Around the Balkans in 20 Days - Part 11

I had been looking forward to this day for sometime. On the one hand it was going to be a sombre day, as the places we were visiting had witnessed some of the most harrowing scenes of the Bosnian war. On the other, we were going outside the city and in into the countryside of one of the countries I have been fascinated by for a number of years.

We pre-booked the car for 9am, so woke up relatively early, skipping breakfast, in order to catch the tram to a destination half way across the city. We left with a backpack each of limited supplies and all the paperwork under the sun. We stopped at the bakery on the corner before purchasing our tram ticket from the kiosk at the tram stop. We hopped on to a busy tram, standing most of the 25-minute ride from Alipasino Polje, our stop for the car hire place. We jumped off at the central reservation of the road where the tram runs, and observed brutalist housing to our left and sparse land of former industrial buildings to our right. We walked back on ourselves for 5 minutes to get to the EuropeCar lot. 15 minutes after entering reception, including a meticulous check of the hire car, we departed.

John was in the driver seat first, as I was nervous about driving abroad anyway, and wanted to be out of the city before I attempted it. Lucky too, as the road was three lanes in each direction. He managed to navigate across the road, doing a u-turn on a side street, before getting back on to the main road, driving east. The sat nav was a real help to calm nerves, even though the road was straight. 15 minutes later we squeezed through the now narrowed road between the old town and the river, and were out of Sarajevo.

The effective division of the country soon hit us when we immediately saw the ‘Welcome to Republika Srpska’ sign a few minutes outside the city limits. The road was on the side of a ravine, the river below being the Miljaka. We climbed up rather steeply for a good 20 minutes before reaching our junction to turn north-east. The road was single lane each way and empty of traffic.

5 minutes after we turned we stopped at a lonely-looking petrol station. A couple of staff members were in the cramped shop as we bought crisps, sweets, gum and water; the cashier appeared unbothered with us being visitors as his oral exchange was rather muted. Back on the road we ascended some more for 25 minutes or so when we levelled out onto Romanija.

The scenery was beautiful. On the horizon were the tops of spiraling mountains, dominating the vista and almost taunting the green rolling hills in the foreground before us. This was very much like driving along the hinterland roads of north Wales – bleak yet pastoral. The sky was overcast somewhat, but the sun broke through in shards of light to further illuminate the green-yellow fields around us. We had still only seen individual homes dotted along the road, often at some distance between them. This was to last for 20km or so.

We had reached the edge of the plateau, arriving at the first of the mountains that were to make this journey all the more protracted. In addition, we were stuck a few cars behind an old, grinding agricultural truck – seemingly from the latter Tito-era.  We slowly drove up and over the mountain; one or two cars did the daring maneuver of over-taking on rather short bouts of road between the bends. We stayed firmly in line. After our descent, we drove through similar terrain as before, but this seemed to be covered more in forestry. We meandered in the direction of Podromanija, again having the road to ourselves. 

At this point, we came across a police car in a lay by to our right, with a police officer stood leaning against it. The next moment he is beckoning us to pull over. My heart leapt to my throat. John smoothly applied the brakes in order to slow down, and turned into the lay by behind the police car. I scrambled to get our papers from the glove box, so as not to seem inefficient. The officer began walking towards us as we slowed down to a stop, and approached my side of the car. I literally had no idea what to expect. Did he speak English? Was this a common occurrence? It was our first police sighting.

I wound down the window and, as he came to the door, I belted out “Doberdan. Hello”. It was with the second word that he must have immediately come to the decision to not bother with us. I offered the International Driving licenses, and had our UK licenses to hand, but he merely waved his hands to shoo our documents away, and then turned to walk away, waving his hands from behind for us to drive off. I wound my window back up; John checked his mirrors and then pulled out. Only once we passed out of view of the police officer, did we then speak – fearing he may hear, I assume – and shared our mutual fear of what we expected might have unfolded.

After continuing for 15 minutes or so, we turned off towards Sokolac. This town may have served as a market town in the past. Its main high street was on a one-way section of a gyratory road system. This must have been implemented in response to increased traffic through the town, given that the strategic south-west/north east and north west/south east roads passed through here. We drove past the usual array for convenience stores and café’s, and noted the Serb bent of symbols dotted around. The town seemed a bit tired, as if there was a decline in passing trade leading to a malaise in its people. We passed through and continued. For the next 80 minutes we followed the now monotonous country road heading north, then east from Vlasenica (another sizeable town with a seemingly mixed population), turning once again north at Milici, and then east on the road to Bratunac.

All along this route there was an increasing frequency of villages that we passed, and a noted oscillation of who lived there. As we drove through one, you would notice an Orthodox church in the centre (usually newly built) and a Republika Srpska flag nearby. Half a kilometer down the road we would then see a mosque at the centre of the village (again, usually newly built) with the Federal flag. The area we were now passing through evidently had a long established Muslim population, and I felt a natural bias towards the Bosnian Muslims as they were so far away from the Sarajevan sphere of influence. The fact that these communities still resided in Republika Srpska surprised me, as would Serb communities living in the Muslim-Croat entity. Thankfully, the ultimate goal of nationalist leaders on all sides had not come to fruition; although the point of our journey was to visit the place where some had tried, and had certainly erased a vast number of these communities.

As we drove into Bratunac, I noticed it possessed the same atmosphere as Sokolac. You could almost feel the resentment to outsiders, like most places that exist on the periphery of a state and experiencing economic and social neglect from larger urban centres. Here, you are as far away from Banja Luka as you are Belgrade, with Sarajevo not that much closer; which only compounds the sense of isolation and being left behind. I sensed that the border with Serbia, only a kilometer away, might be acting as a reminder that the Serb nationalists may have founded a separate republic in all but name, but failed in it being incorporated into a greater Serbia. It was at this point I pondered “Did people see the BiH number plate on our car and suspect we were only driving through to visit the Potocari memorial?” I noted that the car number plates here and for most of our drive were SRB.

