Let’s try to set the scene for you… if we can.
When doing our travel planning for 2023 back when, we knew we were going to Luxembourg, something planned originally for in 2020 and we knew we had to use a credit from 2020 which covid had put paid to, which needed using by the end of 23. That was reused for the next posts.
But in very simple terms that left us with a ‘travel time gap’ between Luxembourg and the small group tour later, and wanted to fill it in by visiting somewhere new for us, so Rob started researching and eventually we came up with Bosnia & Herzegovina in the Balkans.
From here on, we will abbreviate Bosnia and Herzegovina to just Bosnia to save my fingers and hopefully by now, may have set the scene for you!
Bosnia however, did have some apprehensions about it due to its turbulent and very violent recent history, known as the Bosnian War, an ethnically based war (1992–95) conducted in Bosnia, a former republic of Yugoslavia with a multiethnic population comprising Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Serbs (Orthodox) and Croats (Christian).
Location of Bosnia & Herzegovina relative to the likes
of Serbia and Croatia
Bosnia today is 51% Muslim, with Orthodox and Christian religions making up the rest. Now not wanting to confuse you further, as a result of tensions that remain among the country's three main ethnic communities, the president is elected as part of a tripartite presidency, whereby a Bosniak, Serb, and Croat presidents rotate, each serving eight months, twice during a 48 month election cycle. Clear as mud isn’t it!
So there were a few underlying concerns and that ethnic based history along with a lot of other history permeated our tour.
Rob found a small local company consisting of guide and driver who, when we met them, were a husband and wife team, with Ana the guide and Serge the driver. This private tour looked very interesting, and it turned out to be a great choice of both company and country.
So lets kick off with a map of where we went through Bosnia over 8 interesting days as shown below, starting in Bosnia’s capital… Sarajevo a city which sent a chill through me to be honest. Does the name Sarajevo ring a bell with any of you?
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| Closer view of the route we took through Bosnia during our tour |
Even reaching Sarajevo involved a little ‘excitement’ after flying out of Luxembourg and transiting via Warsaw, Poland. On arrival into Warsaw we needed to transit via their passport control to fly out to Sarajevo.
“Do you have a residency visa?” the the Customs person asked. “No” our reply causing him to look very confused as he constantly scanned through our passports. “Where did you enter the EU?”, which Poland is a part of. So this was rapidly getting interesting.
“Greenland” we said! Now he looked very confused and to help him we thought we said, “we were on a ship”. Now he was even more confused looking at us both intently. Since we were leaving Poland for a non EU country after checking our boarding passes to Sarajevo, he figured we were leaving, so stamped our passports and bade us farewell, headache gone!
Having left the ship in Greenland and having been told we all had passport clearance into Greenland, almost every passenger on the ship flew back to Canada, the country we had originated from. Most ships entering a port, are provided transit clearances by customs, if passengers only stay 24-48 hours in the country they enter.
We however stayed overnight in Greenland, which is owned by Denmark, who is part of the EU, meaning the flight we took to Copenhagen was a domestic flight also ensuring there was no passport control when entering Copenhagen. Simple really but seems we were illegal ‘boat people’ into the EU, wandering around it very freely.
With that all over, we landed into Sarajevo a few days ahead of our tour starting, found our way to the hotel using their transfer service, and got stuck into experiencing Bosnia by walking around its old town where we were staying, and be warned… history is a big part of this tour.
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| The Town Hall in Sarajevo |
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| View of Sarajevo from the nearby mountains |
You will learn why soon, but Sarajevo is not a pretty modern city but it is very interesting and as we avoided the 2nd oldest tram system in the world whilst crossing some streets, we found ourselves down near the river and standing at a spot which made world history on the 28th June 1914.
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| Had to be very careful crossing roads in parts of the old town in Sarajevo |
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| Electric trams started in Sarajevo in 1895 |
On that day around 11am, two shots were fired from a street corner, fatally wounding the archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Sophie the Duchess of Hohenberg, his wife. A 19-year old Bosnian-Serb named Gavrilo Princip, affiliated with the Serbian nationalist group had assassinated him, an event which led directly to the start of WW1.
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| The actual spot where 2 shots were fired by Gavrilo Princip and started WWI |
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| Replica of car archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were travelling in when both were assassinated |
Opposite from where this event occurred, is a 16th century old Ottoman era bridge, which for awhile was called ‘Princip Bridge’, because Gavrilo was considered a hero for killing the archduke but the bridge later returned to its original name of the Latin Bridge after the fall of Yugoslavia.
