Enjoy!
A peaceful break in Bosnia
Celebrating the pleasures of postwar Sarajevo
by Martin Symington
Franz Ferdinand lives on in Sarajevo. The Dark of the Matinée, a hit single by the Glaswegian indie band, is playing on the jukebox at Caffé Miris, while I tuck into tufahija walnut pastries and Turkish-style coffee so strong it makes my head buzz. OK, I chose the song; how could I resist when I am two blocks from the spot where the eponymous Austro-Hungarian Archduke stopped a bullet in 1914?
The assassination that sparked the First World War happened on a corner next to the rattling River Miljacka where I chance upon Martin Bell — the former BBC war correspondent whose latest mission is to help entice tourists back to the city that he once left with his leg full of shrapnel. We were both on the inaugural British Airways flight at the end of last month — the first direct service between the UK and the Bosnian capital since the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo.
So, Sarajevo is now safe and simple to reach, but does it stand up as a weekend destination? First impressions are of a compact city in a soul-stirringly beautiful setting. All around are the snow-covered mountains where alpine skiing events were held during the 1984 Winter Olympics. From pigeon-fluttered Sebilj Square in the Bascarsija old Turkish quarter, the views between minarets built by the Ottomans who founded Sarajevo in the 15th century remind me of Switzerland. Building façades are still pocked with bullet holes.
“Believe me, the pain of war is still very close to the surface,” says Samira Dzanko, a tour guide who, like most residents, lost friends and family in the siege. As we weave through the pink-tinged stone alleys I am transported to Is-tanbul’s Grand Bazaar by the tink of chisels on brass from behind wooden-fronted shops. Except that here the artisans are fashioning vases and coffee grinders out of spent mortar shells, and turning snipers’ AK47 cartridges into ball-point pens to sell as souvenirs.
During a morning’s city centre saunter, I spill out of the Turkish quarter into the imperious squares, elegant mansions, gardens and churches built by the Austro-Hungarians who ruled from 1887. As Sarajevans proudly repeat, nowhere else is there a mosque, an Orthodox church, a synagogue and a Catholic cathedral all cheek by jowl.
This history lesson is on the doorstep for anybody staying in the smattering of new little hotels in the Bascarsija kernel. There is no top-end accommodation yet — just simple, perfectly adequate places to stay, plus cafés, bars and restaurants where the flavours are decidedly oriental. However, in the evenings a more European mien unfolds in bars and nightclubs serving locally brewed Sara-jevsko beer. Everything is absurdly cheap; it is hard to spend more than £7-£8 on a meal.
On my final evening I twist up through the pine woods to Park Princeva restaurant just above the snow line on precipitous Mount Trebevic. It was from all around here that Serb forces pounded the city for nearly three years. I am just close enough to make out klix figures on the evening stroll through Bascarsija. The spirit of Sarajevo — Europe with a twist of oriental — lives on.
