Road Trip to Croatia & Montenegro

We spent Sunday-Wednesday in Dubrovnik Croatia. The apartment rental we stayed at there didn't have internet access so we gave this blog a break for a few days. We just drove back to Sarajevo this afternoon (about a 5 hour drive). We are all pretty worn out but had a fun-filled road trip and saw places we never thought about before. Dubrovnik is a beautiful and historic city on the Adriatic coast. We walked the entire wall around the city which was built between the 8th and 16th centuries. One day we took a boat tour of three islands and saw how the Europeans enjoy the beach in their all natural way. Then on Tuesday we took a "guided" tour to the country of Montenegro, which was also fun but we all thought our Croatian tour guide was clearly not interested in telling us much about Montenegro. Later we were told that Croatians still hold a lot against Montenegro for the attacks during the war 13 years ago. We took tons of pictures along the way. Here are a few.

One Night in Mostar

We left Sarajevo on Friday afternoon for a five day driving tour of southern Bosnia and along the Croatian coast. We stayed at a lovely apartment rental with an unbelievable view of the most famous attraction in Mostar Bosnia. This photo was taken from the balcony of our apartment. We walked along the cobblestone streets and over ancient bridges through the old town of Mostar. The bridge in this photo was build in 1566 and was destroyed during the bloody Bosnian war of 1992-1995. The bridge was rebuilt with as much of the original stones & bricks as could be found, and completed in 2004. Walking through Mostar felt like playing on a huge movie set. It is beautiful.

Random Photos of Sarajevo

From the balcony of Karen's apartment you can see beautiful views of the city of Sarajevo in the valley below. Here are a few random photos taken from the balcony, and some from a walk through the city. You can see mosques from just about every perspective. The tall narrow towers are the mosques.

A Buggy Ride to the Park

Thursday was our day to take it easy after three days of sight seeing. We drove to the American Embassy where Karen went in for a few minutes. Clarice and Connie had to wait outside for her. Only authorized personnel can go inside. You even have to be authorized to take a picture of the embassy. We learned that when Connie had the camera ready and one of the guards rushed over to inform us that even though we are Americans we were not authorized to take a photograph of the embassy. It's good to know they follow such strict security rules. The three of us walked to a sidewalk pizzeria and had some delicious pizza for lunch, then drove out to the park for a buggy ride down a tree-lined path. The ride ended at a beautiful park where the Bosna River originates from a spring in the ground. The Bosna River is one of the longest in the country. We had crossed over it several times on our Wednesday trip to the north.

We had a peaceful walk in the park watching the ducks and swans swim, then back in the horse-drawn buggy to the car.
On the way home we stopped at a modern shopping center in Sarajevo. Karen compared it to a Super Walmart because it had everything you can think of, but it was actually a lot nicer than most Walmarts we usually shop at in the states.

Today we head out for a five day tour of southern Bosnia and the Croatian coast. We will be in Mostar, Bosnia, and then stay in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Scenes from our first day in Sarajevo

Entering the downtown area there is a monument to WWII called the Eternal Flame. Connie & Clarice pose in front of it.








There were several vegetable stands in the city.









This is the Latin Bridge, a very famous bridge in Sarajevo the Austrian heir to the throne was killed in 1914 which was the start of WWI.







The "river walk" through Sarajevo.









This is Sarajevo.

Safe in Sarajevo (written by Clarice Bird)

"Is it safe?" That is the question everyone asked me when I told them I was going to Bosnia to visit Karen. I told them, "Of course it is. Karen wouldn't invite me if it wasn't safe."

But all around us are reminders of a time when it really wasn't safe. Bullet holes in the buildings downtown. Cemeteries all over the city. As we walked around downtown today, we saw so many people. All survivors. They lived through it. Now it is safe to walk around the streets.

Karen lives in a nice apartment provided by the American government. She works for the State Department. We have to unlock about five gates or doors to get in. There is a security alarm and if it goes off, a guard from the embassy will show up. The windows are shatterproof. I noticed the door to the bedrooms was very heavy. I asked Karen about it and she told me it was so she could shut herself up in a "safe haven." Lock herself in to a secure place.

