restaurant. I went to a little grocery store I’d spotted the other day that is conveniently located and got salami, cheese, and tomatoes for a cold supper. Then I remembered how damp the flat was yesterday in the heavy rain and added a package of soup so I would have something warm! That reminds me that I went out in the pouring rain last night to get dinner and was so soaked by the time that I got to the market that I went straight back to Minder Fast Food, who were, thankfully, open! I had another lovely meal there. It’s a new restaurant, not even on TripAdvisor, and my own little secret piece of Sarajevo!

I got in and went to work, pausing in the late afternoon to do laundry that I really hope will dry by Thursday morning!

It’s been another big day in Sarajevo, with so much to ponder. I’ve got two days left and will try to visit a few buildings and museums, as well as do that walk downtown, depending on my workload.

A Life By Design

"Sometimes in life, we reach to a right place by departing from a wrong port with a wrong ship!" ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Restaurants

Getting Orientated in Barcelona

A Stopover in Lovely Prizren, Kosovo

A Salvaged Day in Kotor

Sarajevo City Hall, Downtown, and Brewery

Sarajevo Siege Tour