July 2024

One month in Sarajevo

My time in Bosnia and Herzegovina was planned to be a period of rest, after the rollercoaster of broken machines and blocked bank accounts, and after the whirlwind of cultural options in Catalonia. Sarajevo is a calm town. I rented a nice apartment in the neighborhood called Bistrik. On the other side of the river Miljacka, which is a couple of blocks from my building, there's the Baščaršija, the oldest part of town, full of mosques, small restaurants, little shops, and, of course, tourists. Where I live there are no tourists, probably because they don't want to climb the steep slope.

The weather here is tricky. In the middle of summer, I wasn't surprised by 33°C around noon. What I wasn't expecting was the drop to 13°C as soon as the sun went down, with chilly winds coming from the hills. It has been hot most of the time, some days even getting close to 40°C, but sometimes there's that sudden drop of temperature and you need to be prepared for it. I wasn't, and got sick right in the first week here. A nasty undying cough that lasted the whole month and kept me at home, recovering, for several days. Well, I wanted to rest, and I ended up doing lots of that.

Sehercehaja Bridge

Vijećnica (City Hall)

I visited the local museums, of course. The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina has a collection of local historical artifacts from the Paleolithic to the Roman Empire, and also a pavilion full of embalmed animals. The National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the local art museum, where the star seems to be Karlo Mijić, Bosnian painter active mostly in the first half of the 20th century.

The other museums are all about war. The Sarajevo Museum 1878–1918 is in the building in front of the place where Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated, providing the excuse for the First World War. The museum is about that episode, but it's just one room (not even a big room) with a few related objects. The History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina has a few exhibits about the Siege of Sarajevo (1992 to 1996). The Museum of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide, the War Childhood Museum, and the Galerija 11/07/95 are also about the Bosnian War. And you don't need to go into a museum to see signs of that war. One of the saddest things around here are the Sarajevo Roses, places where a mortar exploded and killed some people, now filled with red resin to mark the spot.

Sarajevo Rose

Painting by Karlo Mijić

And the food?

I was a bit disappointed with the food here. It's basicaly the same as in other ex-Yugoslavia countries, but with a lot less variety. There's the ćevapi (grilled minced meat fingers), served with kajmak (white cheese cream) and chopped onions, which is very good but not something I would eat every day. There's the shopska salad (which is actually from Bulgaria but very popular here). And that's what most restaurants offer as local dishes. Other than that it's what they call international cuisine: pasta, pizza, burgers, etc. I've been told that in winter restaurants offer a few other options, mostly stews, but in the summer I'm out of luck.

Ćevapi

Any side trips?

I visited Mostar, which looks great on photos but when you get there it's not what you expected. Another place destroyed by mass tourism, overcrowded with people making selfies and those abominable shops selling fake Louis Vuitton bags and Frida Kahlo t-shirts (she was Mexican, why would I go to Bosnia to get her face on a shirt?). We can still see what a magnificent bridge Mostar used to have (now it's actually a replica, the original was destroyed by the Croats during the war), but the place now is just a tourist trap. The best thing I did in Mostar was having local Neretva River trout for lunch, it was delicious.

Mostar

Trout from the Neretva River

On the way to Mostar and back I stopped in a couple of other places. Konjic had an interesting bridge. Blagaj is where a monastery was built just by the source of the Buna River. Počitelj has a fort that was started in the 15th century and, if you don't wear trustworthy shoes, climbing those slippery steps may be the last thing you ever do. Jablanica has a large artificial lake created in the 1950s to power a hydroelectric dam.

Blagaj

Počitelj

Jablanica

And now what?

Next week I move to Tirana, capital city of Albania. But that's a story for another time. Gëzuar! (That's "Cheers!" in Albanian.)