Balkan Adventures: Dubrovnik, Croatia

The second leg of my Balkan adventures lead me to Dubrovnik, Croatia, my "beach getaway" part of the trip.  After my more serious and, let's face it, educational time in Sarajevo, Dubrovnik was quite the juxtaposition with its more leisurely, vacation atmosphere and extremely high level of tourism (and loads upon loads and loads of Americans; at certain moments I felt like I was in a very well-constructed Croatian-themed Disneyland).

Early in the morning on Saturday, July 6th I hopped on another long but scenic 6.5 hour bus ride, headed back to Dubrovnik from Sarajevo.  This time I remembered to sit on the right side of the bus that goes closest to the coast and gives all the best views of the lovely scenery of the incredibly blue rivers and seas and tall green mountains.

I was the first to arrive at our quaint little airbnb apartment run by an elderly Croatian cat-loving lady named Olga whose English was definitely more Croatian with hints of English than anything else.  Tired from the long journey and still partially recovering from the 4th of July celebrations, I took a nap once I got inside as I waited for Deanie and Chase to arrive.  A few hours later there was a knock at the door and within moments I was sharing one of my favorite kinds of hugs again, running into each other's arms, using all the energy we'd been saving up from months of separation, the best friend type.  Deanie and I were finally reunited after our last excursion in Iceland and the following meet-up in Cambridge.  Nothing is quite as feel-good and comforting as meeting up in a foreign place with best friends from home who you've known for 10 years after you've been apart more than together in the past 2 years (Team Girl Squad 4 Lyfe).  It was, however, a bit strange and melancholic for us to be traveling without the rest of TGS, Anna and Kat, since we always travel together.  We did still keep up some of the traditions we have while traveling, though, like writing haikus about silly things from the trip or taking pictures with our group's traveling gnome (long story, but there is a facebook page).

Once everyone got settled we headed out on the town for some much-needed dinner and an evening of exploring.  Sunset is the absolute most beautiful time to discover the city.  The sun perfectly brings out the best colors in the buildings, rocks and surrounding Adriatic waters.


Now, as many of you might know (at least I hope many of you do, because you're my friends and my friends are supposed to be cool people), Dubrovnik is the filming site of King's Landing in the show Game of Thrones, as it's one of the world's best-preserved medieval walled cities.  So, of course, when we saw sights like this here fortress and the city walls, we couldn't resist humming the theme song to ourselves.

Chase and Deanie at dinner

Our second day was full of wandering and shenanigans.  Not having any specific itinerary we were on discovery mode.

Small Onofrio Fountain

During our wanderings we ran into this bar that's built off the outer part of the city walls.  You could even climb down to the bottom of the rocks to drop into the sea for a swim.

Big Onofrio Fountain, which was previously damaged from Serb-Montenegrin forces in the Yugoslav Wars

 At this fountain is where our gelato craze started (twice a day sometimes, no shame).

Afterwards we took our first little trip to one of the nearby beaches to cool off a bit.

Shenanigans with the random things found around the apartment

Day three was one of the best days of our short trip to Croatia.  We took a 7 hour boat cruise that went to three nearby islands (The Elaphites), stopping 30 minutes for the first, 45 for the second, and 2 hours for the third, giving us time to swim and relax.

So long Dubrovnik

Koločep, island #1

Between the first and second islands we had lunch which was included in the tour.  We had the option of fish or chicken and I chose the fish, the scraps of which I later fed to the seagulls flying all around our boat, hoping for just that.

Lopud, island #2

Since we had more time on Lopud than the first island, we took the time to relax for a while in the water after a short excursion exploring some of the small town.

We found a place to dip our legs in the water and later I noticed I'd been sitting next to a bunch of cool crabs.

Šipan, island #3

Our next stop was on an island called Šipan where we spent 2 hours swimming, eating gelato, and enjoying some beer along the beach.

When we got back on the boat to go to Dubrovnik we were all rather exhausted from the day, so by the time we arrived back at our apartment we simply got dinner and crashed.


On our 4th day we bought the Dubrovnik 1-Day pass which included entry to the city walls and to loads of museums all over the city.  We spent a good couple of hours walking the 1.2 miles of wall, the blistering sun beating down on us.  Although the heat was miserable at times, nothing could beat the spectacular views we got from those vantage points.

