When you think of Sarajevo I'm sure most of you think of the war from the early 90's, the siege that lasted over 1000 days. And there was lots to remind us of that time; bullet holes in every second building, graves in many of the parks and it was quite sobering. However Sarajevo is also home of the burek. While in Sarajevo we managed to try 4 different kinds of burek, they were (in order of my most to least favourite) spinach (zeljanica), cheese (simica), meat (burek) and potato (krompirusa). And all of these are best served with yogurt sauce (and much better than any of those Croatian imitations!).

We arrived just outside of Sarajevo at around 6.30am after an overnight bus trip from Budva. We managed to get ourselves into the city after successfully dodging the taxi drivers and getting ourselves on a bus. After dropping off our bags at the hostel we set out to explore the city, this consisted of sitting at a cafe drinking coffee (or in my case hot chocolate!). Then after deciding we were too tired to enjoy the sights we headed back to the hostel to wait for our rooms to be cleaned. Paul was tired and grumpy (he had wanted to take the day bus but I wanted to spend another day at the beach - it's not my fault he can't sleep in buses!). After taking a refreshing nap we were much brighter and wandered around taking in the atmosphere of the city. Through the old part of the city, watching the coppersmiths go about their craft and past a few of the numerous mosques.

The next day we set out to take ourselves on a walking tour, we stumbled across an exhibition from the war, it was amazing the guns that the people had made out of water pipes or anything they could get their hands on. Then we started at the river, we walked past the place where Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Archduchess Sophia were assassinated, which started the First World War. Wandered across the Latin Bridge, checked out the Music Pavilion, walked past the seven brothers burial chambers, admired a mosque and a church and then stopped at the Sarajevsko Brewery for a cold one. After crossing another bridge we went into the amazing building that was the library (formally the town hall) where 2 million books (over 90% of the collection) were burnt during the siege. Then we climbed the hill to the fortress for an impressive view of the city. That evening we enjoyed some drinks with our Swedish friends in their luxurious apartment and then headed out for some Bosnian food and a few drinks.

On Friday we walked down Snipers Alley and back along the river, and just soaked in the atmosphere of the city. Before going in search of the Hotel Grand (it was supposed to have a revolving bar at the top with great views of the city). After over an hour of searching with Karin and Lou, we are sure that the girl at the hostel is delusional!

Next we're off to Mostar.

Zilla