Introduction and Bosnian Countryside | Sarajevo | Mostar | Bosnian music
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I visited Bosnia fleetingly whilst staying in Croatia with a friend in the summer of 2001. We caught a bus from Dubrovnik, southern Croatia, to Sarajevo. These ran fairly frequently (at least six per day). Whilst waiting at Dubrovnik bus station, we were approached by a woman with rooms to rent in Dubrovnik. On conversation with her, we established that her sister had a house in Sarajevo and took guests. We were supplied with a phone number and were told that her sister was "very beautiful, with long blond hair"...

At the time of travel there was passport control on entering Bosnia at Capljina. The road heads off away from the coast into the hills. At first the countryside is quite dry and "Mediterranean". This very rapidly changes as you enter the Bosnian hills. The road to Sarajevo follows the route of the emerald green River Neretva for much of its distance. This is spectacular scenery. The river sometimes cuts a gorge through the mountains, sometimes you hug mountainsides with astonishing views towards surrounding peaks. Not at all the impression of the scenery we have become accustomed to from the drear depictions on the national TV news!

Unfortunately, breathtaking though the scenery is, it must remain unexplored by independent tourists for the foreseeable future due to an abundance of landmines left by the recent wars. The locations of mines are substantially unknown, and while it is extremely unlikely that countryside areas are mined, it is best to err on the side of caution. It is recommended that traffic never pulls off a road onto scrub ground to the side, and pedestrians (particularly in the suburbs of Sarajevo and Mostar) stick to asphalt surfaces. Reminders of the landmine problem are very much in evidence along the route to Sarajevo: Every so often along the roadside will be found a memorial to someone - whether a woman of 50, a young boy of 12, or a soldier - killed at any time from the start of the war up until the present day. These are the people who merely walked on the wrong bit of harmless-looking ground.

If you want to see the countryside, I suggest you approach an organisation such as Greenvisions, who offer landmine-safe tours of the countryside and villages of Bosnia. They are based in Sarajevo. The guidebook situation is pretty much the same as for Serbia and Montenegro, although Inyourpocket have a quite good online guide to Sarajevo. In 2004 Bradt released a travel guide to Bosnia-Hercegovina. I haven't read this guide and have no idea how good it is.

Mostar is around halfway between the border and Sarajevo. Around halfway between Mostar and Sarajevo, near Jablanica, sited with lovely mountain veiws all round, is a Roadside Restaurant called "Zdrava Voda" ("Healthy Water"), where buses stop if a food-break is required. Here they serve the Bosnian speciality of roast lamb sandwiches. That sounds distinctly uninspiring doesn't it? The lambs are spit-roast, whole, outside the front of the restaurant. The sight is rather gruesome; the smell is wonderful; the food is cheap and filling. The Bosnian Mark was tied to the Deutsch Mark and Deutsch Marks were accepted currency, with the change being given in Bosnian Marks (the currency is now tied to the Euro). Croatian Kuna were also accepted in most places. The road continues through the hills after Mostar, and on through an area where the river swells into Lake Jablaničko, continuing to Sarajevo.

Click here for some pictures taken of the scenery along the road from the coast to Sarajevo | Back to top

We were met at Sarajevo by the typical crowd of women clamouring to offer us a room to stay in. One had blond hair and told us her sister had contacted her and told her we would be arriving. So we agreed our price (around £10 each for the night, including supper and breakfast) and headed off to her accommodation. This turned out to be little more than a two room flat in the suburbs, and we were allocated a sofabed each in the lounge. The owner was already sharing her bedroom with a female traveller from Scandinavia. It was comfortable enough though, and the hospitality was as much as could be hoped for. We decided to look around Sarajevo a little.

Sarajevo is a clean and attractive city, set in a verdant basin amongst low mountains. The city was still badly scarred by the war, streets have not been properly repaired from shell-strikes (leaving indentations known bizarrely as "Sarajevo roses") and a large proportion of the buildings are covered with shell and bullet holes and damaged paintwork. Only the very centre of the city appears to have been mostly repaired. We didn't fancy perusing the museums on offer there and took to just ambling round the streets. The old Turkish quarter is the most immediately interesting area, although the original district was deemed too "old fashioned" by the authorities, and what you see now is an almost complete, sanitized rebuild from the years follwing the Second World War. This is full of merchants' stalls, laid out something after the fashion of a bazaar. Most of them are metal workers, and seem to have jumped onto the bandwagon with carved shell cases of various sizes. These, carved knives and the ubiquitous "Turkish coffee sets" are the mainstay of their trade. We were mildly interested in a coffee set, but we were pressed for time and not in the mood for the lengthy compulsory haggle. We sat at a coffee shop in this area and sampled the "Bosnian coffee". This is made by boiling coffee with water in an individual-serving pot. The trick is to pour the coffee off and leave the sediment behind. It is traditionally served with a nut-based sweet, similar to Turkish delight in consistency, and a glass of water. No-one we spoke to seemed able to explain what the purpose of the water was, but we drank it anyway, scouring the faces of the other people there for any signs that our actions were odd in any way. Subsequent research has indicated that the water is drunk with the sweet, and the coffee thereafter, but who really cares?

