Belgrade to Sarajevo

So I arrived in Belgrade and was taken to the hotel. It was a rainy, cold day, so I slept most of the afternoon and got up in time for our welcome dinner. I am the youngest in the group.

The following morning we are up and out for a bus tour of Belgrade, which has a history going back to at least the 3rd century BCE. It has been called Belgrade, which means "white fortress" for a little over a thousand years now. It is found at the confluence of two rivers, the Sava and the Danube.

Belgrade has been bombed 47 times in recent history. It is a strategic location between Europe and Turkey/the Middle East, so has usually been a hot spot whenever there was any kind of war... Most recently it was bombed in the 90s by NATO to end the Yugoslavia conflict.

We drove all around, had a nice lunch, then had a walking tour of Belgrade which included the largest Orthodox Church in the Balkans (and maybe the world?). It was still under construction on the inside. Our next stop was the Fortress. We walked all around the large complex, which also housed a museum of large artillery weapons and tanks. Then we walked around town, and then had a dinner on a small boat restaurant on the Danube.

The next morning we were up and had a very long drive to Sarajevo. We only had one sightseeing stop along the way at a bridge that dated back to the days of Turkish caravans when this part of the world was under the influence of the Ottoman Empire. The scenery was nice, but it was an all-day drive. We were all glad when we finally arrived in Sarajevo in the evening.