Almost immediately were in a slim green valley and had arrived at Potocari. The sunshine was complementing the landscape, romanticizing it almost. Yet I felt that this betrayed the place where untold human suffering reached its zenith. We pulled up near to the front gates and got out. The temperature was a shock, as we had the air con on; the air outside was dry and still. I was apprehensive as we walked into the compound, not knowing how I would emotionally engage, as I had wanted to visit for a number of years.

A green-roofed, brick built open-air mosque stood at the centre of a plaza area yards away from the entrance. To our right was a small glass booth with a visitor’s book inside. I left a short message of condolence. A series of cream marble stones formed a crescent around the mosque, and had inscribed on them the names of those men and boys who had been buried here, including their dates of birth. The one that really stuck out for me was Mehmed Varnica who was born in 1981 – only 14 years old when he was murdered.

We walked along the crescent, and then up the incline of the valley’s hillside among the headstones. The valley was quiet, only the odd car passing by disturbed the peace. I then happened upon the only headstone that was of a Christian. I wondered what the story of this man was. Was he resisting the onslaught of the Serb forces, or was he caught up by accident? We walked back down the hillside towards the exit, and crossed over the road to one of the run-down industrial buildings occupying the east side of the valley.

The vast, echoing series of halls were where the Dutch UN Peacekeepers resided. Nothing really remained aside from a few large pieces of industrial machinery and graffiti on the walls. Some of it was rather disparaging to Bosnian women; those the UN were supposedly meant to protect whilst ‘keeping the peace’. It gave off the impression too that the soldiers didn’t really know why they were here.

In the middle of the largest hall was a small exhibition. It contained photos and belongings to 20+ men and boys who were murdered. Because the UN had inadvertently created a focal point for refugees to gather, at the industrial site, the Bosnian Serb Army had a concentrated population and could now action a plan to remove them. About the time that the buses came to remove them, along with the women and elderly, thousands of the men and boys took to the hills. Others were segregated for dealing with, once the women and children had gone. Thousands of men and boys were systematically murdered, or were teased out of the hillsides and killed on the spot, over the following hours and days.

A sense of suffocation came over me as I read these stories, as we were literally in the middle of nowhere, the journey here proving that. Tuzla, the main Bosniak-held town, was over 80km away. The various ways in which each individual tried to survive was heartbreaking.

I left the hall looking for John, finding him outside. We then returned to the car. I decided that we should go to Srebrenica itself, just up the road, and hopefully buy some food in a shop. We drove for 8 minutes and entered the town, parking up to the right on a fork in the road where a supermarket was located. It was then decided that I should drive for the next section. Fair do’s, John had been driving for three and a half hours.

We grabbed some bread, meat and cheese for sandwiches and some drinks. As we sat eating in the car, I looked around at the small town. I would say it was more like a village. The buildings were a mix on one hand of Austro-Hungarian style, painted in pastel colours; and the brutalist kind we were used to seeing.  The supermarket was housed in a more modern construction. Only a handful of the buildings looked war damaged. Not many people were about either.

After finishing our lunch, I then started up the car, reversing around so as to point in the direction of Potocari. It took me a good 30 minutes to get used to driving. I kept hitting the car door to my left when I wanted to change gears, forgetful that the stick was the other side. The sat nav was my best friend, especially as I came to the first turning at Bratunac. I handled the right turn well, perhaps revving off too quickly, as a car was approaching in the opposite direction.

I had soon settled in, and was rather enjoying the driving through the repeated scenery of where we had already driven. The drive back to Sokoloc was only eventful because a tractor had overturned and caused a bit of a traffic jam. Other than that, within two hours we were at the junction just south of Sokolac again, but this time turned left as we headed to Visegrad.

The initial drive was a long, straight road through flat, agricultural land. Easy-peasy. We then travelled alongside a river within a ravine, passing in and out of tunnels, all of which had names on sign as you entered them with the length in meters next to it. It then returned to familiar green rolling hills before we arrived at the only major settlement in the area, Rogatica. Driving through and taking in the town, it felt less forgotten than the towns we had just passed through. It felt as though it still functioned as a place to stay overnight before continuing with your onward journey – something now long gone in the UK since the advent of bypasses and motorways. Perhaps this town’s days are numbered, as a Belgrade to Sarajevo road is being proposed with the route via Visegrad being one of the two options. Its main road still had cafes and shops that were thriving, and a park and tree-lined walkways with benches full of people. With Rogatica behind us, travelling south then east, we then drove through one of the most dramatic landscapes I had come across yet.

We had now met the Drina River again, having done so as we crossed the border a few days before. But here, it had gathered into lakes of luminous turquoise. I felt like I was in a James Bond film, as the car drove level with the water, speeding in and out of tunnels that were dug through the hillsides jutting out into the lake. This would have been an ideal place to stay to hire a boat, and just paddle around exploring the shoreline. About 25 minutes before we reached our destination, the river began to descend. So we hurtled through evermore tunnels as we rushed alongside the narrowing and deepening river. The final descent into the town saw us high above the river, as it began to dominate the bottom of the widening gorge that opened up into the town. To our right, as we navigated north into the east side of the town, we saw the old bridge span the now emerald river.

We had to drive on and go over a new bridge, and back on ourselves to get into the old town. We found a parking spot, paid the fee, and marched immediately to the bridge. My need to visit here was only recently developed. I had just read Nobel Laureate Ivo Andric’s novel The Bridge on the Drina. His novel depicts the life of the residents of Visegrad over 400 years, all with a connection to the Mehmed Pasa Sokolovic bridge built in 1577 by the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. The bridge is the silent witness to the goings-on in the town. So to be here was to bring to reality the fiction that I had read.

We walked along the length of the bridge, appreciating the gushing river below and the widening valley and hillsides to the north. When we returned, we visited the nearby café so we could have a refreshing soft drink, and to take in the bridge structure some more. Bosnia would do well to advertise this hidden gem to international visitors. No sign of bus trips from Sarajevo (or Belgrade for that matter) as we travelled through, even! This would be an easy moneymaker.

