To the country! Tuesday, 9/10/19

This morning we departed Sarajevo, traveling by bus overland to the easternmost province of Croatia called Slavonia.  It would be a long day on the bus, broken by lunch at Royal village Kotromanicevo, "representing a truly restful stop on the main road from Croatia,  enjoyment in old royal ambience and old architecture of Bosnian kings."  Yes, it was all that, and more.  A welcome break.

We got a fairly early start (8:30/ish) for the roughly 200-mile journey, traveling on good highways, two-lane winding roads, through tunnels (one unfinished), scenic countryside, and the town of Zenica, Bosnia, above, where ash clouds dominate the sky, many blaming ArcellorMittal, the global steel giant.  Bosnia suffers from some of the world’s highest levels of air pollution, with Zenica among the worst affected.  We would soon gladly cross the border into Croatia.

Hah!  How about driving into a tunnel that was being widened at the same time?  Not for the faint of heart, but we survived!

This is Kotromanicevo, where we ate lunch featuring traditional cuisine of the Doboj region, and then played on their one-acre property. It felt good to get out after eating and walk around ... visit the horses, a goat, geese, and so on, check out the rustic buildings and playground ....

Nobody went down the slide ...

... but one of us tried the teeter-totter!

In Croatia, we passed cornfield after cornfield growing in an obviously fertile agricultural belt.  I saw a number of raptors like the one above, flying low, but I'm not sure what it is  Looks like a black kite.

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This modest house in Karanac was our destination.  It's much bigger than it appears in the picture.  A simple farmstead, with country-style guest rooms (below), each with it's own private bath.  Nothing fancy, but very cozy.  A quiet, peaceful place, till the chickens and roosters got going!  

Pots, pans, and tools, lots of different items for everyday use,
plus those of an older time.

Peppers!  Sweet and hot peppers drying in the sun made everyone in our group of 14 smile.  It's just makes you feel happy.  We eyed their garden, as well, which was still full of tomatoes and squashes into September.  This is the home and garden of Goca and "Dennis the Mennace," and their two grown dogs, one puppy and a kitty.  Oh, and lots of chickens.  Not only are we encouraged to step in and help, we're expected to!  We shelled dried beans for tomorrow's dinner.  Some helped Goca in the kitchen.  I was in seventh heaven, out of the city, and on the farm.  The feeling must have been contagious, 'cause there were lots of cheerful, relaxed faces.

They grow much of their food.  Preserve a lot of it.
Sell what they can.

Courtney was also in seventh heaven,
surrounded by furry creatures.

A neighbor named Lilly came in to teach us how to make soft cheese from fresh raw milk  We'd make two kinds, one with garlic and parsley and the other had bits of red pepper in it, mixed with something else (I forget).  Lilly asked for volunteers and most of us responded to assist in one phase or another.  Lilly was an animated teacher (never mind the picture) and we had a good time.  Tomorrow morning we'd have the cheese for breakfast.  Also above, Jimmy and Neel give a hand to make cheese.

Colorful sunset.

Finally, this evening, the group would split and we'd walk a few doors away to have dinner with neighbors.  I didn't write down their names, but our hosts were delightful.  Mario came with us and helped translate when the English/Croatian hit a stalemate.  They're lovely people who suffered greatly in the 1991-1995 war, including losing their home for a number of years, but they hold no rancor.  We listened, curious at times, asked questions, and came away with an appreciation for their tolerance and compassion.  It felt good to connect.

Dinner was delicious!

Imagine our surprise to see a Golden State Warriors poster on the dining room wall!  When we exclaimed over it, our host disappeared and returned with the above!  He's quite a fan, and he was ecstatic when one of their other guests sent him these items.

After dinner photo:
L-R:  Ibby, Bernice, our host, Jimmy, me, hostess, Ronnie, and Neel.

What a lovely, lovely time!  Tomorrow morning should be special, all of us making breakfast and tasting our homemade cheese.  Maybe enjoying the sunrise over the farmstead.  Looking forward to the dawn!

Sarajevo, Sun/Mon, 9/8-9/9

In a new-to-us city, especially in a different country, Jimmy and I like to get out and go walking early, look at our surroundings, get a feel for a place, admire well-tended buildings, listen for birds, you know, that type of stuff.  And so we were on the streets near Old Town Sarajevo just after dawn, before breakfast on Saturday.  We crossed and recrossed the shallow Miljacka River in front of our hotel (red X below), discovered two beautiful, old religious buildings:  the Emperor's Mosque and St Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, both close to an ancient street (Konak Ulica), a murder of Hooded Crows and a whole slew of pigeons. 

Fog is lifting behind Emperor's Mosque.  Built 1457–1565 in classical Ottoman style, the mosque is Sarajevo's oldest place of worship.

After breakfast, we began a two-and-a-half hour walking tour of Sarajevo with a local guide named Neira.  Our first stop was at the corner by the Latin Bridge where the the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sofia, were assassinated in 1914, sparking a conflict that ultimately led to WWI.

