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Published: December 15th 2009
Today we got up and went to the market one last time to get some more souvenirs for friends. At 10:30, we met our tour guide in the hostel. He drove a Mercedes SUV with Texas license plates and registration stickers. I have to say.. this definitely put a smile on my face! Our first stop was the "Goat's Bridge." The story behind it is.. a shepherd was herding his sheep near the river and found gold, so they built a gold mine around the river in that area, but they needed a bridge to run over that area so they could carry supplies over the river. He said that the bridge was over 500 years old!
Next stop: the Jewish cemetery. This was probably my favorite part of the tour. The Jewish cemetery was used as a battlefield between the Serbian and Bosnian armies. The Serbs put mines throughout the cemetery, so graves were overturned and there are still bullet holes in the graves! From the graveyard, you could see the "sniper ally." Bosnians would try to cross this area to move supplies, but the Serbs would just shoot them one by one and there would be dead bodies
laying in the road against the wall.
Next, we went to the war tunnels. Sarajevo is built in a valley, so it was easy for the Serbs to take it over. The Serbs anticipated the war, so a month before it started, they hid 25,000 troops in the valley and supplied themselves with heavy artillery. They surrounded the valley by situating themselves on the mountains, so when the war started, they had already conquered the city. They starved the Bosnians and kept them inside the city. The UN came in and claimed the airport which is on the outside of the city bordering "free area" out of reach of the Serbs. So, Bosnians would try to escape to bring back food for their families. Most of them were shot by serbian snipers, so they built an underground tunnel to bring back supplies and ammunition. We went inside the tunnels.. they were cramped and wet! During the war, this old lady helped the troops carry the supplies. The old lady still lives there, and we got to see her! It was a really cool experience.
After the war tunnel, our tourguide took us to the "Roman Bridge'' Its called
the Roman bridge because Bosnians built it out of old Roman buildings. After the bridge, he took us to the airport and we were off, back to Praha. On the way, our tourguide told us about a website he started to jumpstart sarajevo tourism.. im not supposed to put links in here, so it might get deleted, but here is the link: http://www.visitsarajevo.ba/ Overall, it was an enriching experience, a different kind of enriching than visiting France or Italy. I was glad I went.
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Mom
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LOVED this entry - especially the part about the old woman who helped the troops carry supplies through the tunnels. What a great ending to your semester abroad - can't wait to see this Sunday!