Immediately after getting down from the walls we bought ourselves some refreshing gelato and hit up some more cultural sites.  The first one was the Rector's Palace/Cultural Historical Museum.

Next we stopped at the Natural History Museum which had this massive sea turtle.

Afterwards we hit the beach again to cool off before getting dinner and exploring the Old Town once more as it was my last evening there.

While we were spending some time that evening relaxing around the big Onofrio Fountain something strange happened.  A few really pretty women with outrageously high heels were forming in a cluster just nearby.  A while later two camera men appeared and they subsequently started filming them together and were later joined by an older man.  At first we thought it was perhaps some important fashion people getting together, but then it got stranger.  It became clear they were acting (and poorly at that) when one of the women and the older guy were staged right in front of us and a meeting scene was filmed.  It seemed really unnatural and bizarre, since you could see their mic packs on them in the shot.  Our conclusion: we were either just on a bad Croatian soap opera or part of the opening scenes to a bad porno.  Can't be sure which, and I guess we'll never know.

Not long after, fireworks started going off.  Then further down Stradun, the main street in the Old Town, there was a rehearsal for their Summer Festival with lots of singing, dancing, and cameras.

It was a strange but impressionable last night.

Left: film crew, 3 women in black dresses and old guy; Right: people trying to get pictures of fireworks

Summer Festival rehearsal

 I had a pretty full day my last day, as my bus to the airport wasn't until 6 pm that evening.  We made the most of our Dubrovnik pass which lasted 24 hours by checking out some of the other free entry museums (most of which were so random and mostly in Croatian that I'm still not sure what I saw in them).  After lunch at our apartment we spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach before I packed and headed back to Geneva.


The trip overall was an amazing, fun time in a beautiful place, the only downside being the enormous amount of tourists there.  At times it didn't even feel like I was in Croatia, but rather back somewhere beachy in America.  I never even had any opportunities to use some of the Serbo-Croatian words that I had learned for my trip to Sarajevo because everyone was so conditioned to use English right away.  I did, however, get to use some French, which seemed to surprise some people.  It was generally just a completely different experience from what I'm used to as a traveler, being completely surrounded by other tourists instead of by locals.  Granted, this made it easier to be a foreigner at the time, but a bit less enjoyable, being treated as part of the mass rather than an individual looking to discover a place more independently.  I took it for what it was though and enjoyed the beautiful scenery, beaches, and delicious food with my friends who I won't be seeing for another indefinite amount of time.  Besides, it was of course nice to go to the beach everyday (even though I can't swim).


Ready for the next adventure.



Also, this:

Bonus: Deanie and I actually weren't feeling the haiku vibe so much since Anna wasn't there to motivate and inspire us, so here is the only haiku I wrote and some fun quotes instead (mostly appreciated and granted giggles by those involved, but maybe you'll muster a chuckle too).

Adriatic salt,
Half the sand in Croatia
Are now in our bed.


Angela (swimming): I'm so salty, just put some vinegar on me and call me a crisp.

Chase: This tabasco sauce is cookie-sized. (He didn't know his name is Gucki).

Gucki, a friend, and the tabasco bottle

 Deanie: Is that Gandalf?
A: Dean, that's St. Blaise (patron saint of Dubrovnik).


A: What is that, a fish tank?
C: It's a cartouche.

A: Those two birds are makin' out, and that one's giving one of them oral.
D: They're just play-fighting and that one's cleaning the other one!

D: This music makes me want to be on a beach, and I actually am.

A: My cheeks are too big to smile.

A: Half the salt from the Adriatic, half the sand in Croatia, a lot of chocolate and a bug are in our bed.

D: What are we supposed to tell Anna?  Sorry, Anne, our Croatian housekeeper threw away Gucki's left foot.


A: *in Chase's voice* I'm bringing cookies.

