Spring break is approaching, and so I have decided to make a trip to everyone’s favorite holiday spot, Bosnia and Herzogovina. Strangely, there isn’t a hell of a lot of information out there to help me plan my trip. And so, knowing what a lot of adventurous people you are (right?), I turn to the Dope. I’ve acquired what is apparently the only guide to BiH in English, and after flipping through it, I’m thinking three days in Sarajevo and two in Mostar.
Anyone have any advice for me?
I visited Sarajevo and Mostar in the summer of 2004, and I expect my advice, such as it is, may already be out of date, because my Eastern Europe guidebook, published the year before, definitely got a few things wrong, but here goes.
– ATMs are available in both cities (this was one of the things the guidebook got wrong). If you’re staying in private rooms and eating cheaply, as I was, you can figure on spending around 25 Euros (50 convertable marks) a day. “Convertable marks”, by the way, is something of a misnomer; don’t plan on being able to change them back after you leave the country.
– The only options for accomodation in Mostar are hotels (expensive) and rooms in private homes (cheap, I’m not sure the tourist office has set up an official service yet, but there are people at the bus station offering them). In Sarajevo, you can go to an accommodation agency to reserve a private room, and there’s also a hostel in the Turkish quarter, which is a fairly grotty but friendly place. (It claims to offer laundry, but the washing machine was broken while I was there. They do offer a tour of the city in English, which I didn’t take, but which other guests highly recommended.)
– The tap water is fine to drink, as is the water from the public fountain in the Turkish quarter in Sarajevo – where, by the way, you can get the best doner kebabs in Europe, and some really fantastic cakes and pastries.
– The National History Museum in Sarajevo is definitely worth it, at least if they still have the exhibit about the siege. The Gazi Husref-Bey mosque is absolutely gorgeous, at least from the outside (dress code for women is a long skirt and a headscarf, which I didn’t have, so I haven’t seen the inside). If you have any interest in seeing the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination site, take a good map; it’s unmarked and really hard to spot. In Mostar, there’s a museum called the Turkish House, which is pretty interesting – it’s a restored house from the sixteenth century or thereabouts, and the guide is terrifically knowlegeable and fluent in English. The bridge was still being restored when I was there, but I understand it’s re-opened now, and the city is probably less of a giant construction area than it was – although they still had a great deal of rebuilding to do, so I make no promises on this point.
– The bus service between Mostar and Sarajevo is frequent, and pretty good (it’s a beautiful journey), but schedules change frequently, so double-check when the bus leaves when you buy your ticket. You’ll probably have to dodge a few touts at the bus station in Sarajevo (“Miss, where you going, miss, you want taxi?”) but they’re only a minor annoyance. The city bus schedules are a bit difficult to figure out, unless you’re lucky enough to run into somebody who speaks English, and services such as the left luggage office at the station are understaffed and rather frustrating to use, so leave plenty of time for dealing with this sort of thing.
Anyway, I strongly encourage you to make the trip – it’s a beautiful and fascinating country, although a tremendously sobering place for obvious reasons. (I’m also really glad I had the chance to return the favor after you gave me such great advice on Bulgaria, by the way – I flew out for an interview a couple of weeks ago and had a great time, although I’m still waiting to find out whether I’ve got the job.)
I’m pretty fuzzy on this, but I think that Sarajevo is where the large library used to be, with lots of priceless manuscripts and such. It was purposely bombed, and people tried to save as much as they could. You might like to see what there is now and what they have done with what’s left?
I haven’t been to Sarajevo and Mostar since the war, so undoubtedly everything will have changed. Mostar I might skip – it was mostly famous for the bridge, which the Serbs obligingly shelled into oblivion. I think they have a replacement bridge now, but it’s just not the same. Sarajevo was a fascinating place, and I’m sure still is, though many of things I saw 15 years ago probably don’t exist anymore.