We departed soon after, as we needed to get the car back by 7:30pm. I wanted to drive again, so I hopped into the driver seat. I think John was glad too because, 25 minutes later, he was fast asleep. I had wanted to go back via Gorazde and Pale – the former another of those “safe havens” of the past; the latter the wartime Serb capital – but got confused when I approached the junction, so I just returned on the route we arrived by. The hilly and mountainous terrain meant that even in the height of summer, from 6:30pm onwards, it started getting dark in the valleys and along the roads overshadowed by nearby looming summits. John woke up as we made our descent from Romanija into Sarajevo.

We darted through the busy old town and onward to Alipasino Polje. We parked in the car park, and a security guard in a small office came out to relieve us of the car. We hadn’t had time to put in petrol, and were late by 30 minutes, but it seemed later that they only charged us for the petrol at £20. Not bad. We walked over to the tram stop and noticed that some car accident had occurred in one of the lanes heading into the old town. We played the usual nosey onlooker until our tram came. A number of people on the tram were dressed up, ready for a night out. Although not necessarily tired, we were weary from the long drive, so we both had showers as soon as we got back to our room. Once changed, John wanted to see what Trip Advisor recommended for food, and after 10 minutes of scrolling decided upon a place called Dveri. We wondered out, and walked 3 minutes to its approximate location. Only for a photo on the app showing a board at a discreet doorway, we would never have found it.

We walked down a narrow, covered pathway before we hit upon a glass doorway. The décor was dark browns and greens accompanied by exposed brickwork, with plants descending from the roof. It was one of those places that gathered allsorts over the years and placed them everywhere. A guy welcomed us, and sat us near the door. We were in a gangway of 3 tables, similar in width to the alleyway we entered by, and two rooms came off the wings of this containing 4 tables in each; Very cosy and intimate. For my meal, I decided upon a form of battered sausage with peppers, tomatoes and a jacket potato. John had a meat and bean stew. The friendly waiter suggested a good bottle of red to go with it, which we obviously approved of, even if it could have possibly been rank. As it turned out, the red wine and the meal were delicious. We spent a good time there catching up on the day’s travelling, and made plans for the week until we finished the wine. We had to settle by cash, which hit the wallet a bit but was worth it, and left a sizeable tip for our attentive waiter.

We wanted to find this supposed ‘gay friendly’ club, so walked towards the river. As we did, a huge display of fireworks lit up the sky. We presumed that it was in honour of the annual Sarajevo Film Festival that was also taking place this week. After they finished, we carried on by turning right down a road that had a few pedestrians on it but was quieter than the parallel main shopping street. We thought we had now found the vague location of the building. We had the street, and the nearby property numbers. The building here, part of a row of buildings forming a block that was 500 yards in length, had a bit to the right that contained a door to go up to the apartments and a small shop. To the left was an open space that led to behind the building. We moved shakily through it. No one was about, and faint lights above us lit our way. Soon enough we were out at the back, in a semi public plaza area. I looked up and noticed that we happened upon the office of Oslobodenje, the city newspaper. As we circled around, we could not see any sign of a club. As we walked back I heard faint music. It seemed to come from beneath us. I noticed an unassuming door to my right. It had on it Podrom, the name of the club, and the street number we had been looking for. We rang a buzzer, and in seconds it buzzed out inviting us to open the door.

We descended into the basement, unsure what to expect. The one thing that did hit us was the cigarette smoke. Vile. We walked into a familiar basement bar set up, and walked over to the bar. No indication that any of the few patrons present were gay. But it seemed harmless enough. We ordered two beers and sat near the bar. We made conversation, all the while trying to eye the room looking for potential ‘gay signs’ of the venue or even for people who seemed cool. After a polite second beer and 45 minutes, we decided to leave. The day had by now taken its toll on us, so we went back and crashed.

Around the Balkans in 20 Days – Part 10

The luxury of a twin room is that one does not disturb the other when it comes to tossing and turning, or when one gets up. I think John was happy of this fact as I turned out of bed at a not too late a time, in order to get breakfast.

I sat in the jazzy reception area where breakfast was put on, alongside a family with two toddlers and two straight couples. I grabbed some coffee, cheese and bread, sat myself down, and then oscillated between looking up news on my phone and awkwardly smiling in appreciation when one of the toddlers became rambunctious. After my second cup of coffee, and fully briefed on world news, I returned to the room to wake a sleepy John and get ready for the day out. It must have been around 10:30am.

It was a grey day, so John wore jeans and a jumper. I stopped after adding a jacket, wanting to keep my shorts on, as it was still warm. We visited the small bakery at the T-junction yards from our B&B, so John could grab a pastry to eat as we walked. As we began to retrace our route yesterday, it decided to rain. So we ducked into the Produce Market on Mula Mustafe Bašeskije, the site of the mortar attacks that killed scored of people during the siege. In-between walking around the food stalls in search for one that sold umbrellas; we stopped and read the mural to those killed that took up the whole space of the back wall. Once we looped round and walked back to the road, we managed to locate a stand that sold allsorts and purchased an umbrella for 10KM (about £5).

We then carried on towards our destination, the railway station. We passed the memorial from yesterday, and now noted that the road we were walking along and the pedestrian road yesterday becomes Maršala Tita – Marshall Tito. The rain was dying down as we passed the modern BBI shopping centre to our left, and arrived at a large junction with Ali Pasha’s Mosque commanding a dominant position. We crossed over the road and at a fork, took a right, splitting off from the main east west road taking us direct to the station. Away from the traffic, we looked up and around us. The street was quiet, with the odd café having seated patrons outside. The brown-grey Austrian-style blocks that started off the street still had bullet holes on them, alongside more recent graffiti. These then opened up to more familiar 1960s high-rise blocks before the train station plaza and tram stop welcomed us.

The train station was built in the modernist style, reflecting that of Templehof airport in Berlin. Almost light yellow in colour with a hint of marble effect; the curved building seemed to hug the plaza area in front. Only a handful of people seemed to inhabit the plaza and cafés nestled under a canopy at the station entrance. The modern, glass mini skyscraper loomed over us to our right as we approached the main ticket hall. There was as much life in here as there was outside, and we were soon to find out the reason why.