Sarajevo is not replete with monuments to see. The former town hall and library, past which Archduke Franz Ferdinand passed moments prior to his assassination on the next corner, sparking WWI, is an attractive building, built by the Austrians in pseudo-Ottoman style during their occupation. The plaque (a pair of moulded footprints on the spot where the assassin stood to fire his gun) commemorating this historical event was ripped up in the war - the assassin, Gavril Princip, was Serbian. The main mosque is large and well-known for its quality of arhitecture, as is the Orthodox cathedral. A few other buildings are mildly interesting, but the war scars outdo the more "conventional" attractions for their interest. The main road into Sarajevo was known as "Sniper's Alley" during the war, and this is lined with some extraordinary destruction - some of which features on postcards of dubious taste.

There was a noticeable UN presence while we were there, and frequent helicopter passsings reminded us that the airspace was still under UN control. Sleeping at night there was slightly disturbing, as the war still felt somewhat close. The home cooking we received was plain but hearty (roast meat, peppers and vegetables, and rice - a variant on a traditional Serb dish called duveć).

Click here for some pictures taken in Sarajevo | Back to top

We only spent the one night in Bosnia (in Sarajevo). We decided to leave reasonably early the next morning so we could spend some time looking at Mostar on the way back to the coast. We knew that Mostar was more badly damaged than Sarajevo and remembered hearing much of the "bridge" on the news. Our guidebooks pointed out the roads that acted as the front-lines in the recent war and we wanted - in understandable but perhaps perverse curiosity - to see more damaged areas.

The heart of Mostar is Stari Most ("Old Bridge"). However, the bridge in question was completely destroyed by shelling by Croat militia. The only remaining old bridge on a tributary nearby was also washed away by floods in 1999. Work was underway to replace the main bridge, and a wooden temporary structure enabled a crossing while we were there.

Had we wanted accommodation in Mostar, we may have had more difficulty, as we were not accosted by anyone offering rooms, and would not have known where to start finding one. Fortunately, the bus station has a left-luggage facility, and we were able to walk around unencumbered. We walked from the station directly north to the beginning of the old front-line. The street is completely devastated. Cars still park alongside the ruins. We didn't dare step past any of the overgrown front gates for fear of landmines. This front-line stretches for a mile or two (hopping a street to one side half way along). Aside from the destruction, there is nothing more to see. This will change as the town gets back on its feet, repairs are carried out, and it and begins re-presenting itself as a viable tourist destination. The extent to which normal life carries on despite the cosmetic appearance is striking. Often you will see a café open with its upper stories in ruins. Some demolishing, bulldozing and repair was underway in 2001, but I have since heard rumour that some areas of damage are to be left as monuments to the war.

We walked to Stari Most to get some lunch. The most popular Bosnian "junk" food is called čevapi or čevapćići - a kind of lamb or beef meatball served with onion and fresh, warm somun bread (itself a delicious moist bread). We enjoyed ours immensely, served with chips and a couple of bottles of local beer. The area around Stari Most has the same sorts of bazaar-type shops as we found in Sarajevo (Mostar is divided, with Christians the opposite side of the river to the Muslim old town). It seemed that this was once an extremely picturesque town, with great tourist potential. The views along the river are quite lovely, and the ancient stone buildings and mosques, now awaiting repair, should have been a great draw to visitors.

Click here for some pictures taken in Mostar | Back to top

The bus back into Croatia was headed for Split, and passed through the famous pilgrimage site of Međugorje, although evening was drawing on and we had no opportunity to look around there.

Bosnian Music:

Moj dilbere - A typical 'Turkish' number played by the Tamburica Orchestra of RTV Sarajevo
Bosno mojo - A song featuring tamburica playing in a more Western style
Kad se Curcic pomamio - An example of a traditional sevdah Turkish song from Bosnia
Vbras Voda Nosila Jablana - Another example of Sevdalinka music, more removed from it's Turkish origins than the preceding
Ljepi li su Mostarski ducani? - A piece by a group called Mostar Reunion
Da sam ptica - A song of gypsy origin
Pod Tuzlum se zeleni - an old, scratchy recording of a song about Tuzla (I was told this was recorded near Ploce on the Croatian coast, but this may be be wrong)
Mladost kolo - Bosnian, gypsy-influenced group playing a Serbian tune
Another Serbian kolo performed in Bosnian style by a tamburica group
Trepetlika trepetala - a two-voiced wedding-song from the Muslim community of Gračanica in central Bosnia.