5 reasons why I fell in love with Sarajevo!

This years holiday brought us to beautiful Sarajevo, the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I had never before visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, but I must say I fell in love with the whole country. The picture perfect views started already before crossing the boarder from Serbia, the boarder river between these two countries in the mountains was amazing. The trip from the boarder to Sarajevo took a long time as the bus was driving small mountain roads, it was a perfect opportunity to see the countryside of Bosnia and Herzegovina as it differs a lot from the capital. Here are 5 reasons why I fell in love with Sarajevo!

1. Diversity
It has been said that Sarajevo is like European Jerusalem because of the city's diverse ethnic and religious makeup. By diversity I also mean many different kind of places to visit and see as a tourist. First walking in the old town bazaar, visiting mosque and ending up to Franz Ferdinand museum.

The Sebilj is a pseudo-Ottoman-style wooden fountain (sebil) in the centre of Baščaršija square in Sarajevo built by Mehmed Pasha Kukavica in 1753.

2. Bosnian coffee
We both fell in love with Bosnian coffee! We found a nice small coffee shop just next to the  Gazi Husrev-beg mosque. We were citing outside in the sun enjoying the coffee and seeing how the locals were spending their time, how the owner of the coffee shop was running orders to the mosque yard and the nearby inhabitants. We found a Bosnian coffee set to take home as a souvenir, now I'm able to have the great taste at home, only the atmosphere is missing.

Bosnian coffee

3. History
Sarajevo's history is diverse and bloody. From Ottoman city to assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria starting the first World War to the  longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare, during the Bosnian War as part of the breakup of Yugoslavia. The history of Sarajevo and of Bosnia and Herzegovina is visible in the city by the architecture, the city is a mosaic of different times. Gallery 11/07/95 was breath taking experience, I truly recommend visiting and taking the audio guide!

Gallery 11/07/95

4. Food
Wondering on the old town bazaar area and having so many possible places you would like to eat in. Cevapi is my new love! I think that in the end I had already eaten so much that it was enough for the rest of the week. Cevapi is meat formed into finger size sausages served with somun bread, oninon and kaymak.  All prices in the Bosnia and Herzegovina were very low, one cevapi costed around 5 euros for a portion. 

First night eating cevapi

5. Atmosphere
I enjoyed the atmosphere cause I felt I am not in hurry to go anywhere, I was able to sit down, enjoy the coffee, cevapi and relax. The coffee shops and restaurants were full of locals enjoying their life. The locals were staying up late drinking coffee and smoking shisha, nobody was in the hurry to bed. 

-Camilla

Budapest!

A while ago, me and my boyfriend decided to have a last minute trip to Budapest for a weekend. We booked the tickets on Thursday evening/night and the bus left already on Friday evening. We just really wanted to go somewhere and see new things and enjoy the summer. I think almost everyone has felt the urge just to travel and explore something new, to have a break from the everyday life. Even when the travel was quite long and exhausting by bus, it was totally worth it! 

We arrived to Budapest in Saturday morning ready to explore the city. We started our sightseeing from the Hősök tere (Heroes' Square) and continued walking in the city park crossing Vajdahunyad Castle with many different kind of architecture styles. After a while in the park we decided to continue to the center of the city for breakfast. On the way we saw the Hungarian Parliament Building. Our breakfast place was unbelievable, the atmosphere was so great!  The place was called Liberte Budapest Restaurant & Grand Cafe, we were sitting in the terrace drinking cafe and listening to live music they played by a guitar and a violin. 

After the breakfast we walked in the center in the Liberty Square and to the St. Stephen's Basilica. Soon after that it started raining a bit even when the morning had been really beautiful. We decided to visit a museum while it was raining, we took the old metro line and came to the House of Terror museum. The museum shows the fascist and communist regimes in Hungary. After the museum visit the rain was gone and as we were close to our hotel we decided to refresh a bit.

We had dinner in this Hungarian restaurant called Tüköry Étterem that my boyfriend found before from TripAdvisor. The restaurant was recommended mostly by the locals and the prices were quite cheap. We ordered traditional Hungarian food, as a plate for 2. The plate was so huge that we probably ate half of it in reality. Place to recommend!

In the evening we went to see the Buda castle on the other side of Tonava. We climbed to the castle and enjoyed the view to the city. From the other side of the castle hill we were able to see the beautiful sunset. It started to be late and we were tired of walking for the whole day, it was time to check out this bar that my boyfriend found online before. The place is called Szimpla, the setting of the bar is very unique and we wanted to visit it as we hadn't seen anything like that before. The place was quite crowded so we stayed there only for a while to look around and see all the weird rooms. Afterwords we ended up in car themed pub, there were quite many pubs that had a special theme that was visible in the decor.

Normally I'm very good with directions and maps. This time when we were trying to find a way from the center to our hotel, we took a wrong bus that went to completely wrong direction. We ended up walking to our hotel, that was our adventure!

The next day was reserved for relaxing. We went to the Széchenyi thermal bath in the city park and enjoyed the baths and the good weather. Széchenyi is the largest medicinal bath in Europe and the temperatures of the baths went up to 38°C. Sunday was also the the day our bus was leaving back to Wroclaw. Even when our holiday was very short, I enjoyed every minute of it and would do it again anytime. Maybe I fell in love with Budapest!

-Camilla