Say it slowly tour Day 29: Sarajevo, the bridge downtown / take me to the river

I think it’s day 29 anyway. Had a 12+ hour train ride yesterday, so kind of lost track of things.

Am in Sarajevo, staying at a small local guesthouse, the sort you get by turning up at the railway station in a daze and being accosted by a couple of locals. 10 euro a night, hot water, and if they keep force feeding me coffee I may never sleep again.

The location is good, too, in the old town, just down from one of the war cemetaries. They were having a big ceremony there today, like a local  Rememberance Day or something. There are a lot of graves, not sure if I’ve ever been to a cemetarry for so many people who died at around the same time.

A couple of random turns and I found the Latin Bridge, the place where Princip plugged Franz Ferdinand and his wife 95 years ago, kick starting a lot of the mess the 20th Century went through, in one way or another. Felt weird standing where something like that happened. Weirder still  seeing a guy there selling tea towels, not souvenir ones, just normal teatowels.

Souvenirs. Next to Mrkva, the cevapi where I’m typing, are a number of stores selling souvenirs, decorated shell casings, bullet keyrings, coffee pots that look like they’re  made from leftover ordnance. I’m both impressed by the ingenuity and improvisation, and saddened.

Welcome to old town, Sarajevo.

the bridge downtown

Spent the day wandering, exploring many of Sarajevo’s little alleys and corners. Spent some time wandering along the Miljacka river, a fairly shallow and clear stream. Not in the same category as the Danube or Wista, but certainly above the ditch that flows through Tirana. I happily watched several schools of small fish, doing whatever fish do on a clear autumn day.

I’ve now taken 2,200 photos. Not all of them good, of course, but still enough for a painful slide night or three when i get back home.

Had a surreal moment at the guest house: half wired on yet more coffee, and watching a Leonard Cohen film clip. That mix of uppers and downers has probably screwed something up in my brain. If not, then catching the last half of “Signs” certainly will, as I ponder the sheer stupidity of the premise, if I got it correctly. You’re an alien, and water kills you, so you try to go wreak havoc on a planet that is comprised of exactly how much water? Did you not do even the smallest bit of research? You’ve mastered interstellar travel but can’t come up with a range weapon? For intelligent beings, you’re pretty dumb.

Tomorrow’s plan is the tunnel museum, and the big museum, and some more good food. Might even try to work out the public transport and spare myself an uphill hike or two (flat is fine, but the hills here would do Edinburgh proud).