I approached one of the two open ticket desks and asked if there was a train to Mostar in a few days time. She shook her head politely, to which I responded with a “No!?”. She then explained in simple terms that there were no trains south. The train line is closed. This now made sense, as research I did before the trip seemed to imply that there were no trains. But learning from my previous trip, I thought things might have been different when here. We were then directed to the bus station located next door. We walked around past a couple of newspaper kiosks and entered the rather dated building plastered in an array of adverts for a multitude of bus companies and routes. We walked in to a small, dark-wooded ticket hall, and joined the queue. We didn’t need to get the tickets today, but I wanted to check how much they would be and how frequent the service was. After greeting the ticket seller with “Dobar dan” I soon conversed in English to ask my key questions. The price was similar if not a little cheaper than the train, and there were around 7 buses a day. He gave me the times of them so we could consult. Prior to the journey, I had already booked a bus ticket from Dubrovnik to Split to get the flight home. They were a Croatian company, but had services from Croatian parts of Bosnia. I noticed that they had services from Mostar. Later on, I would marry up the Sarajevo-Mostar route, plan for a short stop over, and then book a ticket for the Mostar-Dubrovnik route.

John wanted a soft drink, so we went to one of the kiosks outside. After purchasing, we had an idea to visit the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina then the National Museum, which were located next to each other. So we walked south alongside the heavily fortified US Embassy, crossed the main road, and went in to the Historical Museum first. The building had still not been renovated since my last visit, and everything had a sort of ‘thrown together’ sort of feel to it. The display in the lobby area was different to before, with a wall of pictures juxtaposing photos of buildings in Sarajevo immediately after the siege with those recently.

We were directed to go downstairs with two other people for an English tour, led by a strapping young blonde lad in his 20s who was working in the archives. We descended a set of stairs in a small, glass-encased tower, and approached a doorway that had further steps beyond it and into a concrete bunker at the basement level. On our right, after the doorway, were two 1960s low-rise style black leather and silver framed chairs. The archivists’ opening speech focused on these with a story of the visit of the man himself, Tito. I felt that he was aching for us to be both amused and surprised to learn that Tito sat in one of these very chairs before us, so much so that he offered to take our picture in them. We politely declined. He seemed downbeat at our disinterest.

At the bottom of the stairs, and in the first of two sections in the bunker, was a display of Communist paraphernalia, which our guide talked us through with an air of having done this hundred of times. Batons, posters, badges, patches; you name it. We then wondered through a seriously thick metal security door. The room was encircled with militaristic metal shelving, which seemed to underscore a lot of what was on display in the damp and gloomy space. These items were from the Partisan struggle during WWII and contained many firearms and low-grade weapons. Some of the gorier items were clubs containing nails, or barbwire wrapped sticks. Again, there were other items from the period, which the guide talked us through.

When the tour ended 20 minutes later we ascended the glass staircase into the sunlight, continuing up to the second floor where the exhibition was. It came in three parts, the first part being new since my last visit. This was an examination of the material life of Yugoslav citizens since 1945, instantly drawing John and mine’s attention. A squared-off section of the main hall had within it a maze style layout that led us to move between themes. One theme looked at holidays and transportation, showcasing vintage posters of the national airline JAT and emphasizing the liberal migration policy Yugoslavia had in the form of ‘Gastarbeiters’, in deviation from other, Soviet dominated countries. Another theme looked at material life in the home. The 1970s chic outfit of a living room encouraged John to exclaim that it was an exact replica of ours back home. You couldn’t deny it. I fancied a couple of the pieces of furniture myself for the living room.

Once we made our way through this, we then went on to the second phase that looked at the siege. This was chronologically ordered and from a political angle, displaying items that the army or citizens used over the 5-year period. An example was a makeshift cooker that was used when the gas was turned off. I hurried around this part as I had seen it previously, but I still managed to give John the odd contextual explanation as he went around. The final section was post-Dayton looking at the settlement and subsequent governance of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

After this, and all the walking we had done up until now, we decided to go for a drink and a sit down. As we descended the stairs I noticed a cast iron life-sized statue of Tito in commanding pose out in an unkempt courtyard. This was a replica of the one in the grounds of the House of Flowers in Belgrade from a few days ago. I grabbed a snap and continued down the stairs. Tucked at basement level, at the back of the museum, was a café simply called “Caffe Tito”. If there was any evidence to suggest that Bosnians had a soft spot for Tito and Yugoslav nostalgia, then the last hour and half was proof enough. We slid past the patrons sat outside in the warmth, all young and student-like, and headed inside to cooler climes. Despite my aggravation from the heat, I ordered a hot coffee. Thinking ahead to the rest of the day, my third coffee before midday was a bit ambitious and could go either way. In between chatting and updating ourselves with social media banter, we admired the kitsch décor that had sparingly been placed on the walls in the dimly lit interior. The odd poster here and there from post WWII times, and a framed map of the now disintegrated country, was peppered amongst the Partisan and Pioneer memorabilia in the foreground of walls printed in bold patterns in the red, white and blue of the Socialist Yugoslav flag.

After finishing our drinks, we went to the neighbouring National Museum. This one featured archeological artifacts and a botanical garden in the courtyard. Having been before, I rushed around half re-reading signs on the displays. After a wonder around the gardens, we soon departed. We walked eastward to pass the dominant glass encrusted Parliament building on Trg Bosne I Hercegovine. The Holiday Inn loomed across the road as we walked on to a new shopping mall on this main axis of roads. We decided to eat here, visiting the food market section on the top floor, and chose to visit a restaurant that offered an array of food styles, mostly Western. I decided on a chicken, apple and hazelnut salad, which was delicious. Having rested our feet once again, we then walked back to the old town, taking in other side streets and buildings that we had not yet seen.  The most impressive was the Bezistan. This was the old, stone-built market hall in the centre of the old town. Now mostly full of shops selling rather tacky tourist stuff, the odd clothes shop or bag emporium stuck out. I imagined it to be mesmerizing when merchants sold textile or copper in the hall, the noises of production mixing with chatter and camaraderie, all for the shopper to see.

I knew the intense coffee intake earlier would now lead to a massive crash. In desperation, and with a renowned sweet tooth, we stopped at a café in the old town that had a vast selection of cakes on offer. I opted for a coffee and walnut cake that had layers of crushed meringue in it. It was divine! I also had a Bosnian coffee – why the hell not!