Balkan Adventures: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

About two weeks ago I embarked on a last-minute dream trip to Bosnia and Croatia to meet up with two of my best friends.  These are two countries that were never really on my radar to visit until I found out my friend Sadie would be in Sarajevo for a couple months this summer working with an NGO as fieldwork for her master's by researching and helping women who survived the Bosnian War.  Sadie's one of those characters who's been weaving in and out of various adventures in the book of my life.  I've mentioned her a few times here before; she's an American I met in Lille and have only seen outside of the US (London, Lyon, Sarajevo and soon Lyon again).  Since we don't have the opportunity to see each other that often, we always have the greatest times together when we actually do, so the prospect of being able to visit her in Bosnia was really appealing; I'd get to explore a place I'm completely unfamiliar with while enjoying the company of a good friend I haven't seen in ages who could give me more of an insider's view of life there.  However, because of finances and other issues I didn't think this would be a trip to actually come to fruition until I started talking about it with my friend Deanie who was just finishing her master's at Cambridge.  She told me about how much she's always wanted to go to Bosnia and Croatia and so we decided to make some more concrete plans.  I searched and searched for buses, trains, planes or any combination of the three to cheaply get me to Sarajevo and Dubrovnik and finally found an economical option in flying from Geneva, Switzerland to Dubrovnik, Croatia.  Whew.  So the final plan was to fly to Dubrovnik on July 1st and go directly to Sarajevo, coming back to Dubrovnik on the 6th to meet up with Deanie and her friend Chase, another American studying at Cambridge who I had previously met on my trip there in March.

So the plans were set but I didn't really feel ready to leave yet.  Before heading over to the Balkans I admittedly didn't know much about the culture or history including details of the Yugoslav Wars which have made such a significant impact on the people and history in Dubrovnik and especially Sarajevo.  Since I was still pretty young in the early 90's when Yugoslavia was falling apart, I didn't retain any of what happened so I decided to make efforts to learn before I left.  Sadie kindly provided me with loads of resources online which covered the war and more heartbreaking details on the genocide in Bosnia.  I'm really glad I took the time to read up a bit because it gave me a basis on which I could absorb more information when I was finally out and about in Sarajevo.  I honestly don't think I would've gotten nearly as much out of the trip if I hadn't.


I left Lyon the night of June 30th on a train heading for Geneva because my flight was at 6 am the next morning.  Once I arrived I took a quick 4 minute connecting train to the airport where I spent the night, only getting as close to sleeping as resting my eyes for an hour until 4 am came and I lined up for security.  I got to Dubrovnik around 8 and went directly to the main bus station where I waited 4 hours until my 6.5 hour bus ride to Sarajevo.  Unfortunately I didn't get much sleep on the bus either, being distracted by the beautiful views of the Croatian Adriatic coast and the Bosnian countryside but also from having to stop at three different border patrols because there's a bit of Bosnia that stretches to the sea that we had to drive through before going back into Croatia and then finally Bosnia.  I got 5 passport stamps alone in that one day because Croatia had just joined the European Union the exact day I arrived and still hadn't figured out their border patrol policies with Bosnia (I didn't get any stamps on the way back).  Needless to say I was completely exhausted by the time I got a cab to Sadie's apartment, but I still had to wait another hour or so before she came home from yoga and we were finally able to share an emotion-filled hug after a year and a half of separation.  These are the moments in life that make the distance, waiting and sleep deprivation worth it.


I like to consider the next day as my real first day, as I was more conscious of what was going on around me.  I left the apartment in the early afternoon and headed to the Eternal Flame, a WWII memorial, to meet Sadie for some lunch and a stroll through the outdoor fruit and vegetable market.

The Eternal Flame

Compared to the States and much of Western Europe, Bosnia is quite cheap for foreigners due to its still rough post-war economy and high national unemployment rate which lies at around 45% (unofficial statistics, because there hasn't been an official census in the country since before the war).  The general lack of money became evident in the amount of people who would stop at our table outside while we were enjoying a meal or a drink, asking us to buy some food or knickknacks from them so they could make some profit, even though it was still very cheap.  Most were young Roma children, sent by their mothers in hopes of getting sympathetic donations.  One of them came around a few times, the last time slamming a fruit and yogurt bar on our table, demanding "marka."  Others included an old man with a cane who seemed so defeated he didn't even use words to explain what he was selling.

 At the market my first day we picked up a lot of delicious fruit on the cheap for our meals throughout the week.  I bought half a kilo of cherries (which unfortunately I discovered later to be larva-filled) for only 1 KM (0.50€, $0.67).

