El Zorro: Balkans 10: Sarajevo (巴爾幹半島之行10 :沙拉熱窩)

After Belgrade, we had to go to another city, Sarajevo in Bosnia, the following morning

The sky looked promising. But first we had to have dinner

The decorations at our hotel restaurant

First some appetizers: ham and chesse

Some iced orange juice

A pork chop: nothing to rave about

Then into the hotel room for a good rest

View from the hotel room: the weather doesn't look good, storm clouds gathering

Before the long journey, some breakfast

it had been raining the previous night

Water on the leaves everywhere but still some sunlight: a little hope!

Raindrops whilst waiting for the late arrivals

We're on our way soon: a house we saw from the coach window

A small hillside town we passed

A railway bridge

Another village by the river

The water of the river looks calm

Mist rising in the river

We stopped by for some rest before the journey continued: a nice roadside restaurant with a water mill, which helps to turn the chicken/pig roasting machine above the stove in an open charcoal fire

The inside of the restaurant

Nice and comfortable outside

Our first view of Sarajevo, an impressive building with Arabic arches and patterns. It's the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, its political, economic and cultural centre and is home to slightly more than 300,000 of Muslims, Orthodox, Catholic and Jews and including its suburbs 450,000. Situated 1700 feet above sea level, in the greater Sarajevo valley of Bosnia fed by Miljacka River, it's surrounded by the Dinaric Alps. Because of its mix of religion, it's been dubbed the "Jerusalem of the Balkans" and until recently, the only major European city with a mosque, a Catholic Church, an Orthodox church and a synagogue within a short distance of each other. And although the area was settled even in prehistoric times, it only started to really flourish in the 15th century when taken over by the Ottoman Turks in 1429. In 1461, the governor there started to build a mosque, a closed marketplace, a public bath, a hostel, and the governor's castle ("Saray").

Of course, everyone knows now the Latin Bridge there, where the Archduke of Austria Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated, along with his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by a self-declared Yugoslav, Gavrilo Princip, the event which triggered the alliance systems into WWI in 1914.It's also the site which hosted the winter Olypmics of 1984 because it got 4 of the highest mountains in the region: Treskavica at 2,088 meters (6,850 ft), Bjelašnica at 2,067 meters (6,781 ft), Jahorina at 1,913 meters (6,276 ft), Trebević at 1,627 meters (5,338 ft), with 1,502 meters (4,928 ft) Igman being the lowest. The last four are also known as the Olympic Mountains of Sarajevo.

The original settlers were Daesitiates, a branch of the Illyrians, a war-like people who resisted Roman conquest until 9 AD. After the Romans, the place was successively occupied by the Goths and then in the 7th century by the Slavs. it was during the reign of the 2nd Turkish governor Gazi Husrev-beg that the present Old Town took shape and by the 16th century, more than 100 mosques had been built and it became the second most important Turkish town in the Ottoman Empire and in the late 17th century, it already had a population of more than 80,000 (cf. Belgrade 13,000 and Zagreb 14,000).

In 1697, during the Great Turkish War, a raid was led by Prince Eugene of Savoy of the Habsburg Monarchy against the Ottoman Empire, which conquered Sarajevo and left it plague-infected and burned to the ground. After his men had looted thoroughly, they set the city on fire and destroyed nearly all of it in one day. Only a handful of neighborhoods, some mosques, and an Orthodox church, were left standing. The city was later rebuilt, but never fully recovered from the destruction. By 1807, it had only some 60,000 residents. Then as a result of the defeat of Turkey in 1878, it was made part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire under the Treaty of Berlin. Complete annexation followed in 1908.

After World War I and contributions from the Serbian army alongside rebelling Slavic nations in Austria-Hungary, Sarajevo became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. During World War II, Sarajevo was captured on 15 April 1941 by the Germans and the Axis powers created the Independent State of Croatia and included Sarajevo in it. But the city was heavily bombed by the Allies in 1943 and 1944. The Bosnian resistance was led by a NLA Partisan named "Walter" Perić, who died while leading the final liberation of the city on 6 April 1945. Following the liberation, Sarajevo became the capital of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, forming part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which invested heavily in Sarajevo, building many new residential blocks and simultaneously developing the city's industry and transforming Sarajevo from the post-war population of 115 into a modern city.

When Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1992, it had to fight for 4 years! From 1992-1996, it was the site of the fiercest fighting during its war of independence. Although it achieved United Nations recognition, the Serbian leaders and army whose goal was to create a "greater Serbia", declared a new Serbian national state Republika Srpska (RS) which was carved from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so they encircled the Bosnian Sarajevo with 18,000 men in the surrounding hills, from which they shelled the city with artillery, mortars, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, heavy machine-guns, multiple rocket launchers, rocket-launched aircraft bombs, and sniper rifles. From 2 May 1992, the Serbs blockaded the city. Since the Bosnian government defence forces in the besieged city were poorly equipped, they could not break the encirclement. During this war of independence, it lost 11,541 lives, including over 1,500 children with an additional 56,000 wounded, including nearly 15,000 children.The 1991 census indicates that before the siege the city and its surrounding areas had a population of 525,980. But post-war rebuilding is fast and it has been nominated as the European Capital of Culture in 2014 and will host the 2017 European Youth Olympic Festival. it's name is the Slavicized Turkish word "Saray", meaning governor's palace or office and "evo" meaning "plains around the palace" . If a place is fortified, it would be called a "kale" in Turkish, meaning "castle". It's not so here.

From its complicated history, we can expect that city would have a unique blend of the East and the West. It still retains the Ottoman city market of old but also has contemporary western architecture. Sarajevo boasts some examples of Secession- and Pseudo-Moorish styles that date from this period. Many of the WWII shell casings that were used during the attacks have now been carved and polished in Sarajevo tradition and are sold as art to tourists.

Its average yearly temperature is 10 °C (50 °F), with January (−0.5 °C (31.1 °F) avg.) being the coldest month of the year and July (19.7 °C (67.5 °F) avg.) the warmest. As it has

oceanic, humid continental and humid subtropical zones, it has four seasons and rain all year round spread over 75 days and is cloud-covered nearly half of the time every year.

This is where we stopped for lunch. It's a restaurant called Inat Kuca and has an interesting history. Originally, when the Austrian-Hungarian Empire took over the city, it wanted to build a town hall and chose as its site the home of a local who refused to budge unless the government promised to give him sufficient gold to enable him to build another house of his choice at a location across the river from where he originally was. The wrangle lasted years but finally the Government had to give in. This restaurant used to be his "house in exchange"!

This restaurant serves Turkish and Arabian food.

It's filled with artifacts from the East

Old coffee grinder for thick black Turkish coffee

Incense burners

Wine jug and old scale

All kinds of daggers, swords, guns and rifles etc.

All kinds of wine, juices and oils

We had stuffed green pepper risotto with mutton as stuffing : delicious.

and for dessert a kind of pudding with chestnut paste: yummy

Outside the restaurant we can see the Miljacka River which originated from the town of Kale in the east

And behind the restaurant a road which leads uphill

You find mosques everywhere in this city: this one is right behind our restaurant

This is the Latin Bridge, where that fateful assassination took place

This used to be the Governor's Palace

A pavilion in a public park nearby

The entrance to the Arabian quarters

This is the remains of the Taslihan (meaning "inn made of stone) , the original caravansarai or inns built by the first Turkish governors in 1453 by artisans from Dubrovnik, with 2 floors, the ground floor for stores and stables for 70 horses and the upper floors could house 30 to 90 guests, each room with its own chimney. Next to it is the covered market Bezistan (meaning "covered market building") , now turned into a tourist bazaar