Monday, September 27, 2010

First day in Sarajevo

The hotel gave me a simple map, but it wasn't clear where I was on it. On the streets the cars were moving very fast. They seemed to come at me from all directions. There were pavements, but people had parked their cars on the full pavements, so you had to walk on the road to get around it. It didn't take long to find the pedestrian area. I didn't want to lose the route back to my hotel, so I spent a lot of time trying to pin my location on my map. I was at the entrance to the old town, by the Sebilj water fountain. It could not have been simpler.

The old town area was full of bustling shops selling food and trinkets. There looked as though there were a few crazy people on the street, but they didn't bother me. (Note there were the same amount of crazy people as you would see in Glasgow say). If you are interested in this sky religion business, there were many churches and cathedrals close to synagogues.

I was looking forward to seeing the Latin Bridge where archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. This event triggered the start of the first world war, although perhaps it was just an excuse for the great powers to declare war on each other. It didn't take me much time to find the bridge. Given the amount of death caused by in the first world war, I expected to feel some bad vibes, but no. On the other side of the river was a nice little park and a cafe, that I spent much happy time reading in.

In the evening I decided to try some Bosnian food. So I had a kebab, which was very tasty.