This is my last (and fourth) night in Sarajevo. Don’t let the fact that I am only assigning two posts to Sarajevo fool you into thinking this is representative of there being little to do (or learn) here as that would be wholly inaccurate. On the contrary, this place has so much a person could write about but that would be the job of a clued-up historian, not little ol’ me. Be assured there are countless tours available and they are certainly affordable for working people visiting here on a city break. There are direct flights available from Manchester (via Munich) if this place is somewhere you’re thinking of visiting one-day doing.
In addition to trying out the local cuisine of more Balkan food meaning meat, meat and more meat, I visited the spot for the so called ‘spark’ or ‘trigger’ for World War 1. This being the assassination of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary Franz Ferdinand (and his misses). Austria-Hungary would then that very day declare war on Serbia; the nationality of the gunman Gavrilo Princip.
This, then, is the very corner where they were gunned down in their car as it turned into the street.
And the plaque on the wall behind the tourists:
Another well liked attraction in the same area (across the road) is the Latin bridge.
Mosques and churches:
Notice the flag hanging from the church? This is the flag of The Vatican as only last week the Pope was here!
Later on the small group of people I met from the hostel were interested in going to see Vrelo Bosne – the spring of the River Bosna as it is one of the country’s top natural landmarks and is one of the most famous scenes of natural beauty in this region. I had seen plenty of mountainous beauty this last month so really I went a long to be social. After all, this trip to Sarajevo is there only destination on this their vacation from work so I wasn’t going to stand in their way.
Finally late afternoon I would enter a museum tour and learn a new word; a word that I’m unlikely to ever forget and hopefully now, neither will you: SREBRENICA aka The Srebrenica massacre – the worst case of genocide since Nazi Germany in WW2.
It’s of course difficult to get your head around this happening at all let alone in the 90s whilst I was watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I can report that more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim civilian men and boys were killed by order of Bosnian Serb, General Ratko Mladic. A colossal 25,000 women, children, and elderly were deported from the city of Srebrenica. I found the following article which shows just three years ago a new large batch of bodies were identified (through DNA) finally allowing a burial for the deceased. Some 30,000 Muslims flocked there to pay their respects. The link contains some detailed images too so I implore you to take a quick look/read: Srebrenica
That evening my new American friend Zach would discover he misplaced his pre-purchased bus ticket to his next destination in Croatia. He paid 20 euros for it and was now having to buy a new one for another 20 euros. I was gutted for him and seemed more frustrated than he was (as I very much know what its like to lose things due to one’s own carelessness). I questioned him about the situation and he responded:
‘My friend having recently seen that Srebrenica movie, I care not so much about another 20 euros’.
This concludes my Sarajevo postings folks but I’ll be back early in the week with hopefully some other stories relating to the next city in Bosnia travellers make their way to: Mostar.
Leave a Reply