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| The bridge Gavrilo was named after after killing the archduke but since returning to its original name... the Latin Bridge |
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| The East/West line in the old town of Sarajevo |
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| Ottoman era buildings in the east of the old town |
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| On the west side of the city is some art nouveau architecture |
Bosnia’s history goes back to the time of Roman conquest in the first and second centuries BC but later in the sixth century, the area of Bosnia would become part of the Byzantine Empire which was western Roman christian in origin, but then the Ottomans took over, who are Turkish muslims.
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| Roman ruins to be found in Sarajevo |
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| One of many mosques & minarets in Sarajevo |
After WW1, Bosnia then fell into the hands of the Serbians who are Orthodox. All very simple really but that history influences all of Bosnia to this day and is regularly felt as we found out.
So back to the East/West line in the mall, the architecture on either side of the line is different with the Ottoman buildings on one side and more recent Yugoslav influenced designs on the other, as pointed out by Ana.
Ana took us down little alleys and its oldest street created by the Ottoman Empire in the 1400’s where small copper and silverware crafts people in their small shops still create beautiful works of art to this day.
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| One of the oldest streets in Sarajevo containing the shops of the artisans |
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| Some of the craft created in the historic streets |
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| Close up of the silverware produced |
There are many beautiful old buildings, Moorish style churches, remnants of Roman ruins and something called the Sebilj, one of the few remaining timber fountains in the centre of Bascarsija Square, built by the Ottomans in 1753.
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| Moorish style church and other buildings |
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| The historic Sebilj timber fountain in Bascarsija Square |
There are cafes and food shops everywhere and let us say right off the bat, the food in Bosnia is excellent and very well priced, including the best baklava we had our entire time away.
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| Cafe night life in the old town |
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| A selection of baklava bought by weight and style |
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| Bosnian equivalent of Turkish delights |
So now for the not so nice part of Sarajevo’s history… the Bosnian War which is commonly understood to have started on the 6th April 1992, shortly after Bosnia had overwhelmingly voted for independence.
Serbians positioned in most of the high mountains surrounding Sarajevo, killed the Olympic ski lift caretaker and then opened fire on the city. For 3 years until 14th Dec 1995, Serbians lay siege to Sarajevo, trying to restrict access to food, water and the other essentials for life. During this ~3 year period, the following stats tell their own story:
- 11,451 people were killed of which 1,601 were children
- over 56,000 people were injured
- 329 shells fell on the city on average per day
- a siege artillery ring 60kms long circled most of the city
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| Imagery and statistics of the siege of Sarajevo |
Serbian snipers were located close to the city and would pick off anyone they could, trying to find food and water. Children were often used to try and collect water, because they could run a lot faster and were smaller targets than older people.
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| Old photos of the war |
Evidence of all this can be seen today throughout the city. Bullet holes in walls, buildings that remain damaged by artillery and footpath damage where mortar shells have exploded.
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| One of a few remnants of where mortars hit the pavement in the city |
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| Remaining bullet holes in the buildings |
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| The Bosnian's even make works of art using bullets from the war |
You could become a tad morbid about all this, but the Bosnian people seem incredibly resilient and are getting on with rebuilding their city and lifestyles. They are humble people with a good sense of humour, enjoying what people worldwide enjoy.
Before leaving Sarajevo we visited the tunnel, otherwise known as the Tunnel of Hope, an inspiring construction built during the war. The actual tunnel consisted of 160 metres of covered trenches on the Sarajevo city side, 340 metres of covered trenches on the other Bosnian held side, and 340 metres of actual tunnel under the airport runway, all built in secret in 4 months. Effectively this made up a tunnel 840 metres long.
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| Walking through a section of the 'Tunnel of Hope' |
It was built to move troops, weapons, food, people, livestock etc without the Serbians knowing, after a Muslim family volunteered for it to start from under their home. We visited that home, absorbed the various displays there, then walked through part of the original tunnel.
So enough of all the war stuff for now, as we left Sarajevo to start moving through other parts of Bosnia, starting with an area called Jajce, where we had a very unusual experience visiting the area area where the Bosnian Pyramids of the Sun and Moon exist.