We were disappointed to see so much litter.  The city looked like it needed a good cleaning.  Americans have finally come to realize how deadly cigarette smoking is, and smoking isn't allowed in most public areas.  Not so in the former Yugoslav countries.  In fact, it's hard to get away from smoke in these parts!  Consequently, millions of cigarette butts add to the overall trashy effect. 

One of the bridges across the river has fallen prey to locks, same as other cities.  I liked the one that said, "I still love you," top left.  The gorgeous building at bottom left is Sarajevo City Hall, designed by a Czech architect, and built in 1892-1894.  It was handed over to the national library in 1949, and I'm sorry to report that on 8/25/1992, Serbian shelling during the Siege of Sarajevo caused the library's complete destruction.  Much was lost there.  Some citizens and librarians tried to save books while they were under sniper fire, at least one person died.  Sad.

We walked down the alleyway where coppersmiths still ply their trade, visited a rug complex, went inside Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque; its interior dome is pictured below, top right.  All the while, Neira recounted pieces of Sarajevo's history, mostly its recent, war-torn and violent history.  It was obvious to me and Jimmy that the city's inhabitants are still smoldering; the city itself felt depressed and depressing.

While many buildings were damaged or destroyed,
some wonderful architectural designs decorate Sarajevo.

A new currency to adjust our wallets to!  Here the Bosnian Mark is used, another pocketful of change had to be acquired at an ATM.  Lunch was outdoors at a crowded little cafe called Buregdzinica.  Jimmy and I, Bernice and Ibby each had an order of rolled spinach pies, served with a yogurt sauce.  Quite tasty! 

On our own for the rest of the day, we decided to ride the cable car to the top of Trebević (5,338'), which was kinda fun, but at the top, we found nothing; nothing to see, nothing to do, except for the platform where we could take pictures ... always with the cable in view.  The cable car system was destroyed in the 1990's war and only reopened last year.  They're still working on it.

Remember the 1984 Winter Olympics were held in Sarajevo!

We seem to need feeding several times a day, as if we'll fall over if we don't!  After walking and walking and checking out several places, we lucked up a hidden gem at the back of an alleyway, called Klopa, and there we enjoyed a delightful dinner.  Whew, we'll be good to go till breakfast!

* * * * * * * * * *

Sunday was a tough day for me.  Around 9ish, the group hopped on our bus for a 30-minute ride to  the Sarajevo Tunnel (Tunnel of Hope).  Here we'd see first-hand the underground passage, the vital link, that kept Sarajevo citizens alive.  It was dug in 1993 to ferry people out and bring supplies into the beleaguered city.  We actually walked a short distance in the tunnel, all humped over.  A local survivor of the siege spoke to us about what life was like during this time.  Notice the numbers below.

I consult a little booklet put together by OAT ... and a sentence that stood out for me was this:  "Founded by the Ottomans in the 15th century, Sarajevo flourished as a multicultural haven for Muslims, Serbs, Croats, Turks, Jews, and others for hundreds of years." That all went to hell in a hand basket in the early 1990's, as Bosnian Serb artillery pounded the city daily and Sarajevo descended into chaos during the three-and-a-half year siege.

Structures in town remain pockmarked by shells, as you see in the house, top and bottom, and the tall apartment building where three shells bit into the cement.  Top right, Jimmy and Jack emerge from the claustrophobic War Tunnel.  I couldn't stand still while the group endured more war talk, but walked around gazing at apple trees, taking photos, and other incongruous actions.  Where were you while this war was going on?  Do you remember hearing about it?  Do I?  Vaguely.  Sarajevo was somewhere far away and I was busy being a working single mother.  Now I feel immersed in it.  But, I wish, really wish, Sarajevo citizens could let go of this horrible past, and look forward ... and take action to turn their city into a place where people could see the fruits of recovery, rather than a place "to go to hear about the war."

These nondescript buildings house lots of people in Sarajevo.

After returning from the tunnel, we could visit "The Gallery," a museum aimed at preserving the memory of those who lost their lives in a genocide at Srebrenica in that Bosnian Serb war.  I couldn't do it.  Instead I wandered over to the cathedral below.  I think many people skipped this.  We've heard and witnessed so much of war horror that all I want to do is ... leave, I guess.

Inside Sacred Heart Cathedral, a most beauteous interior.  Consecrated in 1889.

Haha, this makes us laugh.  Lunch was at another outdoor venue, busy as all get out.  The only table available was this one where the waitress was stacking beers to take to the back.  Ibby and Bernice sat down and pretended to hoist one.  The waitress laughed.  (She asked to be taken to America. Jobs are scarce here and unemployment scandalously high.)  Those beers disappeared and we ordered salads, which were pretty danged good.

Neat, huh?

Pigeons and kids ....

Oh, wow!  Near the end of the day, hope springs!  

A full rainbow illuminates the Miljacka.

A terrific multi-banded rainbow.  Wishing Sarajevo the best!

