Spent a Full Day in Herzegovina and the Pictures are Amazing......

.....plus we had some of the most amazing weather imaginable.

The tour didn't get back to the hotel until very late at night and I'm flying out this morning, so I'm basically just posting pictures today.

Konjic--17th century 6-arched bridge over Neretva River.  Destroyed by the Nazis at the end of WWII but obviously rebuilt.

Waterfalls near Pocitelj:

Remains of Ottoman Turk walled city.  We drove to the top and walked back down through the ruins.

At Blagaj, we visited the source of the springs for the Neretva River and picked our own trout for lunch.

Mostar was the highlight of the trip--featuring a 16th century bridge.  During the 90s war, it took the Serbs three months of constant shelling to destroy it.  Rebuilt now, with most of the original stones, it is amazing.

At Mostar, we visited a 16th century mosque and I climbed the minaret tower--a first for me but the view was great.

Still haven't been able to check in for my flight this morning but unless there's a glitch, I should be home around midnight tonight.  Great trip.

Woke up to Rain and Considerably Cooler Temperatures......

.....and I knew from the forecasts that rain was expected while I am here.  It's also expected most of the day tomorrow when I go to Herzegovina.  Because of the rain, I did a leisurely breakfast at the hotel and went into town around 9:00.  The rain had stopped but it was definitely light jacket weather.

I took a different way down the mountain this morning and ran into an old, old neighborhood that must have been amazing in its day.  The old mansions are in disarray now but there was a historical plaque, in English.  This building was so amazing I couldn't get a real photograph that did it justice.  It was originally built by a doctor then had served as the British Embassy after WWI.  After the second world war it had briefly been a US Consulate, then an Olympic museum in 1984 before being set on fire in the last war.

The house beside it was almost as majestic.  It had belonged to an attorney and politician and had a five-story turret.

There is so much history packed into this small city of only 400,000.

I spent about three hours just walking the Old Town then headed out toward the airport on the main street that was known as Sniper's Alley during the war.  The architecture here quickly became Communist-era.

One building had an eternal flame dedicated to Tito and the partisans who had fought the Germans here.

Walking further along, and getting into the Sniper's Alley area, I found this Monument to Murdered Children.

Plaques in the background have the  names of over 1,600 children killed during the 1992-95 war--most of the victims killed by sniper fire from the surrounding hills.

It started sprinkling so I didn't go all the way to the Holiday Inn where most of the destruction and fighting took place.   Here are a couple of the housing blocks that were under constant fire though.

On some days the snipers would just fire onto one floor--say the third--while other days they might just fire at corner apartments.  This went on for 3 1/2 years.

I walked back to the Old Town and realized I'd been walking non-stop for four hours.  I headed back to the Brewery and this time I splurged and had a salmon dinner with the works and two mugs of beer.  Total cost:  $14.00.

I walked around probably another hour before heading to the hotel. It was dark and gloomy so I took a nap.  When I woke up, the sun was out so I headed back into town, had a pizza for supper and just took a final look around.  I came across this parade--don't know what the sign means.  Maybe "Americans go home," I don't really know.

This may have been my last trip to the Old Town.  Tomorrow I go on a day-long tour into Herzegovina and getting back kind of late.  Tuesday I head to the airport in the morning.  

I came across a sticker that should be the mantra for diversity advocates.  It certainly levels the playing field:

Did a Tour of the War Zone on my Second Day......

.....but I started with a leisurely morning in the Old Town with a walk along the river and visits to a couple of tea houses.  The old main street is now a pedestrian mall but the cultural influences are very evident.  In fact, the sidewalk delineates the differences between Ottoman and Hapsburg.

If you turn one direction, it would be easy to imagine you're in Vienna:

Turn the other direction and you are in Istanbul:

And at another spot, the Eastern Orthodox and western Roman churches met centuries ago.  Sarajevo really is an amazing place.

In the afternoon, I signed up for a Sarajevo War Zone tour.  The 3 1/2 year war here claimed over 11,000 lives with 1600 of them being children.  Signs of the war are everywhere some twenty years later.   The outdoor market very near my hotel was hit with 67 people killed.

Since over two million rounds were fired into the city, hardly a building avoided damage.  Some areas of Sarajevo looked like those photos of Hiroshima after we dropped the bomb in WWII. We went through the Sniper's Alley today but I couldn't get photos out of the moving vehicle.  I may walk back down there tomorrow and spend some time.