We decided to pay a visit to the Sarajevo Pivo Brewery, located on the south side of the river, not too far away. It had a museum too, so we decided it was worth our while. We crossed the river, admiring the town hall building once more, when I stumbled upon a street sign on a building that we were approaching. Below it was another sign with some explanatory text. The two newer signs were on the opposite side of a window to an older one. The newer street sign indicated the road to be called Ulica Obala Isa-Bega Ishakovica, named after the city’s founder. The older one was called Obala Pariske Komune, named to mark the 1871 revolutionary, socialist government in Paris. What the explanatory sign detailed was the history of name changing on this particular street. The Paris Commune connection is an obvious post WWII change. The newer name is a reflection of the Ottoman heritage that present day Bosniaks hold as part of their identity.

The whole issue of naming and re-naming is fascinating, and has been the site of common ideological and national struggles in South East Europe, particularly in the post-Communist era. The symbolic power that naming has, is a reflection of those who are in dominating positions at any one time. When you move beyond street names that come from geographic, topographical or commercial markers, such as Mostar Road, Mountain View, Copper Tin Alley for example; the act of naming then becomes political. This street in Ottoman times was named after two trades that existed on this side of the river when expansion of the city came along. When the Austro-Hungarians decided to regulate the river and create an embankment, they renamed it Careva Street, Careva being ‘Emperor’ in an obvious nod to their Monarch. In 1914, for 5 years, it was named after a sultan before returning to Careva Street then changing to Careva Obala, obala being ‘left bank’. It then changed to Francuska (French) Obala in 1927, then during a period of 4 years under the occupation of the Independent State of Croatia it held a different name before becoming Obala Pariske Komune. It changed to its current name in 1993. One can draw from this, that the last renaming was the attempt of Bosniak officials to lay down a marker that Sarajevo is a Muslim, Bosniak city, with a heritage that rests largely on its proud Ottoman history that will not be erased even when under siege.

We moved on and took a street that climbed up the hillside from the river. I noticed a number of Serbian registered cars here, so was unsure if this was a predominantly Serb area. We then reached the brewery. It was a dominant terracotta-bricked, gothic-styled building that seemed sort of out of place here and rather Bavarian. We passed the goods entrance and noticed a sign for the museum. We went in and noticed that it was literally a room that was 8 meters by 8 meters. The girl on reception said that we could pay something like £2 for the museum, or £3 for the museum and a free drink at the pub. We opted for the latter ticket. So we looked at the brewery themed objects on display and read a bit about the history. I noticed one piece that mentioned that this brewery had a connection with one in Petrovaradin Fortress in Novi Sad. What a coincidence.

We soon left and went to the pub. It was actually very impressive and very spacious. It almost had the style of a very well done Wetherspoons with added Germanic flair. Wood paneling dominated the décor; with a traditional bar almost spanning the whole left side of the pub. You also had a balconied area. We were only amongst a handful of patrons. Obviously too early for most, but I did notice that they had entertainment on at a more modest time of 8pm. We grabbed a seat and claimed our first pivo, fresh from the factory (or one would imagine). Having enjoyed the taste, we paid for another round before leaving.

We descended the hill back into the old town and ate somewhere non-descript. After that we attempted to find one of 3 places we believed to be LGBT friendly venues. After lurking around near the Orthodox Church and canton buildings, we gave up and returned to the B&B. Better that we didn’t drink any more, as we would be driving the next day.

Around the Balkans in 20 Days – Part 9

The streets below were quiet as we woke up on our last morning in Belgrade. I was up like a dart, knowing I had planned a tight regime for us to be up and out within 30 minutes. It was 7am, so John was less inclined to be rushed. We showered, gathered last minute bits for the small backpacks that will travel alongside us, and packed our remaining items into our large traveller backpacks.

We were ready 5 minutes before the scheduled arrival time of our minibus. Yesterday, I confirmed the details with the travel company via email. I was still a little disappointed that we wouldn’t be repeating my journey by train 5 years ago, but at least I would get to see a different route through the rough terrain to Bosnia-Herzegovina’s federal capital.  After 10 minutes of peering down from the window, I noticed a white minibus pull in underneath up. Surely this was ours. So, as we gathered our things and began to lock up, the driver called me. I said that we would be down momentarily. We posted the keys into the mailbox in the lobby as instructed, then pulled the door to. The driver clambered out of the van and said hello, whilst motioning us to the back of the minibus. We bundled our luggage into the back, and got in, joining a woman in her 30’s who must have been the first to be picked up. The van had two seats up with the driver, three in the middle, and three in the back. We opted for the back seats, with the person we joined occupying the middle row. We drove off uphill towards Trg Republika and stopped moments later outside a hotel where we picked up another person. We then drove from there, across the eerily quiet town, to Trg Slavija, picking up another fellow traveller from a side street; and an older woman in her 70s.

We then dashed downhill along the tramlines, from Trg Slavija towards the railway station, turning left and then merging right on to the east/west motorway. I was still a bit drowsy and unaware of my surroundings, but within 15 to 20 minutes, we were out of the city and into flat agricultural land. We coasted along the motorway in near silence, the chatter between the older woman and the driver having died down – perhaps saving themselves for the long haul.

We turned off at an unassuming junction and pulled in on a dusty slip road. My curiosity was piqued, but I was not concerned. It appeared that we were picking up two further people, who seemed to have had a relative bring them here to be taken onward on their journey in our minibus. A rather odd location to be picked up from, I thought. The drama in my head saw the scenario play out as a body-in-the-bag, criminal gang exchange farce. Happily, that was not the case. The man sat up front with the driver, and the woman was in front of John. With the last of our passengers on board, we travelled away from the motorway in a south-westerly direction towards Sabac.