The outdoor fruit and vegetable market

The indoor meat and cheese market

Then we walked around for a little while on our way to pick up some late lunch in the form of delicious sirnica (cheese burek) from the Old Town.  Nestled in the center of the Old Town is an area called Baščaršija, the old marketplace where the Ottomans founded the modern city.  Strolling down Sarajevo's main pedestrian street, Ferhadija, one can see the impact from the plethora of cultures that have come through and inhabited the city over the centuries, notably the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman influences.
 

 

Approaching the old market sector it becomes strikingly obvious why Sarajevo is considered the "Jerusalem of Europe" with its famous Serb Orthodox Cathedral, its Catholic Sacred Heart Cathedral as well as the dozens of mosque minarets that jet into the skyline from all around.

Serb Orthodox Cathedral, The Cathedral Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos

Sacred Heart Cathedral

The oldest mosque in Sarajevo, the Emperor's Mosque on the Miljacka River

Just around the corner from Ferhadija is the Jewish Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina which is housed in Bosnia's oldest synagogue dating from 1581.  Inside it dedicates its space to the Jewish history of Bosnia and many of the scholars and notable people who were victims of the Holocaust. 

Inside the old synagogue, a book with the names of the 12,000 Jewish Bosnian victims of WWII.

The Ottoman Baščaršija, my favorite part of Sarajevo, is full of quaint cafes, bars, restaurants, craft work and various other shops that give a feeling of being back in the 15th century when the area was established as the city's cultural center.
 

 

Copper alley

Selling remnants from the war

Bullet keychain anyone?

Pigeon Square and the Sebilj

Sarajevo's old bazaar

On one of our walks through the Old Town we came across Ghazi Husrev-bey’s Madrasa, an advanced school from 1537, which was seemingly rarely open to the public.

Although, luckily, much of the Old Town has been refurbished and looks close to what it looked like before the war, there is still a great deal of evidence that there was unrest not that long ago.  Street graffiti, mortar divets, shrapnel scars, fields of white gravestones, war photo galleries and many memorials serve as constant reminders of the hardship the people of Bosnia suffered 20 years ago.

The damage from the war itself and its aftermath are visible everywhere, from the shrapnel marks cut into the majority of buildings and pavement in the city center of Sarajevo to the existent political division and the resulting legal inconsistencies between the two "entities" in the country (Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina).  These two entities were the result of peace negotiations made in Dayton, Ohio created based on the Republika Srpska's territorial gains during the ethnically-motivated war, written in English and signed by Slobodan Milošević, ethnically Serb and president of Serbia and Yugoslavia, Alija Izetbegović, ethnically Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) and first president of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Franjo Tuđman, ethnically Croatian and the president of Croatia, and other world leaders like Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac.  Nowadays the country has three rotating presidents representing the Bosnian Croats, Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks, disregarding the minority ethnic groups within the country.  Before the war all three ethnic groups were intermarried and neighbors in relative harmony.  Izetbegović himself once said efforts to split up the groups would be "like trying to separate cornmeal and flour after they were stirred in the same bowl." 

The Sarajevo National Theater

An example of the pavement around the Sarajevo National Theater

Other marks that can be seen in the ground include the famous Sarajevo Roses.  The patterns from the cut marks of a mortar shell explosion are said to form a sort of floral pattern.  Those explosions which resulted in the death of one or more people were filled in with red resin, appearing like red roses on the pavement.  This particular Rose sits just in front of the Catholic Cathedral in the city center.  Many of the Sarajevo Roses have disappeared due to the wear of time and new asphalt being poured.

A Sarajevo Rose

The most obvious destruction appears on the buildings themselves.  Since Sarajevo is situated in a valley, the Serb aggressors took a vantage point in the surrounding mountains during their siege of the city, making it very easy to target virtually any part of it.

A building near the National Library

The National Library was one of the biggest losses for Sarajevo and Bosnia during the war.  The building was completely demolished, taking with it thousands of historical and cultural artifacts including many rare, invaluable books and manuscripts.  Today the National Library stands in the same spot, a beautiful recreation of its old Austro-Hungarian glory, built with the help of kind donations from other European countries and the European Commission.