Sarajevo was surrounded throughout the war except for a small area in the mountains.  When the United Nations took over the airport in 1993, the airport connected the city with that small area but snipers kept Bosnians from getting food, weapons or supplies since the UN was "neutral" and wouldn't allow them to arm themselves.  In response, the Bosnians built a half-mile tunnel literally under the runway and used it to supply themselves during the war.

The tunnel was literally built inside someone's house on one end and finished inside someone else's house on the other end.

After that we went up into the mountains and looked at some of the Serbian artillery and tank sites where they bombarded the city below.  The United Nations was completely useless to the Bosnians--actually keeping them from arming themselves for defense.  Technically the war ended when NATO took out the Serbian positions in the mountains.  As our guide pointed out,
NATO gets the credit but it was actually the US Air Force that did all the dirty work and did it very quickly.  He pointed out that Bosnia appreciates what we did for them but it could have been done three years earlier before 11,000 of them were needlessly killed.

Built by the Austo-Hungarian army in 1800s

Used by the Serbian Army 1992-1995

Destroyed by the US Air Force 1995

Built by the Yugoslavian Army post-WWII

Used by the Serbian Army 1992-1995

Destroyed by the US Air Force 1995

From here we went further into the mountains to the site of the 1984 Olympic bobsledding venue.  It was really neat yet kind of sad at the same time.  Even this "world peace games" venue was involved in the war here.

We actually walked the entire length of the track and met our driver at the finish line.  It's been taken over by graffiti artists, skateboarders and mountain bikes but still retains a lot of it's 1984 grandeur when the East Germans swept all the gold medals here.

It made a wonderful shield for Serbian snipers and they created holes in several places to fire down into the city.

The finish line:  My official time was somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes.

We then went even further up to the Alpine Village lodge/restaurant where Jim McKay and ABC Sports broadcast all the Olympic results from here.

There used to be a ski lift from the city center that brought tourists, journalists and athletes directly to this lodge.  It was hoped the 1984 Olympic venues would provide tourism and income for Bosnia for decades.  They lasted nine years.  If it was Bosnian, the Serbs destroyed it.

Sarajevo Roses

I find this incredibly sad.  Literally tens of thousands of mortar shells rained down into Sarajevo during the war.  Their scars are everywhere even today.

On impact, the shells created a scar with shrapnel marks.  In those places where the shells killed people, the Bosnians have filled in the scars with red epoxy, creating an almost floral effect.

There are literally hundreds of these around the city--if they are filled with red epoxy, somebody died here.  They're called Sarajevo Roses.

One last war-related note on the war today:

Serb-Bosnians raided the national library and used incendiary bombs to destroy over two million books including religions manuscripts from the four religions--some of which were over 1,000 years old.

Today was an educational day--tomorrow I have nothing planned except to be a tourist.  Monday, my last full day here, I've booked a day-long trip to five very old Bosnian towns in the countryside.

This has been a good trip.

Absolutely Nothing is Simple in the Balkans......

.....whether it be religion, nationalism or ethnicity.

But, when left to their own devices, it seems to work pretty well here.   It's basically when outsiders get involved but that's often the case I guess.

Last night I walked back into the Old Town to eat.  It's only about a ten minute walk but the hill is pretty steep.

I was still suffering the effects of travel so I wasn't real hungry and tried the national dish over here--called cevapi.  It's basically ground lamp cooked into small sausages and stuffed into a bread with cooked onions.

It was OK--I'm not a big fan of lamb but it was good enough to get me caught up from traveling.

I got a fairly good night's sleep and ate breakfast at the hotel then headed back down the hill to explore some more.  One of the really neat things here is the outdoor cafes--literally everywhere--that feature tea and Turkish coffee.

I had a tea as soon as I got into the Old City and it was really relaxing--the weather is much warmer here than I'd anticipated and it was refreshing to sit and have the tea with Turkish music in the background.  It's served with heavy doses of lemon and honey.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, Sarajevo has been called the Jerusalem of the West.  Earliest records of the city show it being created as a Muslim trading post and the Ottoman Turk influence is everywhere in the Old City.  If fact, it reminds me very much of Istanbul in many ways.  Of the three predominant ethnicity groups, Muslims make up the majority at about 40% of the population.