Finally, we regrouped at our hotel and bused to one of those tall apartment buildings.  Here we split into three smaller groups to visit and share a home-hosted dinner with a local family.  Jimmy and I had the good fortune to meet Sanela, our hostess, and her daughters, Ilvana and Lamija.  Sanela shared her home and her story with us, but we didn't focus on war.  Her daughters busied themselves and didn't really take part, but they're young and we didn't expect them to.  Dinner was Bey soup, Dolma (stuffed grape leaves with beef, rice, carrot and spices), stuffed onion and zucchini/potato, and salad.  Delicious.  We passed a pleasant evening, and thanked Sanela for her hospitality.  She showed us her refrigerator door overflowing with magnets from other guests.  Home-hosted dinners are part of her income.  OAT does a good job with this.

Tomorrow we depart, back to Croatia.  I won't be sorry to leave, because it hurts your heart to be surrounded by constant reminders of horror.  I hope someday Bosnia and Herzegovina can heal.

Sarajevo, Saturday 9/7/19

A phrase we've heard several times from our guide, Mario, regarding our OAT tour was, "learning and discovery" ... that being one of the objectives for taking this tour.  Jimmy and I consider ourselves travelers (rather than tourists), welcoming exposure to unfamiliar places and cultures, so the phrase for us is apt.  But, we never imagined how much we'd cram in our heads about Sarajevo, in particular, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, in general.  Nor would we have believed how uninformed we were about the whole enchilada.

It would take us all day on the bus to reach Sarajevo, because we'd stop along the way.  A noisy thunderstorm greeted us early Saturday morning as we were about to leave Dubrovnik (7:30), which delayed us a bit.  Our first stop was at a fruit stand, where we had an opportunity to taste and/or buy.  Some did both.  We just tasted, especially the different honeys, seen in jars, below left. 

Leaving the Adriatic coast, the bus drove north and inland, where we began to cross and recross the Neretva River, following it through fertile deltas (a region similar to California's Central Valley), which produce an amazing amount of fruit and veggies.

We "got stuck" at the border crossing from Croatia into Bosnia and Herzegovina, waiting, waiting. We drove through tunnels, passed castles and mosques, churches with steeples. We saw concrete housing with drying laundry strung from window to window, many boasting a satellite dish, even the occasional window A/C unit. Our goal was the ancient town of Mostar, where we'd have lunch. Funny thing, Jimmy turned on a TV sports channel in Zurich, and the program on was high diving from a famous bridge in Mostar!  This diving off the bridge is an international competition organized every summer.  By gum, a week or so later, we'd stand on that very bridge!

In Mostar, lunch was at Sadrvan and, luckily, we sat inside, because the Grandfather of all Thunderstorms hit just as we finished eating, knocking out the power.  The food was very good, served by a waiter in traditional clothes, though I'm not sure what we ate!  After our main course, we noticed the leftovers in our bowls -- one left all the rice, one left all the meat, I left all the peppers. 😋 Some of us had Bosnian coffee after lunch, served in a tiny cup from an equally tiny copper pot.  After a few sips, it looked like mud on the bottom of the cup!  Above, right, Mario gives us the time we would meet up after lunch.

Stari Most (or Mostar Bridge) is a rebuilt 16th-century Ottoman bridge that crosses the Neretva River and connects the two parts of the city.  The sky certainly reflects the rainy day.  Below the bridge, we watched storm water gush into the Neretva from a small creek, creating a line of demarcation between clear and brown.  Tons o' tourists clogged the bridge, but we managed to get our photo taken.  After the rain, those cobblestones were slick as glass, and you had to be really careful not to slip and slide.  On the main street, we looked into a few shops out of curiosity, but didn't buy anything.  

Neat old Turkish houses; however, in the 1990s conflict, most of the historic town and the Old Bridge were destroyed.  The Mostar Bridge was rebuilt in 2004, and much of Old Town has been restored or rebuilt with the contribution of an international scientific committee established by UNESCO.  A good thing.

The rock pattern here made my eyes go crazy!

Be nice to own a stained glass like this.

The "little" Old bridge, further downstream.

We passed the Mostar Peace Bell Tower on our way to the bus,

but we didn't go inside.

Back on the bus, we stopped at Zdrava Voda, an hour-and-a-half later for a potty break and to sample lamb grilled over an open flame rotisserie ... apparently a must for every Bosnian visitor.  Mario bought a to-go box filled with lamb, which was picked clean by 14 bus passengers standing near the waterfalls!  You'd think we hadn't just stuffed ourselves a little while earlier!  I tried it; it was tasty.  Great big bus for 14 people, as Jimmy is demonstrating.

An occasional glimpse of sunshine lightened the river side.

We finally arrived in Sarajevo around 5:30, tired of sitting, checked in to our hotel, and then met downstairs in the lobby for a quick orientation walk about town, followed by dinner at a local restaurant:  Djulagin Dvor.  Again, the fare was traditional cuisine, unknown to the likes of this American, but I was willing.  I asked Mario to write the names of what I was eating:  Cevapi (Sausages in pita bread with sauces.)  I liked it.  I ate it up.  We've been treated to so much dinner entertainment, we almost expect it now, and we got it tonight!  The evening was very enjoyable.  

Tomorrow we "see" Sarajevo, the good and the less than good.