Friday, 25 July 2008

Welcome to Sarajevo!

My bus/train trip from Split to Sarajevo can best be described as eventful, first the bus along the (very beautiful) Croatian coast broke down 45 minutes shy of Plocé, my intermediate destination. Luckily for me, I had given myself ample time to catch the train and it all worked out fine. Until I managed to leave my travel planner/notebook on the train upon my arrival in Sarajevo... With my rail pass inside... whoops!

As it turns out it is not as big an issue as it seemed at first, I have found that travel through these parts is dirt cheap and taking buses can be a pretty cool experience – more on that in other posts. In reflection I probably blew out buying the rail pass in the first place.



The Croatian Coastline

does this look like Central Otago or what?!

Anyway, Sarajevo, great place!

I stayed at the amazing Haris Hostel, the hostel's 20 year old namesake & owner has been running the place since he was 15, and running an exceptional city tour. Haris has the signs of a man going places in Sarajevo.

On my first morning I rose to find that 4 kiwi girls had just arrived on night bus, we all spent the day milling around the city and generally relaxing (it was a Sunday, slow day).

On the Monday a large group of us went with Haris on his city tour, this was definitely the highlight of the city and maybe the trip thus far. Haris is very passionate about the city and what the occupants went through over the 4 year siege from 1992 – 1995, he was only 3 when it started!





The tunnel under the airport, apologies for the shoddy focus on some of these photos, I didn't notice the camera was on manual focus

the tunnel entrance






One surprise for me on my last evening was Bob, a Dutch guy I met in Bratislava turning up at the hostel, Europe it turns out is a pretty small place!

For a last hurrah a large multinational contingent (1 kiwi, 1 Aussie, 1 Dutch, 1 American, 1 English & 3 Finns) went for dinner at the Brewery, which turns out is more of an upmarket restaurant than a bustling bar. A few drinks later it was 1am and I was not looking forward to the bus at 6am...

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