One of my best friends is from Bosnia. For about 10 years now we have been talking about doing a Balkan trip together. But since we have spent most of our past year being poor and slightly unorganized students, it never actually happened (we came as far as a beach vacation in Croatia). Until this summer! This is the first yeah we both have real, grown up jobs and can actually afford a nice vacation. So we did it. We asked along another long-time friend and had several planning sessions to try to visit as many places as possible within 11 days. And so it happened that on 8 May 2014 we finally entered the Bosnian part of Bosnia and Herzegovina to kick of our trip with a visit to its capital Sarajevo.
A view of the city.
To be honest, I did not know what to expect. I did not really have an image of Sarajevo. We rented an appartment through AirBNB (I really reccomend this website) and were picked up from the airport by our host. She was the friendliest Bosnian lady you can imagine. On the ride from the airport I noticed that the country is still recovering from the war. There were beautiful, brand new buildings as well as deserted flats with broken windows bullet holes in the walls. The central part of the city was really beautiful though.
The main square of the old city
The city centre exists of and old town and a new town. The new town is very commercial. Here you can find all the big high street shops and big restaurants with terraces. Very modern, but not very special. This is the kind of area you can find in most big cities. Although it is interesting to go and take a look at the eternal flame and take a walk through the park. This park is particularly interesting since it is full of cosy benches as well as small graveyards scattered everywhere. It is slightly bizarre to see people relax and eat ice cream right next to a bunch of graves I must say.
In the old town.
The old town was our favorite place to hang out. It's full of narrow Streets with shops where you can buy touristic as wel as handmade items and many many small restaurants and coffee houses. We did our fair share of eating and cofee drinking here. All the people were friendly, the food was amazing and the prices were low. As a foodie ad coffee lover, I need to show you a small collage of some of these places.
Typical Bosnian coffee.
This was an amazing little ea house with a fabulous owner who seemed to be friends with the whole city.
A very inventive "terrace".
Since Sarajevo is situated on a hill, there are some beautifil viewing poins, which you can easily reach by foot. Just outside the city centre you can notice several big graveyards. It is even possible to do a graveyard tour (which I personally would not take). There are also street dogs lying and walking around everywhere, but most seemed to leave you alone when you leave them alone.
These three dogs escorted us during a walk (we are making new friends everywhere).
The view.
We did not spend all our time in the city centre. One day, we visited the source of the river Bosna. We took the tram (one of the oldest trams in the world) to the outskirts of Sarajevo and could walk to the lake park from there. The walk was a bit longer than expected though (no signs with distances to be found anywhere) so we treated ourselfs on a ride in a horse and carrier on the way back.
The parke was amazing. It was so peaceful and quiet. We ate some of the freshest fish in a restaurant next to the water and willed our water bottles with fresh water from the source. The entrance price for students is an almost symbolic price of 2 mark (1 euro). You are not allowed to swim in the river but the park offers the opportunity for lovely walks and picnics. 
The river Bosna.
The park.
On our last day in Sarajevo we booked a trip to visit the pyramids of Bosnia (yes, they also have them outside of Egypt). We thought we booked a complete tour including taxi ride at a pyramid research centre, but it turned out we were ripped off a little and we still had to pay for our piramid tour plus the taxi driver had to wait for us several hours. This was a bit unfortunate, but let's see it as a donation to the research centre. During our tour we did not enter the pyramids ourselves (that is not possible). But we had a walk through the tunnel that leads to them that is being dug out at the moment. The air inside this tunnel is very special. Without any ventilation system you can breath as easily as if you were outide, although you are actually up until 250 meter into the tunnel. It is said that several spots in the tunnel contain a high amount of positive energy and that some people come here to meditate or cure diseases or injuries. Every year, volunteers work in the tunnel to dig further to one day reach the pyramids. Visiting this place was a very special experience.
On 11th May we took a coach to Mostar and traded Bosnia for Herzegovina. We were extremey lucky to have left Sarajevo at that time. Had we stayed just a couple of days longer, or visited the cities in a different order during our trip, we might have gotten caught in the disasterous rains that flooded Bosnia and Serbia later that week. It is terrible to think that the people who finally built up their country after the war have lost everything once again. Help was organized quickly and many busses full of good left for the Balkans in the weeks after the disaster. But the world (and mainly the media) seems to have forgotten about it already. But for the people over there it is not over, they still need help. Let's hope help will keep coming for thse who need it and that this lovely country finally gets a break from all the bad luck.
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