The high speed and relative calm of the initial journey took a sharp turn (only to be superseded later on) as we moved away from motorway/bypass type roads to rural ones. These ones had ditches on either side most of the time that aided the irrigation of the fields that lay all around us. The driver had obviously done this route hundreds of times, and wasted no time nor any opportunity to overtake cars, trucks, even tractors. Blind corners, for John and I seen as death traps to overtake at, were taken on with either arrogance or faith. Neither reassured us. And to add to my discomfort, the day was getting hotter and the seats were made of leather! I had no chance of getting to the end of this journey dry as a bone.

As long and slender villages passed by, broken with the odd larger town here and there, we took a petrol and rest break. We arrived at a small, modern petrol station that had a shop-cum-café attached to it. To confirm the driver’s frequent use of this route, as he entered he was greeted by the staff as a familiar friend. In-between trips to the loo, we scoffed at warm cheese and ham croissants and milky coffees, and then purchased a couple of extras for the rest of the trip. As we had access to Wi-Fi, I looked up the route we had just taken, and possible routes we were about to take. It seemed that the border with Bosnia was not that far away, a mere 1,000 meters.

After 25 minutes the group was back together in the minibus and off we sped. Minor personnel adjustments were made, with the motorway couple swapping places. The roads were a bit quieter now as we travelled towards Loznica and the nearby border post. Out of view, but nearby, was the Drina River, which we would have to cross to get into Bosnia. A small wood to our right cleared and revealed a wall of hills seeming to indicate geographically a different realm. Indeed, as we approached a junction to turn right, the border posts on either side of the bridge confirmed that these hills were indeed those of Bosnia.

And what a quiet crossing it was. On the Serbian side, pseudo-Heraldic flags, long and slim, hung down from tall flag posts. We gave the driver our passports, with the other passengers providing less formal National Identity cards. We stuck out like a sore thumb. Once on the bridge, which had similarities to ones an army would erect, we waited in a queue of 4 cars before getting our documents checked. The flag poles on this side mirrored those we just passed but had two different flags on them, the familiar blue and red flag of the Republika Srpska entity and the yellow and blue of the Bosnia-Herzegovina federation. We drove off into Bosnia within a matter of minutes.

The geography was certainly different. We followed the river south for a short while, before turning west towards the centre of the country. We meandered between the hills and mountains, through the steep and beautiful gorges where the roads we were travelling on could only be built. Many turquoise lakes with short-lived vistas lay along the route, providing relief from suffocating cliffs we ran alongside. In between appreciating the views, I had a novel on the go since we started in Skopje and was 80-100 pages from the end, so I decided to try and finish it before we reached Sarajevo in order to start my next book.

The early start, rising heat, and constant swaying of the minibus along the windy roads must have conspired to send me to sleep. I awoke as we were climbing our way up the last mountain, beyond which Sarajevo hid. Evidently we had passed over into the Muslim-Croat entity some way back, and were now passing through an overtly Bosniak town. Vogošca had a number of mosques with the green flags of Islam hanging from their minarets. All public signs were in the Latin script, and government buildings were easy to spot with their sole flag flying, that of the federation. There seemed to be a chain of towns along this road, the scene changing from shops and transport hubs, to housing and schools, and back again; all the while continually rising in altitude. The peak seemed to be reached at the same point where a brand new mosque, the largest seen up to that point, dominated a hillside spot looking over the descending hill from which we had just climbed. We curved around its grounds and then began our descent into Sarajevo proper.

Given the drivers’ erratic abilities at the wheel, we seemed to ‘land’ in Sarajevo, hurtling down a main road that soon flattened into the main valley floor in no time. The train station appeared on our right, the same direction in which we then turned, as we sped off west in the opposite direction to our BnB.

We ran parallel to the main east-west road that ran through the city, and turned into a high-rise estate in anticipation of our first fellow traveler leaving us. The young woman, who was first in the van, and the older woman began talking. The gist I got, from the fragmented bits of conversation I could transliterate into English, was that the older woman was quizzing the younger one on why she lived here and not in Grbavica – a stone’s throw away across the river. The response I couldn’t decipher. But the brushing off nature of it by the younger woman wasn’t what surprised me, but the reason for asking the question in the first place did. To some, it seems the question of where you lived is still linked to your ethnic/national identity, as Grbavica was the extent of Serb inroads into the city during the siege. We then departed to drop off the rest of the passengers before arriving at the Baščaršija to be dropped off ourselves.

In the narrow streets, lined with track for the characteristic tramline, the minibus pulled up and hogged half of the road. A small commotion was made of our arrival, but we grabbed our belongings, thanked the driver for getting us here (alive), and then I led the way to our BnB. A mere 100 steps away, John observed for the first time the open space of the Baščaršija where the Sebilj is located, ringed by a platoon of pigeons. The Sebilj was the historic centre of the old town where those who travelled through the city would congregate and quench their thirst at the water fountain. We were now at a T-junction, the centre of which had a small water pipe (lots of these are dotted all over the city), where we now turned right and up a steep incline turning left into a makeshift car park almost immediately.

This was our place of rest for the next few days, and had not changed one bit from my previous visit. The décor was still kitsch, containing a collection of paraphernalia gathered over the years with what looked like ethnographic examples of rug making. Our room was a twin and in keeping with the theme at reception; carpet from the early 1990’s (in the UK at least) that had an almost regal theme to it. I believe it was the exact same room I stayed in when I was there 5 years previous. What a coincidence.

We decided that after our long journey we needed showers, bearing in mind it was still in the early 30s temperature wise. As I showered with the window open for the breeze, the old town below was buzzing with the noise of people and cars. This reminded me that when I was last here, alone, I didn’t travel outside of my comfort zone. With John as my comrade in arms, I felt eager to explore a lot more of Sarajevo and Bosnia during this visit. I was really looking forward to hiring a car in a few days time to travel east to Potocari and Visegrad – different reasons for both.

We left once ready and went straight to the old town to have a wonder. The place is all ground floor level shops with glass fronts and terracotta-tiled roofs. The only buildings taller here were the mosques and newer additions such as hotels that stood mostly at the perimeter of the old town. The streets were slab-paved, with water gulley’s to disperse the rainwater into the Miljacka River nearby. We sought refuge in a canopied courtyard surround by the backs of the shops where I ordered Bosnian coffee and water. The shade was a welcome escape from the searing heat.

