Showing posts with label BiH. Show all posts
Friday, 4 November 2016
Mostar - BiH
Mostar is named after the bridge keepers (mostari), who in medieval times guarded the bridge built by the Ottomans in the 16th century to give passage over the Neretva River.
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| The famous Mostar bridge. |
Mostar is very close to Croatia. When we were back at Dubrovnik - Sail Croatia there was an option to do a day trip to Mostar so heading back here was sort of full circle. We only really had heard about the bridge, and knew there were a few national parks and monasteries to visit in the area. A lot of people had recommended it so we had to go.
During our walking tour in Sarajevo we got talking to an Aussie girl who'd just come from Mostar, specifically Madjas Hostel and said the day tour they ran out of the Hostel by Madjas brother was the best tour she's ever done! After the Sarajevo tour I researched this Hostel etc. and found other people were also raving about it, we decided book the hostel and head to Mostar initially for two nights with some pretty big expectations.
It was only a couple of scenic hours on the bus from Sarajevo through some amazing Autumn swept mountains and along large rivers. We walked to the Hostel no dramas, booked in, settled into our six bed dorm room and heading out for some tucker and a look around the old town. We had a beer and shared a cevapi and chips before heading back to the Hostel.
Back at the hostel we met several other Aussies, a couple of Americans, Canadians and a bloke from Croatia. We had a beer and chat to everyone. We put our names down for the tour the next day but there was only 3 of us who wanted to go so they postponed the tour to the day after - we decided that it was worth staying one more night to do the tour.
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| The couple of days in Mostar was a balmy 20 degrees, such a different story from Zagreb and some of the cold weather we had at Sarajevo! |
It was bloody terrifying just watching him do it, but the adrenaline rush and sense of satisfaction afterwards would have been amazing! A couple of days earlier an Aussie bloke had landed awkwardly and "broken his knee" apparently....spent a week on the couch at the hostel unable to walk, that marked the end of his trip and an early flight home.
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| A cheeky ice cream after watching the jump to calm down. |
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| War damage throughout the town - a lot has been fixed up but this building still has the scars from wars in the 90's. |
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| One of the popular places to visit is an old bank in the centre of town which was abandoned and used as a sniper tower during the wars. Just a concrete shell now full of graffiti, it was crazy to explore such a significant building in such a good part of the town just sitting there. |
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| The building is 7 stories - it was very eerie looking down the old lift shaft. |
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| some of the messages and artwork throughout the building is pretty cool. |
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| Access to the roof via this ladder on the 7th floor. |
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| From the top of the bank you get a good view of the town. Here are some overgrown ruins in the park below the bank. |
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| Outside the old town, Mostar was quite a big city (<100,000 people) featuring a shopping centre and also McDonalds. |
After looking around the town in the morning we caught the bus out to Blagaj to visit the famous Monastery and historic town. This was an easy ride as three different busses over various times throughout the day head out to this town. Overlooking the town of Blagaj is an old fortification, and a couple of the people at the hostel said it was a good short hike to watch the sunset.
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| Vrelo Bune - the coexistence of nature and architecture at the Buna River near the village of Blagaj. Considered a national monument, the Monastery was built during the 1500's. The water flow is super strong from a spring inside the cave. |
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| Looking back toward Mostar over Blagaj - there wasn't a sunset as such since some overcast weather had rolled in late arvo, all the same we had the hill to ourselves and wasted an hour or so just watching the darkness come in. |
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| Apparently the fort has been dated back to prehistoric and roman times, and was last used during the early 19th century. It was a reasonably solid walk up and seems there has been some restorations done over the years. |
We decided not to stay a third night just to go on the Hostel Tour since we'd seen Blagaj that day. The tour visited Kravice National Park and waterfalls but the weather was too cold for us to swim, and after seeing a couple of NPs in Croatia we felt we weren't missing too much... So we bought a 2 litre plastic bottle of beer and spent the night back at the hostel with all the other travellers talking and carrying on. Who would have thought this was a bad idea the night before a 7am-7hr bus to Montenegro the following morning...that 2L bottle of beer really did a number on us both!
Overall Mostar was a quick stopover for us at only two nights, but we were keen to keep trucking onto Montenegro. Mostar itself doesn't have a lot of sights and we were happy with what we had seen in the one night and full day exploring.
We really enjoyed the Hostel - meeting new people and getting ideas about where to go and what to see. We didn't really sleep much because we were caught up talking and getting to know some of the other travellers but it was good fun and we will definitely stay at more hostels as we head through the Bulkans.
