Holiday Inn Sarajevo

Wow...it was quite the trip up here, as ya might have read I hitched up here with two guys who are stationed in Sarajevo with NATO, and were down in Dubrovnik for the weekend. It was sweet getting a drive with them all the way to city centre, instead of taking the bus. As we were driving in they were explaining the history of the town relating to the war in the early 90´s. I´ll admit that on the way in I wasnät especially impressed with the city at first sight. But that all changed as soon as...

Today I walked down a street in Sarajevo. Whoop-de-doo Nicolette, I hear you say. Stick with me - this was a special street. I had become wildly lost after walking out to the train station to book my overnight train back home to Budapest for that night (of course, there's not a booking office anywhere in town) and was strolling along a pleasant kind of boulevarde when I noticed, in all it's bright yellow glory, the Holiday Inn, sticking out like a shag on a rock in the middle of the rest of t...

There is a rickety old castaway train donated by the Swiss government that plies the route from the Croatian coast through Bosnia & Hercegovina, to Budapest. I shared the journey from Mostar to Sarajevo with two blokes from Nottingham, England, Vinny and Mike, who were one month into their overland journey around the world. Read their blog. Over the course of the trip, we were all stunned to realize that Bosnia & Hercegovina is spoilt with some of the most stunning mountain landscapes...

Sarajevo is a mini Yugoslavia, a multi-cultural city where 50 meters in each direction of my hostel you have the most important Mosque, Synagogue, Orthodox and Catholic Churches. It's a city that embraces its past history - the assassination of the Archduke of Austria Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie that triggered World War I, the hosting of the winter Olympics in 1984, and the nearly 4 year siege of the city from 1992-1995. I arrived in Sarajevo at 6:30 in the morning. Luckily my compart...

2nd June 2006 Walk to the bus station, wearing my Ski Jacket its that wet & cold, and take some photo's of damaged / destroyed buildings en route - not really sure if I should be doing this, as it is a little voyeuristic. Catch the 10.00am to Sarajevo, through lots of towns and villages, some pretty, some less than pretty, and the countryside with its typical houses, and mounds of grass in the fields, Bosnian style. Reach outer Sarajevo, and you can see the surrounding hills from where th...

Left this morning to travel to Sarajevo for the night. There are plenty of 'technical' stops on the way every day. These are for snacks, toilets, photo stops etc. Had to cross the border into Bosnia/Herzogovina where we had to get off the bus and hand over passports. Back on the bus and over the bridge where Border Police entered the bus, checked passports and the luggage hold. Noted that a lot of the houses in Zagreb and Sarajevo are two storey. Checked in the hotel and then back on the bus ...