Trip to Bosnia i Herzegovina (w photos!)

20234 Views 144 Replies 39 Participants Last post by YU-AMC, May 5, 2009

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Discussion Starter · May 3, 2007 (Edited)

The plan: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=464541

First of all, if you are not interested in the habla babla, then just scroll down to the photos, i’ll comment them anyways.

Our trip has started by cursing our GPS bitch Petra, who just randomly wanted to go through Zagreb for no good reason, even if we set „economy mode” she blatantly made us go on dumb routes, so we kicked her in the face and put her on rest. Actually we managed much better without her, so we quickly got to the Bosnian border after passing Cro (actually not that quick because Hungary is undergoing huge road constructions nowdays, which is good, but not for us, cause we lost 1-1,5hrs due to the speed limits and red lights). At the border the Croatian border guards tried to look very scary in their proper outfits and the way they pretended to be the important guys. So they’ve checked couple of things before they let the people go. The Bosnians on the other hand just weaved to go basically.. (very nice!).

So we arrived to the Serbian part of Bosnia i Herzegovina, this was the most disturbing part of our trip, even the border has one small block of office which was actually starting to rot, then there was only one thin lane to get to BiH, car parts and all kinds of garbage by the side of the road, a few cyrillic signs but nothing about Sarajevo for a lot of km’s. When we stopped to ask for help, two bonehead guys jumped out of their VW Golf I. to show who is the boss in their country, they had some comments on us, but we quickly moved from there.. The next big attractions were the first minarets that we’ve seen in the villages, strangely all were somehow the same looking. Then we arrived to this beast city called Zenica, my friend had some perv affection to this city, he even took around 30-40 photos of it. I was hoping that he doesnt want to stop. No wonder they haven’t touched this city during the war, because it’s so ugly (it is an industrial city with unlimited number of commies, as you’ll see it on the photos).

So we were getting close to Sarajevo when we got on some motorway, hurray! But it is nothing else than just to show off, as it is around 20km long (although they are constructing the extension of it). The entry road to Sarajevo is long, and after heading directly to the center of the city you will still have to drive around 5-10 minutes. And this was the nightmare part, as it was getting dark, and all we’ve seen were the huge commie blocks with the facade falling off, and rottening. We were starting to get dissapointed, when we finally arrived to the valley of the old town.. The huge hills and mountains surrounding Sarajevo and the insane number of houses built on these hills makes the city so special, and charming that you wonder if your dreaming. Honestly this part of Sarajevo, and especially if you get on top of one of the hills is so romantic that very few capitals can be proud of. The lack of organisation and the packed center makes it even more interesting, wonder if they ever had a plan how, where and what to construct. The Miljacka river is not really interesting, and at this time of the year mosquitoes are starting to fly around, so its better to avoid walking there, although there are a few cafés and restaurants on the riverside.

So we were cruising around the city center, and after the second round we had a guy shouting in Hungarian, „Hungarians!” while sitting next to a woman and just finishing his coffé. And then he started to run after us, and after i stopped he started that „I speak very good magyar” (magyar means Hungarian), lol yeah i can see that.. Obviously he wanted something, and luckily the same as us, well nearly, he was offering a room in his hostel and we wanted to take a room, so the situation was quite ideal. After he started to run infront of my car to show a parking place up the hill, it started to be a bit suspicious. I mean, why on earth would he work his ass off, if he is „full of tourists” as he said. I had a long chit-chat when we came down the hill towards his hostel, luckily his russian was much better than his english hehe. Till we decided one of my friend went to ask for other possible hostels, but this one seemed to be the cheapest after all (15Eur/30KM/night/kopf). For a day or two i kept checking the car and our stuff, but it seems the guy only wanted quick money. Anyways my friends liked him, but he became a bit annoying with his „Hungarian” skills when he tried to be entertaining.
The next big thing was to find a restaurant, it took around 2 hours.. At least we had a nice walk, and meanwhile we realized that our comfy tourist cloths are not really up-to-date to the Bosnian trends lol. Both the women and men are going out in their most elegant cloths at nights, as if it was a fashion show. I havent met Mila, but we saw many Milas, what i mean is, that the girls are very pretty, even though they put a LOT of make up, they know how to do it properly. Btw, it seemed to me, as if they were wearing the same things as the British girls, except that fewer girls had skirts.. So, finally we sat down at a cevab place to eat, but to our surprise there was no english menu, only a small card with a short list of foods written in Bosnian. Once again we got lucky, the Bosnian lady that just finished her cevab and lighted up a cigarette helped us out with fluent english.. Actually she made the order instead of us, so we got one cevab, one kislej miljeko (yoghurt type of drink) and one kajmak each. Very tasty traditional food! After the meal we sat down at a place next to the Cathedral, to drink some Sarajevsko pivo (beer), its quite soft but i like it. But we payed 4km for one 0,33 beer, which is pathetic, it would be too much in Budapest as well. Anyways my friends found a pub next to our hostel (which is at the police station btw, a step from the central, honestly), where you can get dead drunk without spending too much, but rather having the view of young Bosnian chicks, you have to be satisfied with football and 50-60ish old men hehe (obviously i havent stayed long there).

