Sarajevo to Dubrovnik

Sarajevo is a gorgeous town nestled between several hills. In fact, in stark contrast to the flat terrain of Serbia, all of Bosnia and Herzegovina is fairly mountainous. The towns are found in valleys and it really is quite picturesque... We started our day by driving out to the tunnel museum, which was the lifeline for the city during the three+ years it was under siege by the Serbs in the 90s. The tunnel is almost a kilometer long, a meter wide and 1.6 meters tall. It was truly a harsh time in modern history. We got to talk to a fireman during the siege and another guy and we heard about starvation, what people were doing for food, etc. Over 11,000 people died during the three year siege, but many more would have had it not been for that tunnel. They smuggled supplies, food, guns, ammunition, etc through the tunnel and it really did become the lifeline of the city during the war.

After the tunnel museum, we walked through town, stopping at the highlights of the city, including the spot where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, starting WWI.

After the walking tour and lunch, we had some free time, which I used to explore more of the city. Our day ended with a lovely dinner, and the. We were off to bed because we had an early morning trip to Dubrovnik the following day.

On the way to Dubrovnik, we drove through some gorgeous terrain, spending a lot of the trip following a river nestled between two mountains. The scenery was very gorgeous. We passed through the town of Celebići which was an important case from the Yugoslavia Tribunal, where there was a POW camp. We didn't stop, but I found it interesting just knowing what happened here and knowing the rule of law that came from the case. It was nice to finally put a location to the name.

We continued on to the town of Mostar, which was heavily bombed during the war. We were told they currently have an unemployment rate of 44%. There was a famous bridge from the 1500s that was bombed during the war and then rebuilt that we visited. We had lunch here, and then stopped at another town where Mary supposedly appeared and is a big pilgrimage site for Catholics. We visited a church and a statue there that was supposed to weep tears from his knee, but I guess he wasn't sad while we were there because nothing was weeping while we were there other than the crazy old women who were rubbing pieces of cloth all over the statue...

We then continued to Dubrovnik and made it there just as it was getting dark. We had dinner and then I called it a night because I was tired and knew we would be touring the town tomorrow!