Friday, 28 October 2016
Sarajevo - Bosnia and Herzegovina
A 10 hour train ride welcomed us to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) from Zagreb on a bloody chilly Friday. We'd organised another AirBnB at the Capital of BiH - Sarajevo, only the night before leaving Zagreb which is later then we usually plan to book accommodation.
The train was the first public transport for the trip which we couldn't book online or find a timetable, so we had to suss it a couple of days earlier at the Zagreb train station. The morning of, we got to the station about 30min early, brought the tickets (hand written) and jumped on the train waiting at the platform. It was one of those trains with rooms of about 6 stained seats in each room smelling of cigarettes.
Around 12pm we reached the Croatian border where the train stopped and waited for police officials to come onboard for passport control. They flicked through our passports for a minute or so, and started to ask us questions about where we've been and when we arrived in Croatia etc. There was a little bit of a communication barrier but one of the blokes spoke pretty good English. They kept asking for more paperwork but we didn't have any. They spoke amongst themselves, stamped our passports then left. The English speaking bloke returned and said we were supposed to get some documentation from a hotel/police station when we arrived in Croatia to show we were in the country or something... usually the fine was 500kuna (100AUDea.) but we were wavered thankfully. I can't find anything on the net where it says this is required so I'm not sure what they were on about..
We rolled into Sarajevo around 7pm and our AirBnB host (legend) pick us up from the station! He took us on a quick lap of the city centre on the way to our apartment, giving us some pretty good history and insight.
We hadn't eaten much on the train, and Amy was hangry so after the apartment tour we headed out to get some tucker and we were pleasantly surprised!
Our first morning in Sarajevo we jumped onto a walking tour to get our facts and history. The tour went for 2.5hrs and discussed a lot about the civil war (specifically because he was a child at the time and lived through it), and the extensive history about the town. The tour was very factual and history based without many "legend" stories. All the same it was very informative. Basically Sarajevo is famous for three things: The assignation of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the 1984 Winter Olympics and the Sarajevo Siege (1425days long) during the civil war.
The tour guide openly spoke about his personal experiences from the war, which was interesting because the majority of people we had spoken to didn't want a bar of it (which is fair enough!). During the Sarajevo Siege, the guide was 8 years old and forced to live in his family's apartment building basement with neighbours through the almost 4 years of war. His original apartment was located on the 8th floor, but was super unsafe due to constant shelling from the Serb Army.
During the war time they rarely left the basement, they used furniture and books to fuel a fire, both to keep warm and for cooking. A teacher from their school lived close by so she would come by and educate the children in the basement. During this time his father joined the local army to defend Sarajevo, and his mother continued to work as she did before it all started. Life within the city continued as normal as possible throughout the siege despite significant lose of life and the carnage which it faced.
Basic food and staples were provided by the UN during the war time, however there was other food available through a black market system but it was super expensive. The tour guide told us about a special memory he had with regard to chocolate. The whole 4 years of the war he only ate the staples provided by the UN, nearing the end of the war his mother found a market stall that accepted gold as a trade in. She told the children that day they would get some chocolate, she took her gold earrings and traded them. The tour guide told us that it was the best chocolate he had ever had.
Sarajevo has a long history with religious culture and has been referred to as the Jerusalem of Europe. It has a Mosque (200 of them around the city), Catholic church, Orthodox church and a Synagogue in the same neighbourhood. Despite all these different beliefs there has never been unrest in the town which is pretty fascinating. Why can't we all just get along like Sarajevo?
We hadn't eaten much on the train, and Amy was hangry so after the apartment tour we headed out to get some tucker and we were pleasantly surprised!
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| Brendan with a Meat Patty and , Amy with a Cevapi and a shared salad, two cokes = 18AUD. It was simple and surprisingly delicious! |
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| Shrapnel from the civil war at our AirBnB apartment, they found this item when renovating. |
The tour guide openly spoke about his personal experiences from the war, which was interesting because the majority of people we had spoken to didn't want a bar of it (which is fair enough!). During the Sarajevo Siege, the guide was 8 years old and forced to live in his family's apartment building basement with neighbours through the almost 4 years of war. His original apartment was located on the 8th floor, but was super unsafe due to constant shelling from the Serb Army.
