Snow. More snow. Heavy snow. Light snow. Wet snow. Show snow - being when it's white and fluffy and obviously snow... but melts away upon impact. Our coach ride from Budapest, Hungary to Sarajevo, Bosnia (via Croatia), was supposed to take a full 10.5 hours, including snow. Due to there only being 10 of us lunatics on board, the four border crossings were very efficient indeed. When we arrived into Croatia and the guard saw our foreign passports she even asked if we'd been in China or Italy in the last 14 days. Thankfully not, we said. We continued on, through the snow. We knew it was going to be nippy (and snowing) when we arrived at 6.30 am - we just didn't expect to arrive 90 minutes early... the bombed out snow covered ruins en route into central Sarajevo should have tipped us off we were almost there... in fairness though... in this part of the world, they're not as rare as you'd think.

When we pulled into the bus terminal we were unceremoniously welcomed to Sarajevo with a barked 'Sarajevo' and a thumb to the door. That would be Bosnian for 'sling ya hooks'. Right then. Hauled the massive bags out of the stowage, through the snow, into the 95% closed bus station, and took a breath. That was our first mistake. No-smoking signs or not, we discovered immediately that Bosnia is a nation of smokers - everyone, everywhere, all the time - a national pastime for sure, in fact the country turned out to be less a nation and more an ashtray full of people. We understand it in the older generation, to a degree we were ready for it, after all, only 25 years ago they emerged from a civil war that saw the city under siege for almost 4 years. The risk of cancer probably faded away compared to the risk of getting shot when going out for food or water.

That brings us to the three times in history that Sarajevo has made it onto the world stage. First, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were murdered in 1914 and thus kicked off WWI. Secondly, the Sarajevo Winter Olympics in 1984 and finally the breakup of Yugoslavia and the siege from 1992 to 1995. Thanks to the snow on arrival we were lucky to see the city at its jewel-like best and even the ski runs on the surrounding mountains were picked out in perfect white.

First order of business was a wash and straight into bed (thanks to the owner being awake and willing to pick us up an hour earlier than planned). We emerged at lunchtime and toasted the ham and cheese sandwiches we'd packed in Budapest - the travelling circus travels on its stomach... as it was there were a couple of envious glances when we tucked into cold pizza during the overnight coach ride. A couple of toasted sandwiches wasn't going to keep the wolf from the door for long though (do they have wolves in these parts? must check). So we struggled out into the snow and up the hill (or should I say, further up the hill) to a selection of grocery stores and supermarkets. We took care of some basics... milk, bread, butter, eggs, pasta, pesto and a litre of brandy then trundled back down for an easy dinner.

It was the next day when we we strolled down to the old town that we truly appreciated our alpine views. That's because we're on a damn hill. The 700 metre walk down was undoubtedly pleasant, and the old town was definitely beautiful. We fortified ourselves with some savoury burek, imbibed some Bosnian Coffee (just like Turkish coffee... but they don't say that here), ate some baklava and sorted out a smoke free, cheap and cheerful joint for future eats (as it turns out we ended up eating there almost every day for our 20 night stay). And then, with no small amount of trepidation and no bloody sherpas to push us, we got to the bottom of our hill and looked up. Never, ever, look up. We are pretty fit after Paris and Budapest, even managed to climb Montmartre without carking it. Sarejevo is a whole different ball game, in fact a whole different ball game, set and match. That 700 metres back up was a killer - we still shudder to think about it. After our first climb we made the executive decision to make sure we enjoyed our town outing, as there'd be no going down again for dinner. In the end we probably had 2 or 3 days gazetted as 'Rest Days' or 'Just can't face the climb up' days - and that was before we spent 3 days social-distancing at the end of the stay.

Our first Saturday dawned very cold (zero? ish?), fine and clear - no more snow to put a downer on our wanderings. We went down to the old town and joined a 2 hour free walking tour which was awesome. There were maybe 10-15 people, including a Californian guy who coughed for most of the tour (seriously, dude, get away from us). It was a fascinating walk around and we even stood on the spot of the infamous Archduke's assassination. We learned about the old Hans (or travellers hotels on the silk road) and also the muslim endowments that funded them - and to this day fund the free public toilet next to the main mosque. We put that to use many times during our visit. We enjoyed listening to the live prayer call (once a day the main mosque has the prayer sung live, instead of a recording - just gorgeous to listen to). After our walking tour we hot-footed it (or tired-flat-footed it) to our pre-picked lunch destination where we were looked after by Elvis (his mum was a big fan). We were not disappointed in the food - incredible value too at around A$10 for lunch for two. Such good value that after a couple of visits we started ordering extra meals to fill our freezer - firstly for dinners and secondly, just in case we ended up bunkering down in Sarajevo for the duration of the plague.

So we walked the town, (climbed home), stocked up on medication (it's the thing to do these days it seems - but it's any ongoing hobby in our travels), enjoyed the fact that despite the world melting down around us... Bosnia was just keeping on, keeping on. We really do think it was the 'survived the siege' mentality kicking in. We said to James's mum in Australia on 1 March that she might want to get in some extra loo rolls, top off all prescriptions and get extra paracetamol in the house. We then watched on in amazement as the shelves of Australia were stripped bare in the last week. Amazed more than anything that people took that long to recognise what was going on in the world given what happened in China and what continues to happen in Italy, Spain, France etc etc. The locals in Sarajevo were amazed every time we went to the supermarket and spent $50 in one hit on frozen veges, meat, loo rolls, pasta, rice and sauces... it must have been like seeing the Rockefellers hit the shops.