This is hard to explain but there are some pyramid shaped mountains, somehow with tunnels in them, that an entrepreneur Sam Osmanagich is claiming are the oldest, largest man made pyramids in the world, and 12,000 years old when the earth was in an ice age… just sharing… and they produce healing capabilities. It was an interesting experience.
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| People touching boulders in tunnels to absorb their healing power... bit weird for us! |
So Rob and I did a short tour into some tunnels being told a lot of interesting healing things, but more odd were all these people down in the complex meditating, touching certain rocks with crystals etc. It was certainly very different, but that’s all will be said about it.
Bosnia is very mountainous as stated earlier, the Ottoman history in it lasted from 1463 odd until 1912, so their influence across the country is profound, including building lots of fortresses, especially on the top of mountains throughout Bosnia.
So in order to see some of them, we had to climb and in the same area as the ‘pyramids’, is where we visited the first of a few fortresses. It was worth the climb getting a feel for its structure and enjoying the very good little museum in its central turret.
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| The fortress above the city of Jajce |
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| View of Jajce from the fortress |
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| Section of the wall and a gate into Jajce |
With all the mountains, Bosnia is blessed with lots of water, very clean, fast running water as we saw after yet another climb to the top of a nice waterfall before then visiting the fortress of Jajce, originally built by a Bosnian King on yet another mountain, before being conquered by the Ottomans and the last one to fall to them.
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| The waterfall of Jajce |
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| VERY concentrated coffee and it needed the sugar |
Nearby was a large beautiful lake and not far from the lake was a place called Mlinčići where there are a group of disused watermills that used the fast flowing water to make flour during the Ottoman era. They were quite stunning to explore and photograph as hopefully you can tell.
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| The water was the Mlincici mills source of power |
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| Another view of the Mlincici mills |
As we travelled, Ana kept telling us about the influence within various towns of either Muslims, Orthodox or Christians in terms of housing architecture and food especially. In some towns she would know on what side of the road was Muslim and the other side say Christian.
The cemeteries were also very different but simple, and we quickly learned which were Muslim with their simple headstone with turban style structures on top of them.
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| Examples of Muslim cemeteries |
One of the many things we enjoyed travelling with Ana and Serge was experiencing meals with them. In the mornings we would have a reasonably big breakfast alone and get stuck into the days experiences, which usually meant a lot of walking and/or climbing. We learnt quickly that the Bosnians eat lunch late and the size of the servings are very big.
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| Few examples of Bosnian style meals... for lunch! |
As a result, we would stop for lunch from about 3pm onwards, and we would all eat together or we would just wait and have an earlier dinner ie. 2 meals a day and it worked fine. Ana and Serge selected some stunning places to have our afternoon/evening meals and one of them, was not far from the watermills and set between 2 sets of low, but wide waterfalls.
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| We had lunch sitting in between these 2 sets of waterfalls |
To mix it up from the Ottoman history, we also visited a Catholic Monastery in Scit which had some beautiful works of art both outside and inside. Large religious sculptures greeted us in the gardens as we approached and inside were many quite striking paintings.
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| The Scit monastery |
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| Some of the very nice art of the Scit monastery |
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| Traditional clothing of farmers in the Scit area |
Learning what we had from Ana & Serge about the history of Bosnia as well as seeing it prepared us well when we finally reached a town we had especially been wanting to see… Mostar.
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| Part of Mostar with the Neretra River running through it |
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| Walking through Mostar as the sun starts to set |
Mostar is a beautiful city located not far from Croatia, and is famous for its bridge, the fabulous Ottoman curved bridge over the Neretra River.
After settling into our accomodation for the next few nights, when leaving via the front door to go walking with our guide(s), we noticed an ‘odd’ photo near reception of Mark Waugh, a famous cricketer from a bygone time. Had to ask the owner, “why do you have a picture of Mark Waugh here?”
He smiled as he shared his story. His son lives and works out of Perth, has been there a long time, is married has a family and loves cricket. He and his Dad have met Mark, hence the picture but not something we expected to see in Bosnia.
Mostar was one of the most heavily bombed cities during the Bosnian war from the hills above, with many buildings being destroyed and including the bridge which has since been rebuilt. A large cross now stands on the hill where the artillery that destroyed the bridge was located.
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| A reminder in Mostar about the war |
We really enjoyed walking all through Mostar on both sides of the river, finding other smaller Ottoman bridges and climbing up inside a very tight Muslim minaret, those tall towers the prayers emanate from. The view from atop this minaret was stunning.
