A walk.
Whilst I’m just posting some random photos I thought I’d leave them on here and when the time comes to do a targeted report I’ll make a separate thread. For now I’ll just follow on with bits and bobs and impressions.
I decided it’s no use waiting for the weather to improve before going for more of a walk. I don’t think it will. So your intrepid explorer bundled up with two pairs of socks and led an expedition down into the town.
Never mind I’ve been down here already a few times and Mrs M walks some of this way to work every day, it felt time to officially brave the elements and inclement weather to bring you the full glory of Sarajevo.
I exaggerate as usual. When you see proper tourism photos taken in the sunshine it all looks quite a lot more attractive, this is how it is on a slushy winter’s day.
We first go down my road -
Gets steeper near the bottom -
After crossing a road there’s a cafe, closed at the moment, one of the rare ones that is closed, and it has a mural on the outside wall. This is how then the road used to be, back up the steep bit -
Dropping onto the pedestrian street we look right and then left. Doesn’t seem to be that many people about but there are, we’ll see in a minute -
We walk to the left -
Off to the side are various buildings that require more investigation. I hope to find the time and the weather to do so -
Carrying on -
Prices - you’ll see them in KM - divide by two to get Euros more or less -
Coming to the top end of the pedestrian area. There are side parts running parallel that I cut down on the way back -
If you spot in any of the photos a woman in a large white coat with a red hat, That’ll be Mrs M. If it has a black coat with a fur collar, that is the daughter.
The coat Mrs M has is really warm and protecting, but, I pointed out that if she gets lost in a snow drift, I’ll never find her. I told her to wear something distinctive just in case an avalanche hits the main street and everyone is buried beneath several metres of snow. So to humour me she put the red hat on. She says she didn’t need to at all but it was only to please me and my paranoia. Yeah, right. -
One of the side streets -
This next photo I certainly need to investigate further. What I didn’t mention is on hitting the pedestrian street there is a börek shop at the corner.
They do very delicious meat or potato or meat and potato or cheese or spinach or cheese and spinach börek (“Börek is a family of baked filled pastries made of a thin flaky dough such as phyllo or yufka, typically filled with meat. It is found in the cuisines of Western Asia, the Balkans, the South Caucasus, the Levant, Central Asia, and other parts of Eastern Europe”).
I had to call in it to get some under protest from the ladies who “just couldn’t manage any” but still had to have some as I refused that they shared some of mine ‘just to see what it is like from this shop’ and told them that no matter how much the lady in the shop cuts off for me, it’ll be just enough with none to spare (potato for me, spinach for the daughter and meat for Mrs M) -
Details of the war we may well get into another time. Suffice to say there were snipers and mortars placed on the surrounding hills and buildings and many died as a result of them. We come to a “Sarajevo Rose”.
“A Sarajevo Rose is a type of memorial in Sarajevo made from concrete scar caused by a mortar shell's explosion that was later filled with red resin. Mortar rounds landing on concrete during the Siege of Sarajevo created a unique fragmentation pattern that looks almost floral in arrangement, and therefore have been named "rose".
There are around 200 "roses" in the entire city, and they are marked on locations where at least three persons have been killed during the siege of Sarajevo.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarajevo_RoseFrom the damage pattern it is believed you could determine where the mortar was situated -
A little further on and we cut across a street to the river. This we followed upstream, not far, just a few hundred metres to get into the surrounding countryside -
This is the House of Spite.
Was owned by my kind of man.
Do you know of the ‘Nail Houses’ in China? This is the Bosnian version.
In 1878 the Austria-Hungary Empire via the Treaty of Berlin took control of the country. Some big-wig decided the city needed a new City Hall.
Several houses were bought and demolished to make room for it until they came to one old man who refused to sell.
Eventually he was persuaded by being given several times its worth - but he also stipulated the house be removed brick by brick and re-built across the other side of the river. He renamed it Inat Kuća - the House of Spite. It is now a restaurant.
www.atlasobscura.com/places/sarajevo-spite-house
This is the City Hall on the other side.
Originally built as such it later became a library - this was more or less destroyed in the Siege of Sarajevo in August 1992 by Serbian forces and later rebuilt.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vije%C4%87nica
Only just a few hundred metres further on the river bends as it leaves the city. A bar/restaurant/pension marks the corner -
Then we get out into the ‘wilds’ -
Along the path (which is actually a tarmac lane unused by traffic) I noticed this -
The low wall to the left contained plate after plate of ex-Ambassadors -
At a convenient point we turned around to complete our mission. That I was informed to be, to get a coffee and cake from somewhere. Luckily Mrs M knew of such a place from her previous time in the city in November.
Unluckily it meant I had to walk all the way back past the stores for the two ladies to window shop in.
I was duped by the promise of refreshments. But I’m a sucker for a pretty face and I was with two of them.
I’m sure we know some of these Turkish Delight type sweets, and to honest, I hate them. Too sweet for a start and a ‘glibbery’ texture. I won’t be having any of these during my time here -
Various other places we passed -
This’ll be nice on a sunny warm day for a meal -
Other stuff -
Before you ask, no I’ve no idea yet what the last photo was, but I do know what this is about -
This is where the two dominate cultures meet as indicated by the change in architecture. In simple terms, one way is Islamic, the other way is Christian.
sarajevo.travel/en/things-to-do/sarajevo-meeting-of-cultures/463
Moving further down the street -
Good winter fare -
No report is worth its salt unless there are photos of a market. This is an indoor one. There is a more functional outdoor fruit and veg market not far away but on a different street to where we were. I have passed it and it looks quite decent. But this is a meat/local (white) cheese market -
Going inside -
Another Sarajevo Rose back outside -
This is the Eternal Flame - a memorial that is on my list of places to get closer to and take more photos, but it is a memorial to those in the military and civilians that lost their lives in WWII.
“The memorial was dedicated on 6 April 1946, the first anniversary of the liberation of Sarajevo from the four-year-long occupation by Nazi Germany and the fascist Independent State of Croatia.”
Lastly, after being duly fortified by copious amounts of coffee and cake, plus I admit, a salami sandwich and a portion of chips(fries), we made our way back. The weather started to close back in so we were just in time -
As we made our way back up that steep hill we made a pact.
The hill doesn’t exist.
It is a figment of our imagination and will never be thought of, complained about or mentioned in any shape or form.
It is a none entity and this is the last you'll hear of it.
Maybe.