As we walked around Sarajevo today, I felt perfectly safe. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but the people look just like regular people. Karen said we would see people dressed all kinds of ways and that we would see Muslim women in their distinctive dress. However, the Muslim women here dress much more liberally than they do in the Middle East. We only saw two women in all black. The rest were much more colorful. They had their heads wrapped in scarves, but the scarves were brown or bright orange. They wore pants or skirts. Then there were people in jeans and T-shirts and flipflops.

Downtown in strictly pedestrian traffic. No cars. The Turkish part has cobblestone streets. All kinds of shops--bakeries, barbershops, meat markets, restaurants--line the narrow streets. There were lots of people walking around today. We passed a mosque. It was prayer time. The people had their prayer rugs laid out and were kneeling down on them. Men on one side and women on the other. There was a fountain in the middle of the courtyard and people washed their feet in it. They get called to prayer five times a day. Today is the first day of Ramadan. There were a lot of people at prayer.

We took a bus tour. We rode around the city (in the part that allows cars). We saw a mosque that was built in 1537. That was the oldest mosque. There are mosques all over the city. We also saw buildings that were built for the Olympics that were held in Sarajevo in 1984.

After the bus tour, we walked across the Latin Bridge. In 1914, the heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia, were crossing this bridge and were assassinated. This set of World War I.

In 1992, the Serbs set siege on this city. They sat up in the hills with big guns and shot at anything that moved. This went on until 1995. Over 1,000 days. The longest siege in recorded history. People were dying every day---12,000 in all. They couldn't get out of the city to bury their dead, so they had to bury them wherever they could. Rows and rows of headstones are right in the middle of the city. I think it was a soccer field before--now it is a cemetery.

This is what people know about Bosnia. It happened in our lifetime. Recent history. That is why everyone asked, "Is it safe?"

First Day in Sarajevo Rated a Huge Success (written by Connie Christman)

After biting nails and wringing hands over some near misses, Clarice and Connie were able to get on all flights that eventually lead safely to Sarajevo. All of the flights were sold out and over booked, and each time it didn't look like we would make it our names were the last ones called for standby passengers. We ended up with great seats on the flight from Atlanta to Munich, seated next to each other and we each had our own little TV monitor that was attached to the seat in front of us. There were so many movies and TV shows to watch that nine hours just flew by and it really wasn't enough time to see it all. Delta treated us very well and gave us plenty to eat during the flight. Delta gets blue ribbons from us for excellent service.

We found our way through the enormous Munich airport to find the gate for our flight to Sarajevo on Lufthansa Airlines. Within a few hours we were on our way on a much smaller plane with no TV's, but the flight only took 90 minutes and we both napped pretty much the whole time anyway. By the time we made it through customs and found our bags, Karen was there to pick us up and we have been having a great time from the start.

Karen lives about 15 minutes from the airport in a nice apartment home that has a beautiful view of the city. The home is up on a hill and overlooks the valley. After a good night's sleep, we started out walking this morning down the hill and within about 20 minutes or so we were in downtown Sarajevo. We had fun walking the narrow streets taking in all the flavor of the city and doing a lot of people watching. We wondered if we stuck out as tourists, and I decided we probably did since we were the only ladies wearing sensible walking shoes instead of crazy high hills on cobble-stone streets. Thank goodness for those sensible shoes because we walked and walked and walked all day. We went into a huge meat market and checked out the street vendors along the way.

This afternoon we took a bus tour of the city and heard a lot about the history of Sarajevo. It is a large city with unique beauty. We ate a big dinner in town at one of Karen's favorite Bosnian restaurants. We all liked it a lot. Then we walked some more through town to check out a huge street market with fresh vegetables that we had seen from the tour bus. By the time we got there the market was closing down and most of the merchants had already taken the veggies down, but we did buy a couple of nice looking tomatoes to compare to Bill Bird's tomatoes.

By the end of the day we were all too tired to walk back up the hill, so luckily we found a taxi willing to drive us home. Clarice declared today a roaring success, and we are sure that the next two weeks will be just as fun.