Blogs from Bosnia & Herzegovina, Europe - page 31

It was onward from Dubrovnik and the first stop was a little medieval town called Mostar. It's claim to fame is it's bridge which was bombed during Slobodan Milosevic's Serbian invasion back in the early 90's, but has now been rebuilt, like the country, as a symbol of the country's reunification. The town itself was a cool little town, but there were still signs of the invasion, like gutted and bullet ridden buildings. Ironically enough, the 'Old City' looks the newest as it was around the bridge, and hence most of the tourist area. Other than a bit of wandering, there wasn't alot else to see, so I moseyed my way up to Sarejevo. The bus ride there was one of the more scenic rides I have had on the trip and I saw truly ... read more

And yet my computer does not have a USB port, so I cannot show you. I have been in Bosnia i Herzegovina less than 24 hours, and I love it. I am staying in Mostar, which is a little town with one tourism attraction: it's old bridge, the Stari Most (which, btw, is Croatian/Serbian/Slovenian/Bosnian/twenty other languages for: Old Bridge) Actually, the brackets are a point. I just don't get it. They speak the same language (almost), they eat the same things, they have the same sense of humour (wicked), so why? To hear the Official Bosnian/Hercegovan account, Milsoveic started it. No one else. Just him. I spoke to a Bosniak, though (that's someone who is ethnically as well as nationally Bosnian, and maybe Muslim). His take was that Croatia wanted to split half of Bosnia ... read more

Why are you going THERE? Seems to be the standard response when we mention we are going to Bosnia. Agreed, the only time Bosnia Herzagovina ever rated a mention in Australia was on SBS World News when it was having the crap blasted out of it, although Mary Kostakidis does have a way of pronouncing Sarajevo that makes it sound awfully exotic. Of course in reality, Sarajevo does have a rather chequered career. Back in 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his significant other were gunned down here and the rest, as they say, is history. It was an incident Sarajevo almost seems proud of. "Look at us, we started WW1". More recently, Sarajevo hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics and all was looking peachy. Jump ahead about 8 years and Ratko Mladic and his band of Christians ... read more

Trip through Eastern Europe Again, I have been traveling for a while and that is why I have not updated in a while. Since the last blog I have had my friend Ethan come and stay for a week, where we basically just stayed in Milan, other than a day trip back to Cinque Terre to go to the beach. After Ethan’s return to the U.S. I took a trip to Eastern Europe and went to Ljubljana, Slovenia then to Zagreb, Croatia and finally to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. My trip was during the week last week, I left on Monday (because Monday and Tuesday are holidays in Italy) and took a morning train to Venice where I spent six hours waiting to leave on my train to Ljubljana. I found out that when travelling in ... read more

Between the ages of 14-17 I was finishing the last years of my schooling, starting my first job, played squash and tennis in my free time, met up with mates and doing the usual stuff most of us did during the years of 1992 to 1995. During this time, the news reported on a country called Bosnia, and specifically a city called Sarajevo. Now we were far away from this place and ok I was old enough to remember but not quite old enough to know the extent of what really took place. Maybe it wasn’t even my age that was the reason for not knowing exactly what was going on. Who of us can seriously say we know exactly what is going on in Iraq at this very moment. Who of us knows the ... read more