Sarajevo was not part of the original plan in 2020, but I saw an opportunity when reworking the itinerary and thought: if not now, when?
I was in junior high when the breakup of Yugoslavia began. We didn't learn a thing about it. Anything I did pick up was purely accidental. Like, I knew something bad was happening in Sarajevo, but I didn't know what. It was just used as an example of the worst or most dangerous place you could go. I didn't actually know anything. Fast forward 30 years, and I still knew embarrassingly little. And that's true for almost all of us. When I mentioned to a couple history teachers that we went to Sarajevo, their response was, "Ah, Franz Ferdinand! World War I." Yes...but the SIEGE!! The siege, the nearly four-year-long siege--the siege that saw an average of over 300 shells hit the city each day, that left people without gas, electricity, or running water for months, the siege that indiscriminately killed civilians and left over 10,000 dead (and that's just in Sarajevo)--the longest siege in the history of modern warfare--that siege. That's the first thing that should come to people's minds. Maybe that's why I can't stop talking about it.
I can't stop thinking about it either. This trip did something to me, and it wasn't just being pushed out of my comfort zone: it was seeing that the scars of war are in fact scars--they fade but never completely go away. They are reminders that the past is real. Thirty years later, you can't go anywhere in the city without seeing a cemetery somewhere in the surrounding hills. Sarajevo "roses" decorate the pavement, memorializing fatalities caused by shelling. Thirty years later, the beautiful city of Mostar still has abandoned, bombed-out buildings, some whose facades are pockmarked from sniper fire and shell fragments. Thirty years later, Bosnia still has the biggest land mine problem in the world. A few years of war equates to decades of rebuilding--not just physical rebuilding; generations will be impacted by the emotional trauma. War is hell. We know that, right? But seeing the damage, 30 years later, in a beautiful country with nice, friendly people, just amplifies how horrific war really is.
So, would I recommend it? Yes. It's an education that everyone needs. In addition, though, the Balkans are beautiful! Bosnia is a gorgeous, mountainous country with rivers, lakes, caves, and waterfalls. Each place we visited had interesting architecture and charming city centers. Croatia, too, has its own stunning landscapes that we got to see as we rode along the Adriatic coast. And Old Town Dubrovnik is simply palatial! There's so much more to see in the Balkans than we were able to do in a week. Perhaps one day we'll return.
Our itinerary was pretty seamless. We flew on Austrian Airlines, doing bookends in Vienna. From Vienna it was a 45-minute flight to Sarajevo. To get from there to Mostar, took a train. It was two hours long, with beautiful mountain scenery, for only $7 per person. To get from Mostar to Dubrovnik, we used a service called My Day Trip. It worked out perfectly. Arranged and paid for online in advance, the driver provided doorstep-to-doorstep service. He was more like a tour guide than just a driver--but not the annoying kind. He provided just the right amount of interesting information balanced with silence. At the end, we flew from Dubrovnik back to Vienna.
Nicosia is the only divided capital city in the world. Greek and Turkish cultures appeal to me. We hadn't been there yet. These are the three primary reasons we went to Cyprus. We went a couple weeks after moving, which wasn't ideal timing. That said, Cyprus turned out to be a pretty easy and relaxing destination, so the fact that we didn't do our usual amount of research and planning ended up not mattering so much. We started in Larnaca, which is a sleepy beach town, then moved on to Nicosia, which was the favorite for both of us, and ended the trip at a resort in Limassol.
It's a 4.5-hour flight from London, which is rough. It's especially rough when you remember that British Airways treats this as a short-haul flight, meaning you get nothing--literally nothing--for free. There isn't even entertainment available. Once you get to Cyprus, it's easy to get around. We took taxis between the three cities we visited (Larnaca, Nicosia, and Limassol), and it wasn't even that expensive.
We walked by this place after dinner and decided to stop for a while. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip--being surrounded by people who knew all the words to these songs, with no tourists in sight.
My first trip to Athens, Greece was just after I graduated college. Remind me, and I'll tell you about it sometime. This second go of it was much better. Everyone was surprised that we stayed in Athens the whole time (next time we'll visit the islands), but we combined this trip with the Netherlands and Georgia which left us little time. Besides, there was plenty to do in Athens. I recommend the combination ticket for the Acropolis. It got us into every single attraction we wanted to see, except for the Acropolis Museum. The Acropolis Museum, by the way, was so good that we went twice. It was the first thing we did when we arrived in town, and after having seeing all of the ancient sites a few days later, we wanted to look through the museum once more.
Flying on Aegean Airlines from Tbilisi, Georgia, we had a ride arranged with the hotel. It was a solid half hour to the city center. They have a metro system, but we never ended up using it. We were able to walk to everything we wanted to see in the city, even in the extreme heat.