One of the earliest structures other than a mosque was a fortress-style house where animals were housed on the ground floor and the upper floor consisted of rooms where visitors and traders could stay free of charge for three nights.  It still exists but is now a complex of shops and a large coffee house.  But early in Sarajevo's history, Muslim traders would come into town on camels and meet here with Jewish traders who arrived by horse and donkey (thus the reason for keeping livestock on the first floor.  Ironically, when the Jews were expelled from Spain and Europe during the Inquisition, it was the Muslims here that welcomed them and for centuries Sarajevo had a thriving Jewish population and synagogue.  The Nazis pretty much decimated the Jews here and they have never returned to the numbers as before the war and concentration camps.

I had a coffee here and Turkish coffee is very strong and they serve it in small vessels with an inch of coffee grounds in the bottom.  They then pour boiling water into the vessel and let it create a foam.  It's almost impossible to drink without a cube of sugar so it's served with sugar and a piece of Turkish Delight.  If you haven't tried Turkish Delight, it's a sugar-coated candy that's very addictive.  When Devin, Alida and I went to Istanbul, I bought three boxes to give as Christmas presents and I think I ended up eating all three pretty much by myself.

Anyway, you pour the coffee into the small cup over a sugar cube and stir--which causes another foam.  You gently blow the foam back and sip the coffee.  The secret is knowing when to stop before you get to the grounds.  It was OK--I've tried it and will probably stick to tea the rest of this trip.

The thing is, these outdoor cafes are everywhere and it's easy to just wander the small side streets of the old town and spend the day drinking tea and coffee.  In the afternoons, you can go into the Hapsburg area of the city and include stopping for a local beer in the outdoor cafes.  Life really is slower here.

The  city really does celebrate its diversity.  The Muslims are obvious by their dress--men with beards and fez-type caps and the women with their hijabs (shoulder and head scarves).  I haven't seen a single burka over here.  But it's not at all unusual to see two young girls arm in arm on the sidewalk with one wearing a head scarf and the other in skinny jeans with a bare-midriff cutoff tee shirt.  I really get the sense it's a more relaxed practice of Islam over here than in the Middle East.

I heard the local mosque make it's call to prayers outside the hotel around five this morning.  The calls are always made in Arabic but this one was a little less harsh than most I've heard.  The guy wasn't exactly Bing Crosby but neither was he that screaming, almost threatening, sound like in Africa, Indonesia and Egypt.

There is one large block in the Old Town that features a 15th century mosque, a Serbian Orthodox church, a Roman Catholic cathedral and a Jewish synagogue.

Serbian Orthodox

Jewish

Roman Catholic

Muslim

During the war years of 1992-1995, over a million rounds were fired into the city from the surrounding hills and much of it was directed at the Muslim Quarter and the two 15th century mosques.

I checked out the museum at the Latin Bridge marking the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his pregnant wive Sofia.  It's not called "Latin Bridge" because of Roman influences.  It's actually the Latinska Cuprija named after the  architect who designed it in the 1500s.

I thought the museum and the story of the assassination were interesting.  The Austro-Hungarian Hapsburg empire had assumed control of the Balkans from the Ottoman Turks and had annexed the area, including Sarajevo and Bosnia, into the Empire in 1908.  The move was very unpopular here and Franz Ferdinand's visit was seen as an extreme insult and provocation since he was in line to become the next emperor.

On the day of the assassination, a Serbian separatist threw a bomb into the car only to have the driver toss it back out where it exploded and injured 22 parade bystanders.  In a classical historical understatement and mistake, the driver told the prince "the Slavs were too stupid to plan a second attempt and they went to the city hall for a reception.

The building that is now the museum was a bar at the time and another Serbian nationalist was inside.
After the reception at the city hall, the motorcade headed back down the street and for some unknown reason turned right at the Latin Bridge and past the bar.

City Hall

From a distance of about five feet, the Serb shot and killed the archduke and his wife--making him a Serbian hero.  For a while, the bridge was renamed after him and his footprints embedded in the concrete.  Today only these remain and inside the museum.

From there, I crossed the river and visited the national brewery of Bosnia--the Sarajevsko Brewery which has been around since 1864.  It was built over the only natural springs in Sarajevo and during the 1992 War, provided the only drinking water available to the besieged city.

The inside is beautiful with dark wood and lots of brass.

It is considered one of the more expensive restaurants in town, but this sausage lunch with beer was less than $10.t

Overall, a very good first day.