Sarajevo & Mostar

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K- We visited Sarajevo in late May and found it a real multicultural city with an actual demarcation on the pavement in the Old Town (Stari Grad) between "East" and "West"! The 15th Century market area in the "East" town of (Baščaršija) originally had over 12,000 shops crammed in to a tiny area. There are still several hundred today along with many restaurants selling the local speciality foods such as cevabi (spiced meatballs served with flatbread, sour cream and onion). In many ways we got the East meets West flavour we had expected in Istanbul but didnt really get - probably because Stari Grad is much smaller and more compact.

For many years Sarajevo was of course infamous as "war torn" or "beseiged". It is easy to see why it was possible to beseige the city as it is set in a valley and the attacking forces could bombard the city safely from above. Fish in a barrel came to mind. The city has recovered but many buildings are still bullet scarred and there are many shrapnel scars in the pavements. The city has filled some of them in with pink cement and they are now called "Sarajevo roses". Our guide also pointed out the trees to us. Wherever a street was protected by buildings there are small, young trees. Wherever there was a gap in the houses, a large old tree survives as these were retained, despite the desperate need for winter fuel, to protect from snipers. We went to the historical museum which shows many real life accounts and photos of the seige. The museum is very basic but in a way that made it more real and impactful - we recommend it.

Mostar is all about the Ottoman bridge - built in the 16th Century and destroyed in 1993. A small museum nearby shows a moving 5 minute video set to music showing scenes of bridge diving in the 1950s through to its destruction and then its reconstruction using traditional methods and new bridge diving on its reopening in 2003. I would never have thought that watching a bridge being blown up could make me cry, especially knowing the atrocities that went on elsewhere during the Balkan wars, but it seemed to epitomise the complete senseless of war and conflict so I did.

The old town area around the bridge is very sweet, almost twee and again we were pleased to be there in shoulder season as it will be impossibly busy in the summer. Apart from the bridge the major sight to us was a central graveyard which was filled with people who all died in 1993. It was hard to find anyone over the age of 40. Sarajevo has the same.

We are massively behind on the blog so to catch up we are going to let the photos do the talking! Scroll down for more!

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