I’m not sure what else there is to see in Bosnia, except for Medjugorje, if you have any inclination in that direction. I wouldn’t say there’s much to see there, and I didn’t find it very inspirational, but since I’m going to hell anyway, you may take that for what it’s worth.
You might consider going to Dubrovnik, since you’ll be in the neighborhood. It’s somewhat touristy, and again was damaged in the war (though not as badly as Sarajevo), but it’s still one of those places to see before you die.
I should be able to give you some secondhand advice when my peripatetic friend Hrvatski Boy gets home - at the moment, he is in Albania serving as an election monitor for the OSCE. He should be home this weekend - I believe he decided to extend his trip through the weekend to take a side trip to Montenegro or something after the vote count is completed.
I think you’re right - one of the saddest posts I ever saw on the E. Europe listserv I was on in grad school was a plea from the head librarian there, after the war had ended. He was begging scholars worldwide, if they had made photocopies of texts while doing research there in previous years, to send photocopies back to him so they could try to reconstruct some of the pirceless destroyed manuscripts.
The library was still boarded up and utterly destroyed-looking when I was there, but that was two and a half years ago, so they may have restored it by now.
There’s a girl in one of my classes that spent some time there fairly recently, and is Bosnia obsessed. She’s probably a good source.
Email me at genkitty at zipcon dot net and I’ll try to hook the two of you up.
Thanks, all! I am really looking forward to going. MerryMagdalen, I will drop you an email. Fretful Porpentine, you were here in the BG and didn’t let me know?! My host family lives in a village about half an hour from Blagoevgrad, so I can always find a reason to head over there to visit.
I’ll try to remember to ask my boyfriend sometime when he’s awake - he’s from Sarajevo.
(Every time I see anything relating to Bosnia, I have to click it… hehe.)
For three days, on an academic job-interview schedule, which means I had pretty close to zero down time. I’d love to meet up if I actually get the job, though!
Be very sure about this before you go, and plan accordingly!! I was in Sarajevo for a day to switch trains in 2003, and there were NO ATMs in the city. Yeah, it was four years ago, but just be sure – it was kind of scary to be in a city that still showed signs of war with no money and no way to buy a ticket out…
Yes, exactly: as I said, the guidebook was researched in 2003, when there weren’t any, and I was there in 2004, when there were.
Spoke to my friend last night - he can give you lots more info on Dubrovnik if you end up going, but he says to keep in mind that train connections, and trains in general, suck in the former Yugoslavia; intercity buses are generally much faster and more comfortable. He thought a bus from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik would take 7 hours or so.
I was going to mention Dubrovnik, but I checked to see that it’s in Croatia. It is one of the most beautiful cities on the planet. The whole town is built out of a white marble-like rock. For me, was the most memorable place in all of Yugoslavia (Yup, that’s what it was called when I was there).
I shed a tear when I heard that Dubrovnik and Suleiman’s bridge were bombed. These tragedies were true crimes against humanity.
From Dubrovnik, it is fairly easy to get to Mostar or Sarajevo. (We never went, just looked into it.) There are buses as well as touristic day trips, though day trips are obviously kinda pushing it. This is why we decided not to go, we simply did not have the time.
You can also rent a car in Dubrovnik, which is what we did.
We did take a trip to Montenegro from Dubrovnik, and that I can wholeheartedly recommend. Beautiful area.
Edited to add: our trip was last summer
You have been forgiven. 
I wasn’t planning on taking the train, given that trains in the Balkans tend to suck anyway. I’m planning on taking the bus, either through Belgrade or through Skopje. I can’t tell which way is faster, and since I don’t know how the road goes from Skopje to Sarajevo, I can’t tell how many countries it goies through, which could foul things up. (Especially if Kosovo declares independence…)
Actually, I don’t think I can rent a car. Peace Corps Volunteers are generally not allowed to drive, anywhere. It’s a liability issue.
It sounds like ATMs are accessible…I am a little afraid that my bank won’t accept my request, though, since there’s so much ATM fraud in the Balkans.