Day 10: Arrived in Sarajevo

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Lovely day today!

Caught an early train from Mostar to Sarajevo - ah, trains. I do quite enjoy them, it's a whole different experience and atmosphere than a bus. Unfortunately, here the trains are still all about old men smoking everywhere haha. Not quite an addition to the atmosphere.

The view from the train was spectacular though - well - what I saw of it lol. Between the haze of cigarette smoke and the heat, I slept for most of the journey, waking up whenever the train would pull into a station only to doze right back off.

I had been dreading trying to find my hostel here in Sarajevo - in Mostar it was on a main street so easy to decipher on a map. This one is in the Old Town... so on a poorly marked little alley that appears on no maps haha.

To my astonishment it was on the first street I tried. Look at me go - traveller extraordinaire!

(We all know now that I wrote that... I will pay dearly for it. Oh well. Adventures.)

I found it no problem but no one was home..! I got another hotel nearby to call them for me and we were good to go. It's a sleepy pace here during the day, but that's fine by me. (Although waiting almost 40min for them to come let me in was rather long...) I just sat outside on my bags, reading my book though. Not a bad way to spend 40 minutes.

Sarajevo is another beautiful city - coming into the centre there are many ruins and heavily damaged buildings once more. It does make you take pause and reflect.

The Old Town is as charming as any other - (totally walkable!) cobblestone. It is a lot busier and more touristy than Mostar was - with that comes the added chaos and flurry of people trying to sell you things everywhere, but they are still polite about it at least.

I had a late lunch and made a big meal out of it - I had cevapi again with some added extra piece of meat that I don't remember what it's called. Oh my God, the bread this time was simply to die for - it was the perfect texture and hot and just... I could have ate 5 plates of the bread.

I continued to wander around the Old Town a bit before heading down in search of the Museum - I want to learn more about the history before I properly explore the city. After a very long walk (decided easier to hunt on foot than by tram), I found the museum... only to discover it's been closed down.

*disgruntled sigh of life*

(Upon further research - it was closed down to a lack of funding. Really now...)

I took the tram back to the Old Town and just continued to roam the alleys - it was very laid back day. Tomorrow I'm going to try and find a different museum (which I'm pretty sure is still open!) and maybe visit a few churches and mosques. We'll see what the day brings!

And funny extra little tidbit: sitting in my room writing this - the hostel is next to a large mosque. I'm used to the call to prayers now (between Mostar and last year in Morocco)... but there is a new addition here. Right before they do the sunset call (sorry, I don't know enough about Ramadan to use proper terminology) there is a loud bang that sounds like an explosion. Uhm. A tad unsettling when you're in Bosnia... and don't know what the explosion is. Not that I expect there to be explosions because it's Bosnia... but really, explosions are not a fun sound when they are unexpected.

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