The drive was not long from Jajce, but was a hot one.
As we entered the city, we found it hard to navigate with our large scale map and the guide book’s city centre map. Wish the Garmin GPS was still working. Eventually managed to get onto a road that was shown on the map in our Bradt guide book. Which allowed us to eventually navigate to a hotel.
Sarajevo Parking … Oh parking, where are you!
Being in a big vehicle and a main town, we needed parking. There was none!
We navigated the one way system roughly 4 times, before we decided to head on out of the city and find a hotel on the outskirts, with parking. Our plan was to dump the Defender and catch a taxi into the centre. Rather than worry about parking and possibly security.
We got lucky. Just on the fringe of the one way system there was a petrol station and a tiny hotel next door. It had parking! Dan pulled in and went to enquire, if they had a room for the night and the cost. BINGO! We were in.
After checking in and having a shower, a beer, we headed out to then go explore Sarajevo and find some dinner. We were in for a treat.
As we wondered in, Dan had seen an Apple store at the Sarajevo School of Arts, so we decided to head there and see if they had some noise cancelling headphones for Dan and Cassie to use.
Cassie wanted to cross the bridge to the entrance of the centre as it was “curly”. She was referring to the Festina lente (Latin for “make haste slowly”) bridge, over Sarajevo’s Miljacka River.
We then decided to get a city map, so that we could find the Turkish quarter (Baščaršija) where the guide book said it was the best place to get a feel for Sarajevo.
After wondering around town for a bit and finding the quarter, we explored the delights of the stalls and did some souvenir shopping.
Cassie and I bought some clothing from a shop that sold only hand made Bosnian clothes. Cassie got a shawl/poncho and Wendy got a lovely top.
We then went in search of a place that sold ćevapi, as we had seen everyone sitting outside on the street restaurants eating ćevapi. Ćevapi is a meat sausage made from lamb or beef, or a mix, in a pita type bread served with sour cream/yoghurt and onions. It was lovely!
The restaurants were full and after wondering around a bit we found one where the waiter put us on a table with another lady.
The lady happened to be a student from Holland doing her Thesis in Bosnia on Genoside and Reconciliation. She was very good company and a lovely dinner partner to chat too.
From here we looked for a place to have a beer, but being in the muslim part of the town, beer was a tad hard to find being served. So we decided to read the tea leaves and just head back to the hotel and have a beer there followed by an early night. An opportunity to update this blog!