The National Library

An exposed facade on the Miljacka River

An abandoned house from the war with a "Danger" sign posted on it

Old meets New

White gravestones of those who died in the war

One of the exhibits Sadie and I visited while I was in town was a war photography gallery on Srebrenica.  Srebrenica is a small town in Eastern Bosnia that was hit the worst by the incoming Republika Srpska and Serbian forces and was the site of the largest mass genocide during the war.  Srebrenica, with a very high Bosniak population at the time, stood in the way of Serbia and the Republika Srpska's military and political agenda to unite the ethnic Serbs.  After Bosnia declared its independence from Yugoslavia, the Republika Srpska Serbs did not want to break away and thus ended up siding with Serbia and what was left of Yugoslavia, trying to detach themselves from Bosnia and rejoin Yugoslavia.  Just before the war in 1991 Srebrenica had almost 3x as many Muslims as Serbs, and, like many other Bosniak towns and villages, the area fell victim to a Serb siege.  Midway through the war the UN came in and declared it a "safe area," although such efforts to help the situation did little good, as UN forces were also subsequently trapped in the city with no access to resources because of the siege.  As they did in other towns with Bosniaks, the Serb army would come in, burn down Bosniak houses, round up the Muslims, separate the women and children from the men and send the men to camps/"prisons" where they would eventually be starved, beaten or shot to death.  When the situation became dire in Srebrenica, the UN sent people to negotiate with the Serbs, eventually convincing them to bus the Bosniak population out of the city and its surroundings and into safe havens.  The men and young boys were separated from the women and taken on different buses.  However, thousands of men and boys never reached their destination in Bosniak-held territory where the women were sent.  Instead, they were taken to remote places, massacred and buried in mass graves.  This genocide occurred between the 11th and 15th of July, 1995, killing over 8,000 mostly male Bosniaks.  To this day many families do not know what happened exactly to their fathers or sons because the Serbs, in attempts to cover up their crimes, would unearth bodies from the mass graves and move them to secondary graves.  Every year more graves are being discovered and hundreds of more bodies are identified and given a proper burial which occurs on the 11th of July as a part of a memorial ceremony.

As in many other towns under siege, another unfortunate result of the siege of Sarajevo, and personal heartstring puller, is the amount of stray dogs and cats that run wild throughout the city and its surroundings.  During the war the people of Sarajevo were cut off from outside resources which left them without electricity, water, and food, giving many of them no other choice but to let their pets go because they couldn't feed them, much less take care of their own families.  Now the stray dog population has grown so much that a British organization has come in and started neutering and spaying the dogs, tagging their ears to keep track of them.  None of the ones I encountered ever showed aggression towards me, in fact many of them in the city center are rather people-friendly and can be pet without fear of being bitten.  On more than one occasion my overly-loving gazes caused a dog to end up following me.. like this female (behind Sadie) whose puppies we saw frolicking around in a nearby garbage heap.

This picture was taken on our way back from one of my favorite parts of the trip.  Sadie and I made the gigantic climb (many people passed us taking cabs) up to an ancient fortress overlooking the entire city, giving us a beautiful view and place to relax.
 

One thing we discovered on our walks wandering around: if you come across some old-ass stairs, go up them, because they lead to some of the best views in the city.
  

Outside our museum and gallery visits we spent our time catching up over drinks (too much rakija for our own good) or over some incredibly delicious Bosnian food (ćevapi, burek, sir salads, etc. etc. etc.).  We even celebrated the 4th of July with some mac 'n' cheese, pizza, and some good ol' American baseball (and the Brewers were playing!).

Overall my time in Sarajevo was one of my most treasured trips to date.  Every minute was like walking through a history book, and the tourism industry hasn't hit it hard enough to make that experience any less authentic.  When I go to new places I don't want to be sold a culture, I want to experience it.  What I appreciated most about Sarajevo and Bosnia was the kindness and openness of its people to share and talk about their experiences and their lives as Bosnians.  Although the war has had a big impact on how they live even today, they remain hopeful about their own future and the future of the country.  I met some really lovely new people, ate some amazing food, drank at trendy and cozy bars, and got to share it all with one of my great friends.  I couldn't have asked for more, and I'd go back in a heartbeat.