After this we walked the ‘History Route’ as I call it. This pedestrianized segment runs the middle of a loop of road making up the main east-west road through the city. At first it encompasses the old town with its Ottoman Turkish and Islamic heritage. It then immediately stops, and turns to Austro-Hungarian architecture with pastel plastered buildings soaring to 3 or 4 storey’s high. Along this stretch are a myriad of 19^th century religious buildings of two of the four major faiths - Catholicism and Orthodoxy. We pondered these, then I pointed out to John the Sarajevo Roses and the symbolism of these to the siege. Even here, the streets were narrow and sort of suffocating, with the tops of the hills to our left, on the south bank of the river, lurking over us.

Once we merged with the westbound car traffic, noting the eternal flame monument to mark the freedom of Sarajevo during World Ward Two, the buildings changed to have an earlier 20^th century, modernist feel before breaking into brutalism as we approached the Presidency building. It was at this point we looped back and followed the eastbound main road back to the old town alongside the river.

At newly renovated City Hall, I was keen to push on but I think John had enough at this point in the day. Yet, I persuaded him into climbing up the side streets to the Yellow Bastion to take in a view of the city. As we climbed up the steep hill alongside one of the cemeteries that serve as reminders of the war, the heat and sun really began to beat us down. I had to stop a number of times to either catch breath or wipe my brow of sweat, guzzling water when I could. However, the prize at the top of the hill was the splendid view across the valley westward as the sun hung low in the sky. A smattering of tourists were with us, on this unkempt rampart from Ottoman times. After a short while, we made the return journey with ease, and decided to rest for a few hours.

Not wanting to stay out late, we dressed and went off for dinner. I recalled the restaurant I visited last time that served chocolate steak (or chicken) as a specialty. We sat out in front of the narrow and intimate restaurant, with the now famous poster of a Cellist in the ruins of the City Hall looming behind John. We ate a meal washed down with wine and returned to our BnB after our exhausting day.

Around the Balkans in 20 Days - Part 8

We left the apartment early in order to catch a mid-morning train to Novi Sad. I had wanted to visit the city because it was one of the centres of resistance to Milosevic’s hegemony in the 1999 and 2000. We walked up to Trg Republika, then back down the hill towards the train station, stopping at a kiosk for water and snacks on our way. The final part of our descent to the station led us along a steep, cobbled path where street sellers were in operation. They were either local people selling market type goods, or refugees selling their personal belongings. A very sad sight indeed.

As the train station came into view, we noticed a gathering of people in the park opposite us. As we crossed and walked through, we observed that officials wearing lanyards holding EU cards in them were speaking to the refugees. I assumed that they were migration officials overseeing the implementation of EU policy on the ground. My impression was that they were merely fact-finding to see how many were gathered, what their intentions were, and what their situation was.

We walked onwards to the main train station entrance. The ticket hall was quite dark as there were few windows, or perhaps because it was so sunny outside, but we located the ticket booths instantly. These resembled old-fashioned bank cashier hatches that were framed in dark brown wood, 10 or so in total but only 5 in operation.  The short queue soon disappeared and we asked for two return tickets to Novi Sad. After being handed our tickets I asked for the time of the next train. Again, I had already looked this up and knew what time the train was, but I wanted it corroborated and with the added information of what platform it would depart from. I began to think I had a problem.

We left the ticket hall and returned to the sunshine, which poured down on to the L-shaped plaza area that shadowed the shape of the station building. We had a bit of a wonder around and took a picture or two, as we noticed that the train was already in our platform. Cafes lined the outside of the station building and were alive with custom. Our train was of an older rolling stock, presumably one that played a role in the wars of the 1990s. I was a bit envious of the newer, air-conditioned train that was resting in the platform next to ours. We boarded the dilapidated train, and parked ourselves on seating that reminded me of those plastic and metal school chairs from my childhood. Not the most comfortable, but we bagged a window seat so we could enjoy the views Srijem had to offer. A loud, grinding noise of the engine firing up indicated our immanent departure. However the force of this noise was not matched with an equal emphasis on our acceleration out of the station. At a walkers pace, we slid out of the platform, navigating through the various points on the line. Once clear, the expected speeding up did not occur. This was because we had to incline and bear a sharp right to cross over possibly one of the oldest and creakiest bridges to span the Sava.

Once over, we immediately pulled into Novi Beograd station. The suburb is a Brutalist enthusiasts dream. Tower upon tower and block upon block of browny-grey concrete behemoths stood around us. We trundled on out of the suburbs of the city and entered the flat, agrarian plains. Most of the seats were filled on the train, with commuters sitting in contemplative silence and appreciating the breeze afforded by all the windows being open. Our initial interest soon passed into indifference due to the monotony of wheatfields, with the odd farmhouse every now and again. We anticipated one of the stops, Nova Pazova, as this was where our newfound friend Danilo was staying. The station there was typical of the rural, Balkan kind. A station building level with the tracks, over which you would have to climb to reach your train (no raised platforms or bridges). The station itself was painted sunshine yellow and came topped with a terracotta-tiled roof. No barriers or fencing surrounded the station or its grounds, so people and animals could wonder freely. One or two rail company officials were visible by their uniforms, and a handful of passengers boarded replacing those who left just before them.

The scenery remained unchanged until we started to approach the Danube. We couldn’t actually see the river, but the change in surroundings from flat, agricultural land to hilly forests certainly indicated that we ascended slightly on to land that would have historically housed inhabitants up and away from the floodplains from which we came.  In fact there was a train station nestled amongst the dense forestry, which we stopped at. A number of people got off here, armed with beach towels and picnics, pointing  perhaps to a secluded yet popular riverside spot for those in the know. We carried on to Novi Sad.

The train curved east around the hill town of Petrovaradin and opened up to the length of the Danube, which we were about to cross, and the city of Novi Sad behind it. To our immediate right was a gargantuan structure of two white arches with reinforcing metal ropes, one on each side of the river. A new bridge was under construction. We crept across our makeshift bridge, finally settling into the main railway station a kilometer away.

