Touring Sarajevo

Mosque in Old Town in the Morning Sun

Beep Beep-Beep…Beep Beep-Beep…I looked at my watch, it was 2:03, too early to be my alarm.  The beeping continued.  In my sleepy torpor I couldn’t figure out where the beeping was coming from.  It continued for about a minute and then stopped.  I drifted back to sleep.  Beep Beep-Beep…it had started again.  Again I looked at my watch, it was 2:08.  Again it stopped…and then started.  The third time I was awake enough to investigate.  The beeping was coming from a phone in the bottom-bunk beside my top-bunk.  There was an Asian girl sleeping in the bed and a glowing phone sitting not more than a foot from her face, yet didn’t seem to notice her alarm. (Why she had an alarm going off at 2:00 in the morning to begin with is beyond me)  After the clock read 2:33 and everyone in the room, but the Asian, were awake and frustrated, Kati grabbed her sheets and headed out to the common room to sleep.  Luckily another girl decided to wake the Asian up and fix the situation.  Yet even after the girl knew about her alarm it went off twice more over the course of the night.  By the time the alarm stopped, I was awake and the heat in the dorm was unbearable.  We only got a few hours of sleep, but only slightly frustrated we started our busy day.

We woke up at 7:30 to catch some of the main sights in the old town because we were going on a tour that would take almost the entire day.  The old town sights were really cool.  We saw a number of churches and mosques, but unfortunately all of them were closed.  The mosques were closed to tourists because of Ramadan and the Orthodox churches were closed for invisible “construction.”  Our tour started at 10:00.  It was incredible!  We went to a lot of places that you usually can’t get to by yourself (without a car). 

First we went to the Tunnel Museum.  During the Bosnian War, Sarajevo was almost completely surrounded by Serbian forces and the UN, which controlled the airport, would not help the Bosnians at all.  To solve their dilemma, the Bosnians created a tunnel that stretched from within Sarajevo, under the UN-controlled airport, to the free Bosnian territory beyond.  The tunnel was about 1.5 meters tall and over 800 meters long!  It was through this tunnel that both civilians and the military funneled food and weapons into the city for its defense.  Only 35 meters of the tunnel remain, but we got to walk through it, and the museum was really neat.  The outside of the buildings by the tunnel were still riddled with bullet holes.

Our next stop was the 1984 Olympic Bobsled Track.  I thought it would be neat to see the track, but we were both a little skeptical at first.  Yet it was really one of the cooler things we got to see.  We even got to walk up on the track!  I didn’t quite know what a bobsled track would look like in the summer, but it was basically a giant concrete track down a mountain (now covered in graffiti).  The track was yet another victim of the Bosnian war.  The Serbs destroyed sections of the track and used it as a shield.  They would station their soldiers on the track and blow gun-holes through the concrete so they could shoot out but would be completely protected.  The Bosnians hope to repair the track soon and start hosting world championships again.  On the way back down we stopped at a nice scenic viewpoint of the whole city and then stopped by the Olympic Museum.  In a country that has been ripped apart so badly, it’s amazing to see how much pride they take in the 1984 Olympics, which is still recognized as one of the best Olympic Games in history.  In the 1984 games, Yugoslavia won only a single silver medal, yet the country couldn’t have been more proud of its performance, both as the host, and in winning its medal (alpine skiing).

Once back in Sarajevo we saw Sniper’s Alley, the infamous street where Serbs would train their rifles and shoot anyone that walked by, man, woman or child.  Then we saw the Parliament building and the Holiday Inn, which served as the UN “safe spot” for war correspondents during the war.  The tour wrapped up with a visit to a traditional Bosnian house from the 17th century and a stop by the Latin Bridge.

After the tour ended, Kati and I took a quick nap (to compensate for the sleep the Asian robbed us of) and then headed out to explore a little more.  Before dinner we stopped through Coppersmith’s Alley, where you can still see Bosnians making their own copper and metal work by hand.  We even picked up a pretty cool handmade coffee/spice grinder.  Then we were off to dinner.

At Dinner with Our Dark Beers

Dinner was incredible!  We went to a place that I’ve heard described as being “Willy Wonka meets Las Vegas.”  I don’t know how accurate that description is, I just felt like we were in an old-fashioned hotel restaurant somewhere in Eastern Europe that all of the old travel writers rave about.  We got a table on the second floor right on the balcony, overlooking the entire room.  We went there for the beer…the only place in Sarajevo where you can definitely get a glass of the local dark beer, which was to die for.  It was one of the best meals we’ve had on our entire trip.  I had some grilled calamari and Kati had a sort of curried apple chicken.  We finished off our meal with a traditional Bosnian desert, some sort of candied apple filled with walnuts and some sort of cream and topped with whipped cream.  After profusely thanking the incredibly polite waiter that had recommended our dishes, he left us with a simple, and very proud look in his eyes, saying only, “Please, enjoy my city.”