Hotel America Sarajevo

... east along “Snipers Alley” past the famous Holiday Inn where the CNN correspondents lived while covering the war. Our goal was to stop at the train station so we could buy in advance the tickets we needed to travel to Mostar on Wednesday. We purchased 2 tickets for the 7:05am train for 10KM each. Train travel is certainly economical here!

After buying the tickets, we encountered the twisting Avaz Buidling which we learned was opened ...

... curator, who spoke a small amount of english, was showing us around.

I asked if there were many wolves in the area. He says, "yes, yes, many wolves".

I question that they cant be close by and must be deep in the forests. He says, "no, no, sometimes they are close by in the hills" - and this is the bombshell, he points up the the hills where we were camping last night.....

After that little tidbit of info we kept on looking around the museum. The curator shows ...

... cursed from the very beginning. I booked the tour for 2PM, and I had 30 minutes before departure time, so I stepped into the shop one block down that proudly advertised "Fast Food". FAIL. My simple pancake too a staggering 25 minutes to arrive. My swedish friend's omelette took the same time. I didn't even know omelettes could be cooked for more than 5 minutes. End result was that we missed the last tour of what was my last day in Sarajevo. The ramifications of the extra ...

... in a factory in China. There was one street where every time you walked by you could here the clink-clink of metal workers hammering away making coffee pots and elaborately designed metal plates. And everything is extremely inexpensive in Bosnia, which is a nice relief. Aunt Sara asked me what the election feeling is like over here. Every single European that I've met and have had the time to talk to about politics has been an avid Obama supporter. The attitude ...

... later we ended up back at the train station and then the everyone decided that a tram would be a good idea! Our accommodation wasn't really a hostel. Shona and I had a twin share room and the others were in an apartment. We freshened up and went to explore the town and find some food. The location was fantastic, less than a minute walk to the main tourist area.

... 347;ć i zostaliśmy zawiezieni w czwórkę do schroniska po drugiej stronie centrum. Tam znowu musieliśmy się wspiąć kawałek pod górę i... w końcu byliśmy u celu - w domu przerobionym na hostel. Było przed 3cią, jak poszliśmy spać. I ja, i Marcin, załapaliśmy się już tylko na zimną wodę, bo ciepłej z bojlera zabrak ...

... down the main street, Ferhadija, to more of the sights... The cathedral, sculptures melting into colourful buildings, and of course the Eternal Flame... And now for a touching Bosnian juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy: Red Bat ...

... small old town. I started with the Latin Bridge, site of Archduke Ferdinand's assassination, commonly held to have led to World War I. It's a rather non-descript bridge, but if you're going to be in Sarajevo, you have to see it. This was followed by Bascarsija, the old bazaar area left over from Turkish times. Unlike Skopje's, which is hilly and filled with local shops, Sarajevo's is flat and filled with tourist shops. I contemplated purchasing my parents ...

... interesting comments that Claude and I talk about after we leave. The Italians, worldwide, tend to write "Viva Italia World Cup 2006" and add pictures and stars. I guess we all react differently to tragedy. After all that history, we dined today at a nice little restaurant with a nice little story behind it. Over a century ago, as the city was building river embankments to stem repeated flooding problems, it became necessary to demolish one citizen's abode ...

... and then eaten in small bites. All of this was washed down with the rest of the strong espresso, with additional bites of sugar cube as needed. To finish it all off, a piece of Turkish Delight. The combination of caffeine and sugar almost had us singing along with Bata in the van... almost. Our next destination was Kravice, a small gorge in the middle of the terrain filled with waterfalls and a beautiful pool. We swam through the pool and climbed ...