Again, faded beauty is how I would best describe this brutalist construct. The raised platforms were on the first floor, so we descended to the ground floor, passing under the platforms above and into a massive 1970s style arrivals and departures hall, then out to the plaza area outside. Unsure of what bus to take to the old town, we decided to get a taxi from the taxi rank to our left. A brief conversation led to our jumping in and hurtling off down the main boulevard that began opposite the station plaza. Again, this part of town must have been some part of a model new city, as the boulevard was three lanes wide on each side of a grassy central reservation, accompanied by parades of shops on either side occupying the ground floor level of rows of 12 storey tower blocks. We then bared left as we arched around the old town centre. We got dropped off and paid the near £12 fare, a bit of a rip off to be honest. But with only 4 hours in the city, I didn’t want to waste any time. We walked away from the now dual carriageway towards what I assumed to be the direction of the main square.

The buildings here reflected the architecture of the Austro-Hungarian period. The city would have been one of the last places in the empire before reaching the Ottoman border, whose furthest reaches would have been  the rivers shores opposite Belgrade. Over different periods it would have been Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, then Yugoslavian. It now occupies the role as the capital of the Vojvodina region in Serbia. The Hungarian minority presence was felt not just by legacies invested in the buildings we were walking past, but by the street signs and other official signage being bilingual and in two scripts. You had Serbian in Latin and Cyrillic scripts, and Hungarian in Latin too.

The square was quite vast, with the expected grand 19^th century municipal buildings and a church occupying its perimeter. We had a close look at a few to try and see what they were. This proved difficult when all the marble signs did not contain English. The odd word sprung out, like ‘banka’, so we did our best at deciphering them.  We walked down some side streets in a loop and ended up at the top end of a pedestrianized street that began at the square. It had café seating along it, so we decided that we should eat and grab drinks, as it was a scorching day. We settled at a table under a parasol and the waiter kindly brought over two English menus.

After lunch, I wanted to visit the Petrovaradin Fortress. This hosted Exit Festival each year, the initial gathering of which was the student protest in support of democracy at the turn of the millennium.  We walked towards the river, away from the old town, and merged again with the dual carriageway ring road. Just off it was a modernist looking building that housed the Socialist Party of Serbia, therefore it must have been the former headquarters for the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. After we walked across a junction and turned a corner we noticed a long modernist building that resembled a ship – complete with a Captains Bridge perched on top. It had nautical themes engraved on it, so it must have had something to do with the ship trade on the Danube. After 5 minutes, we reached the bridge that led over to Petrovaradin. The castle seemed to loom over the river, an imposing feature on the skyline. We crossed over and entered a rather rundown but quaint village. The houses seemed almost French, and were obviously the residences of those who had some connection to the fortress above. We walked up the main street, diverting right onto a cobbled side street to locate the path up the hill.

After a steep and sweat inducing climb, we reached the top and now saw the view of Novi Sad from up on high.  The river flowed directly below us, to our right we could see the two new bridge archways in the distance. Northwestern Vojvodina stretched out behind Novi Sad and was as flat as that which lay outside of Belgrade. We must have been on top of one of the few hills in the region, and one which was an obvious choice of location to build a fortress. There was a restaurant and a café located within the walls, so we decided that a couple of beers would be a nice reward for our efforts and with which to enjoy the view.

We were conscious of time, so departed after 45 minutes and made our way back down the slope, through the small village and over the bridge. We returned to where our taxi dropped us off and noticed a taxi rank. We set off back up the brutalist boulevard, and were placed outside the station for a cheaper fee than our outbound journey. I noticed an old locomotive outside the station, so decided to go over and inspect it. We then went inside and asked at one of the desks which train we could get. The staff member said that we could get the next one, which was deemed the ‘fast’ service (it shaved off 15 minutes off the 2 hour 10 minute journey to get here). It was due in 4 minutes, so we darted through the underpass and emerged at the platform at the same time as the train.

The train was your stereotypical trans-continental type, probably glamorous in the 1970s and 1980s but had grew tired over the years. We approached the 2^nd class carriage and climbed on. The train had come from Budapest and was heading to Belgrade as its last stop. The décor was similar to that on the bus we took from Skopje – carpet-esque, moquette textile lined the walls (including the ceiling) - and the seats were a lot comfier than on the train ride here. I put on my headphones as the train pulled away, awake long enough to gaze back over the city as we crept back across the bridge to Petrovaradin, before succumbing to tiredness.

When we arrived in Belgrade, I thought we should walk a different route back, so that we could see a bit more of the side streets of the city. So we turned left out of the train station, and walked northwest along the main road that loops clockwise around the base of the Kalamegdan. We passed the Bristol Hotel and onwards to an art gallery and some ‘pop-up’ café bars that were housed in what seemed to be ex-dock buildings. We then approached a viaduct, and walked up some steps that saw us come level with the road it carried. We weaved along side roads, always uphill, so that we could reach the main shopping street. We came across a quiet square surrounded by restaurants and those high-end businesses housed in glass-fronted offices with sparse furniture and two or three employees.  We noted the restaurants for the evening.

Back at the apartment, we decided to do some basic packing ahead of our departure tomorrow and then agreed that we should head back to the fortress for the final evening. On our way over we bought some crisps and two 2-litre bottles of chilled Jelen beer. The park within the fortress walls was beginning to darken, the shadows beginning to creep further away from their source. We approached the outer wall and placed ourselves on top, as many others were doing and had done so around us.

And what a way to spend the last night in Belgrade! The blue sky above had already begun to turn pink-purple as it neared the orange-red sun on its approach to the horizon. Only a WWI plane flying overhead, an added touch of history at this poignant location, broke the quiet on this warm evening. A relaxed feeling came over me, quite possibly from the beer, but a note of surprise was that I was not planning in my head tomorrow’s journey. Being in the moment was all I felt. And the romance of sitting on this wall, with John by my side as the sun finally set over Zemun and the WWI plane playing a supporting role, was truly a memory to treasure.

We sauntered back through the park and to a restaurant near the square from earlier. The meal was so-so, but we decided to go to another café on the shopping street for dessert. John outdid himself with a large ice cream sundae. We then went back and finished our packing ahead of our early start tomorrow.