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The famous Ottoman bridge in Mostar by day... |
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| To get some photos may mean standing where you shouldn't |
Not far from Mostar, is the 1500th century village of Pocitelj which naturally, was heavily influenced by the Ottomans and you guessed it, we were soon back climbing up along narrow paths through the homes of the old stone village, pomegranate trees providing some shade, to the top of yet another mountain to visit the citadel at the top, but it was definitely worth it to see this old construction.
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| The village of Pocitelj |
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| Walking paths up through the Pocitelj |
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| Sections of the Citadel complex |
When we returned to Ana & Serge’s van to travel back to Mostar, it had developed an un-drivable issue which they were soon trying to manage. This was when we also experienced more of the ethnic diversity issues of this country.
We were in a Muslim area and the road service organisation looking after this area was Muslim based. The van was Serbian registered, so the road service would not come out to assist as a result because a Serbian road service entity needed to assist.
The same applies with food. We could be in a town which is split literally down the main street with different ethnic groups on either side. If you cross the road you can get Muslim food but not on the other side of the road and vice versa.
Not that far from Mostar, is one Bosnia’s very popular relaxation areas utilising their magnificent water resources located at Kravica. When we arrived, we could see hordes of people disappearing down a lot of steps into a valley. This would mean climbing back up all those stairs in warm weather, something we were beginning to tire of.
We elected to use some mechanised transport down to the bottom and what a sight met us as we got closer, so let some photos describe what we saw down there.
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| Beautiful looking waterfalls of Kravica |
We could see why people flock to this location during warm weather because it is great for cooling off and having fun but very beautiful as well.
Having now left the Mostar , the experiences kept coming at us, first in the form of visiting another monastery in the old town of Blagaj built around 1520, again heavily influenced by the Ottoman and their architectural designs.
Its location was amazing, sitting next to a river at the bottom of yet another towering mountain with super clean spring fed water pouring out from the base of the mountain next to it.
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| A very unique monastery located in Blagaj |
Religion obviously has played a major part of Bosnia’s history so it was time to visit some orthodox related sites in Trebinje, both the cathedral and the outside of the monastery, before visiting and enjoying a very fine nice tasting wine, something they are quite famous for.
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| The orthodox monastery of Trebinje |
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| The cathedral of Trebinje |
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| Inside the cathedral of Trebinje |
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| Some of the wine barrels and wine produced at the monastery of Trebinje |
In Trebinje, a city in east Herzegovina, has yet another orthodox monastery called Herzegovacka Gracanica which whilst Serbian orthodox and dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was built in more of an Ottoman style, as per the wishes of a famous Bosnian poet called Joan Ducic.
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| The elegant Herzegovacka Gracanica |
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| Inside Herzegovacka Gracanica |
Trebinje is located on the Trebisnjica River, where the old town section abuts onto, but before entering the city, we had to visit and walk over one of the most beautiful Ottoman bridges we had seen so far, built in 1574, damaged badly on one side during WWII, then pulled apart stone by stone, relocated and rebuilt exactly as per the original in 1970.
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| The Ottoman bridge in Trebinje |
Ana, Serge and ourselves had our final meal together at yet another great location in the old town area of Trebinje, right next to the river before heading back to Sarajevo.
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| With our guide(s) at a riverside restaurant in Trebinje |
On the way back, Bosnia’s complex history had one more lesson for us, as we made a final stop to view the stećak tombstones at Radimlja, some very valuable medieval headstones protected by Unesco. The majority of the tombstones date from the 1480s and are lavishly engraved with a range of symbols and depictions.
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| A 'field' of the Radimlja tombstones |
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| One close up example of a Radimlja tombstone |
After arriving back into Sarajevo for an overnight stay before flying onto our next destination, we bade fond farewells to Ana and Serge who had both provided a great tour in a warm, friendly, safe way and had both confused us and ultimately taught us a lot about Bosnia. We would not have missed any of it.
CLICK HERE for more photos of Bosnia & Herzegovina 2023
As we headed off to the airport for another flight to yet another new country, we were leaving with good memories of a country with a rich complex history and people, irrespective of their ethnic backgrounds, who were both humble, good humoured and willing to share with us.
So until we share our next experiences in a new country for us, go well!
PS: We don’t usually do this, but if considering Bosnia and/or other surrounding countries, get in touch with Ana via their company who are, Monterrasol Travel - http://www.monterrasol.com