We’ve spent the second day chilling and walking around the city, got some fresh breakfast from the bakery (the calzone thing is good, and my friends liked the burek as well, to me its too fatty), went up to the hill for a drink, it is further up from the Park Princeva restaurant. There we had the very best view of Sarajevo, simply breathtaking. After we finished we went to that Park restaurant, where we had our worst food in Bosnia, which wasnt even cheap, at least the view was good. Both of the museums that we wanted to see were closed sadly, so we should be visiting them the next time. We had a ride to Sprska Republika, on the way some idiot showed in his Golf I. that he wants to overtake by beeping on his horn endlessly, then when he overtook he drove 2kmh faster than us hehe.. Btw, the tunnels are quite scary, when you see all that water dripping from the top.. We spent another night drinking and lurking around. Interesting, you can see the very same people passing by 3-4 times.. Guess they want to get attention hehe, but probably its because of the small size of the center, and especially where the clubs and pubs are located.

The last day was the day of Mostar. But before we would have ended up there, we went to the mountains before Jeblenica, to a Jezera (lake, hope i got it correctly) around 1km over the sea level, the roads were quite narrow, but the view and everything was very exciting and beautiful. At one place we had to wait for the sheep legion to pass the road

The lake was deep green, and you could see the mountains with the snowy top, amazing. On the way back to the main road that leads to Mostar we’ve seen a poor girl without one leg (around 6 years old), probably because of a landmine.. The next place to stop was the restaurant in Jeblenica.. Zdravavoda. The menu was in Bosnian again, and the waiter couldnt speak english, so i picked randomly one thing out of like 4 options.. Then the guy brought the HEAD of a lamb!!! I nearly puked lol, honestly, it even had his teeth and eyes and everything, i told the guy to bring something less lively. Well at least tried to tell him, my friends were laughing their ass off, but they ate some rotten fish anyways, so tehehe. We were lucky again with the restaurants.
When we arrived to Mostar the first thing that really sticked out was the giant cross on the top of the hill, why do they need that? Do the Croats want to show something with this? The city itself is still a bit destructed, they would need to rebuild a lot of buildings, other than the bridge area you wont find anything nice there. The old part of Mostar is packed with tourists, and the locals want to sell all their bullshit that resembles the bridge, eeeek. We spent some time on the top of some building with the view on the bridge, but we didnt find Mostar such a big attraction. The guys that jumped from the bridge for money were simply pathetic, if the water was a bit warmer we would have jumped for free.
After Mostar we went back to Sarajevo, on the road a dumb police stopped, because i was doing 92kmh instead of 60kmh. The ones that drive there know exactly that if you go by the signs (limits – 20kmh / 40kmh / 60kmh) it would take 4 hours to get from Mostar to Sarajevo. So the police first asked if i spoke a lil bit his language, i said yes and we had a nice 5 min conversation about where im going, whether i will pay in Mostar or Sarajevo and all this bs, they started to fill in a paper of a 50 euro fine. I was telling them i will no way go anywhere with that paper (ia tut budu platit!!!), and that i will pay here or nowhere. So we finally agreed in 10 euro or 20km, its okay…
In Sarajevo we headed to the one and only thermal bath which was actually a tiny pool. At least the girl at the desk was a cute beauty, we all agreed with my friends that without her we wouldnt have payed the entry fee (which was 20km with sauna, thats a lot). We saw how the EUFOR guys and girls are spending their time in Sarajevo.. Well, they are working out while watching football and snooker on the huge plasmas hehe, i guess its hard work, especially when you see them walking in downtown Sarajevo. When we left i told the girl that we’ll come back next year, and she replied „I hope so”

Nice ending to the journey.

All in all we had a great time in Bosnia, and we are planning to get there again. We all agreed that Sarajevo is by far the most beautiful capital in the region.

The border, Welcome to Bosnia! (UGH!)