Flew into Sarajevo After Fifteen Hours From Houston, Found my Hotel, and Took a Look Around.......

.....and my first impression is that I made a good decision coming here.

Dead tired, I checked into the hotel and unpacked.  As TravelAdvisor.com had posted, the exterior is very misleading.

But the rooms are amazing.  Supposedly people like Richard Gere and Madonna have stayed here and I don't have the luxury suites, but my room is really nice.

Room plus free Internet and free breakfast for $51 a night.

After unpacking, I walked down to the Old Town and didn't really visit anything--just got my bearings and kind of laid out some plans for tomorrow.

Sarajevo is called the Jerusalem of the West.  There is a beautiful mixture of Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Jewish and Muslim churches here.   In one block of the Old Town alone, there are all four--two of them dating back to the 1400s.

Signs of the 1992-1995 war are everywhere.  The building next to my hotel is covered with shell holes.

Many buildings didn't make it at all......

This is the Latin Bridge, scene of the assassination that started World War I.   I'll check it out closer tomorrow--there's a museum and monument that I didn't visit today.

I think this is going to be a fun and interesting week.  The hotel is centrally located and the only downside is that to get back to it, I have to hike several blocks really, really uphill.

Tomorrow, I'll be checking the Old Town out a lot closer.  But I'm here and all's good so far......