Don't worry mum...it's just Bosnia and Serbia!

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When I was an undergrad student, I travelled around Western Europe by train with two friends, Helen and Ursula. We took a ferry from Italy to Greece and then took a train straight through what was then Yogoslavia directly to Budapest as the guidebook warned that the area was still too dangerous to travel in because of the recent war. Well, many years later I am back and it is all so different. The centre of the war was Bosnia and Serbia. It felt strange to be going there as it has scary images for me, but it turned out to feel very safe and welcoming.

Our first glimpse of the former horrors was the town of Mostar in Bosnia. This gorgeous picture-postcard village was hit badly during the war, its famous Stari Most bridge being completely destroyed along with most of the buildings. Nowadays, the bridge is rebuilt and many of the buildings have been restored to form a pretty central tourist zone with all of the requisite bars, restaurants and souvenir shops. However, scattered everywhere are the battered shells of the buildings that have not yet been restored. The worst damage was seen a few blocks away from the river which was home to the front line. So many buildings still remain in ruins, reminders of the horrors of the all too recent past. We spent a pleasant two days wandering around the cobbled streets and watching the local past-time for young men who want to earn a euro or two (or fifty!) from the tourists - jumping from the bridge into the water over 60 feet below.

From there we headed to Sarajevo. It wasn't immediately impressive compared to everywhere else we have been, but we did go to an interesting history museum which showed in sometimes graphic detail what the Bosnian people suffered during the war years. The most chilling images were of ordinary people rushing across the road dragging kids along in order to collect water or go shopping, being shielded from sniper fire by a tank. Its scary to think about people living like this every day just to survive. Back out on the street we spotted a famous Sarajevo Rose, old shell indentations that have since been filled in with red concrete to form a flower...kind of. Again, it is chilling to see the destruction. If you looked carefully, you could still see the markings of war on the buildings, but in general Sarajevo was much more put together than Mostar.

Next it was time to head off to Serbia to hear the other side of the story. After being unimpressed with Sarajevo, we had low expectations for Belgrade. In actual fact, though, Belgrade was really nice. It seems like a very liveable city with a good climate (at least in summer!), lots of pavement restaurants and bars to hang out in, a park and old fortress area to laze in, and a cobbled old area to take visitors to. We spent a pleasant evening there exploring the fort and cobbled area and eating at one of the cute restaurants with live music. We got a bit of a surprise with the pizza we ordered though. The menu said "tomato, mushroom and basil" and that was exactly what we got i.e. no cheese!!! Have you ever heard of a pizza without cheese? It wasn't the most appetizing, but at least it was a healthy pizza. We have been eating rather a lot of pizza as it is generally the cheapest thing on the menu, and I have been worrying about all of the fat we have been eating - this solves the problem!!! The weird thing is that pizza always comes served with a huge bowl of tomato ketchup, which the locals smother on in copious amounts - gross!

In the morning we got a shock. We trundled out of the hostel wearing the usual shorts, t-shirt and flip flops and found that the weather had completely changed. It was rainy and cold! We'd known it was coming as we'd seen a weather forecast on Yahoo! but it didn't really register until it actually happened. We spent a rather wet day slipping around in our shorts and flip flops, wearing waterproof coats by this time! Honestly, marble European flooring doesn't work well with flip flops when wet! Much of the day we mooched around the shops, got coffee and did internet. The only touristy thing we actually did was take a visit to the Military Museum which had a rather scary-looking collection of medieval weapons and more modern guns and rocket launchers. Boy stuff really! I was hoping that I would get a perspective on their side of the story concerning the Bosnia war but the history only when as far as WWII unfortunately.

Tonight at 9pm we are boarding a sleeper train to Sofia, Bulgaria. Due to a misunderstanding with purchasing the ticket, we ended up in our own sleeper carriage, a relative luxury to what we had planned, but it is our wedding anniversary tomorrow so we decided to splash out and keep it. It had better be nice!

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Photos

The plain-looking little bridge with a LOT of history, Sarajevo, Bosnia
This is where the heir to the Austrian throne was assassinated, sparking WWI