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| An interesting diagram we found at the museum - showing the housing before and during the war and how the civilians adapted to war time.. |
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| Taken from Wikipedia - Sarajevo during the siege. |
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| A Sarajevo Rose - there a over 50 of these throughout the city centre. They are a memorial to lives lost via a shell dropped into the city from the Serbs during the siege in the early 90's. |
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| Some of the locals playing chess. A daily event in this park, our tour guide said he even saw men playing chess when it was minus 20 degrees.. The old fellas love it, two play and many give their suggestions.. |
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| Sarajevo river - its red because of the run off from a couple of days rain. |
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| Known locally as the ugliest building in the city, this was build prior to the 84 winter olympics. |
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| One of the most famous structures of Sarajevo - The Latin Bridge. Famous for taking part (sort of) in the assignation of Archduke Frantz Ferdinand in 1914 which was apparently the trigger to starting WW1. |
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| Local brewery - built on top of a well. The brewery played a significant roll in the civil war as it supplied all the fresh water to the city during the siege! |
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| This is the original road to Istanbul during Ottoman Rule - Amy is tired thinking about the trip which would have taken a couple of months surely.... Either side of the road are muslim graves. |
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| Lunch - Burek. A pastry pie, filo pastry with either meat or cheese and spinach filling... Yummy = 6AUD. |
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| Photo of remains of an old traders hotel/stables used during the Ottoman period - Sarajevo was a significant trade centre during that time. |
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| Sarajevo Rose in front of the cathedral. |
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| Cathedral in the old town centre. |
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| The actual spot of the Franz Ferdinand assignation - across the road from the Latin Bridge. |
1984 Olympic Bobsled Track
Our highlight of Sarajevo!
Abandoned post olympics, and base for the Serbian army during the civil war, it was surprisingly intact. It was a reasonably steep couple of hour walk/hike from the centre of town up to the track through streets of urban Sarajevo, which was great to see after spending a couple of days in the old town city centre. It really gives you a better idea of how the locals live when you get among it a bit more.
There isn't any public transport up to the track, so in speaking with a couple of locals and looking at Tripadvisor reviews, our main options were to drive or get a taxi... But we wanted to walk - I found a couple of things on the net which described a walking path and directions but it wasn't clear cut. I decided to look up old faithful maps.me app and it bloody gave me the path directly from the old town to the track!!
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| maps.me directions - the hike in total took us about 2hrs including time for photos and a couple of short stops. |
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| The walk is great just because if gives you a good overview of Sarajevo. |
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| Amazing colours on the walk up! |
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| These arrows/TRAIL were around near the top of the climb. |
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| Abandoned houses about 400m south of the track. |
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| Some of the first buildings you come across at the bottom of the track. |
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| The artwork throughout the track is pretty sweet and well worth the trip in itself. |
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| Jamaican Bobsled Team.. reminding us of Cool Runnings, great movie! |
VIDEO PLEASE CLICK ABOVE TO WATCH
There were a lot of reviews on Tripadvisor about the safety etc. of visiting the track. We were there late morning on a Sunday. When we first arrived there was one other couple wandering around and us. Over the couple of hours we spent there we ran into many people and a couple of young families wandering around on and off the track.
There was mention of landmines and the odd explosive still hidden around the track which might be possible - we did not stray far from concrete incase this maybe true, but overall the area was relatively clean and we felt safe. We didn't see anyone whom looked like a trouble maker or the like.
No doubt this track will defiantly become seriously popular in the years to come as will Sarajevo!
Overall what we loved about Sarajevo:
- More affordable than Croatia & the Czech Republic
- Peaceful, and safe considering the diverse culture here!
- Great local organic food - Turkish feel (not that we know Turkish)
- Not many tourists
- A lot of untouched nature/buildings to explore!
- Has the option of modern shopping and western food to remind us of Melbourne!
We also visited the History Museum and the City Town Hall which both only cost only a couple of dollars to enter and had great displays depicting peoples experiences of the civil war. The City Town Hall was spectacular, the building itself had high ceilings and very detailed decor, it had an exhibition which summed up the last 100 years in Sarajevo and BiH history - very interesting and helped us to put everything we learnt from walking tours in order.
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| Town Hall |
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| Inside the Town Hall |
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| Enroute to the History Museum along the river - plenty of locals out and about on a Sunday! |
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| The Festina Lente Bridge is a beauty, at night its well worth a look! |
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Lunch, wine and dessert made from fresh local ingredients at Apetit was 60AUD and on par/closest thing we've had to typical Australian restaurant food in a while. It was bloody nice for a change. Would cost 120AUD at least back home. A good note to leave Sarajevo on!
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