When I announced my intention of going to Bosnia and Herzegovina, located on the northwest Balkan Peninsula, I received a lot of advice from my friends, most of it cautioning me against standing on any landmines.

Nobody warned me about the taxis.

When the train pulled into the station at Sarajevo ― since 1992 the capital of independent Bosnia-Herzegovina ― the tattered ruins did little to calm my nerves. On the way to the taxi rank, I avoided every suspicious lump in the tarmac that might denote a mine. Safely inside a beat-up Mercedes, I relaxed a little and groped around for a non-existent seatbelt.

“You don’t need a seatbelt,” said the driver, and screeched into traffic. I clung to the door handle as he drove along tramlines, ran red lights and posed a menace to pedestrians.

Even though the buildings of Zmaja od Bosne street ― known as “Snipers’ Alley” during the siege ― passed in a blur, the remnants of the war were obvious. Bullet holes pockmarked the walls of flats, scorched buildings lurked amidst the cityscape and sunlight glinted on the headstones of overflowing cemeteries.

We stopped at a crossroads, and the driver pointed with his second cigarette of the short journey.

“I was with my cousin at that corner when a sniper shot him,” he stated matter-of-factly.

The fountain in the main square of Bascarsija, Sarajevo’s old town

I now understood his erratic driving a little better: He had narrowly escaped death, and was now blasé about his own mortality. When I exited the cab on shaky legs, I had my own near-death experience to draw on. Already, I felt a little more Bosnian.

After a sedate tram ride to the town center, I followed the flow of pedestrians along the Ferhadija precinct. Turbo-folk, a frenetic meld of traditional folk and electronic music, blasted out from the pavement cafés, where locals passed the evening sipping fruit tea and chain-smoking.

From 1946 to 1991, Bosnia-Herzegovina was a republic of Yugoslavia. Following the secession of other former Yugoslav republics (Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia) Bosnia-Herzegovina, too, declared independence. The country’s ethnic diversity — Serbs, Bosnian Muslims and Croats — triggered a bloody civil war in 1992. Each group feared domination by the other. A peace agreement was finally reached in November 1995.

Today, Sarajevo is not only the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, this city of about 300,000 people is also the most important metropolitan area of the Bosnia region. Sarajevo has a beautiful oriental-influenced old downtown area with several mosques, restored after the war. The city has a long and rich history. Founded by the Ottomans in 1461, Habsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was murdered here in Austrian-annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina on June 28, 1914, which led to the outbreak of World War I. Surrounded by five major mountains Sarajevo was the site of the Olympic Winter Games in 1984. During the Yugoslav wars, the city on the Miljacka River was besieged from April 1992 until February 1996, believed to be the longest siege in modern warfare.

Strolling past the imposing Austrian-Hungarian buildings and up market shops, I could have forgotten this was a city recovering from conflict, were it not for the “Sarajevo Roses.” Random shellfire gouged these holes into the Sarajevo pavements. The authorities filled the wounds with red rubber to create the Roses, both a tourist attraction and a monument to the dead.

Before long, the pavement gave way to the cobbled lanes of Bascarsija, where minarets spiked the sky above rickety one-story buildings. Here, the shops were awash with engraved cartridges, ranging from rifle bullets to heavy-artillery shells, and bus companies advertised tours around massacre sites.

Although a touch ghoulish, the war has added an extra dimension to this fascinating city. Graceful architecture and natural beauty sit alongside stark reminders of mankind’s brutality, creating striking vistas.

I ordered a meal in the Bosanski Kuce restaurant and waited 45 minutes before the waiter informed me they had no chicken. Just as I had decided on an alternative, he rushed back to tell me the chicken had arrived. Squawking came through the half-open kitchen door as the chicken tried to leave again, and then an ominous silence descended. Another 45 minutes later, my dinner arrived.

The Sarajevo pavements are marked with Sarajevo Roses, poignant reminders of the tragedies of war.

Halfway through the meal, the power cut out, and I began to feel an outrage at such poor service. Nobody else seemed concerned. In the darkness, diners held up lighters while the waiter passed out candles.

My quiet spluttering attracted the attention of a man in his mid-30s, who introduced himself to me as Dino.

“This is nothing,” he said. “During the siege, we were lucky if we had any food, electricity or even water. We had to stand in queues for hours to buy bread, knowing that any minute a shell could land among us.”

I repaid Dino for this lesson in humility by not storming out in a huff and refusing to pay for my dinner.

The next day, I traveled south to Mostar (population 105,000), the chief city in the region of Herzegovina. The train ambled through undulating hills, on which tiny farms contentedly puffed smoke into the blue skies; it squeezed through a vertiginous canyon; it trundled past a mountain range which would have disappeared into the distant haze were it not for the sunlight reflecting from its snowy peaks. All of this scenery was perfectly cloned in the turquoise waters of the Neretva River. The train driver provided plenty of time to take in these sig

These peaceful scenes were far from the TV pictures of refugee columns trudging alongside rumbling tanks that made up my enduring image of Bosnia-Herzegovina. My perception of the country as a ruined land faded with each passing mile.

Outside Mostar station, the sun shone through the fronds of palm trees and I wandered around in shirtsleeves, drawing glances from locals still clad in winter clothing. I sat on the terrace of one of the cafés that stack the steep riverbank in the Old Town, watching workmen scuttle over scaffolding as they restored the 16th-century Old Bridge Stari Most, which Croat forces destroyed during the war.

The bridge, reopened on July 23, 2004, is supposed to be a symbol of unity in the divided town, so I asked my Muslim waitress if she thought it would help bring people together. She pointed to the massive crucifix on one of the cliffs encircling Mostar.

“The Croats built that out of spite. They used to shoot at us from up there,” she said. She shook her head and walked away.

The Catholic Croats have also built a ridiculously large church spire, which stands bolt upright like an extended middle finger, dwarfing the minarets on the Muslim side of town. The spire is so tall it’s now beginning to list. As the call to prayer warbled across the rooftops, bells thundered from this spire, creating an astonishing cacophony as the two cultures wrestled for supremacy.

Cafés fight for space along the Neretva River in Mostar.

After lunch, I wandered through narrow alleyways, past an ancient mill and over a miniature replica of the Old Bridge. The stone walls of the Old Town enfolded me, and for a while I felt I had traveled back to when the Ottomans still held sway over much of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

I emerged onto the former frontline, which divides the town into Muslim and Croat enclaves. Reconstruction here is incomplete, and brightly painted homes sandwich bombed-out skeletons in a bizarre dichotomy of old and new. This street has two names, depending on which side you talk to: the Avenue of Croatian Youth and the Boulevard of National Revolution.

Although they live separate lives, the people are united by the belief they have one of the most beautiful countries in the world. One local man accosted me as I took a picture of the frontline, and insisted on showing me the bars and restaurants of Mostar.

Despite the fact the average wage is less than US$ 200 per month, he refused to let me pay for his drinks, and spent the rest of the day convincing me there was a Bosnia beyond the war legacy: a land of generous people and rich historical and natural splendor. He seemed so pleased to be talking about his country that I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was already convinced.

If You Go

Tourism Association of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
www.tourism.ba/eng/

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