Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, population 340,000, in the valley of the Miljacka River surrounded by the Dinaric Alps — one of the most historically layered cities in Europe, where four cultures (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Yugoslav Communist and post-war Bosnian) have built physically on top of each other in a city the size of a provincial European town, creating a density of contrasting architecture, cuisine, religious buildings and living memory that no other European city matches. The Ottoman Baščaršija bazaar (the 15th-century copper smiths' quarter, the historic market of Sarajevo — the old Ottoman trading city) is 500 metres from the Austro-Hungarian Vijećnica (the National Library, 1896, the most ornate pseudo-Moorish building in the Balkans, burned by Serb shelling in 1992 destroying 2 million books, now restored) and 500 metres from the Latin Bridge where Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914, triggering the First World War. The 1984 Winter Olympics (the only Winter Olympics held in a socialist country; Sarajevo 1984 was the first Winter Olympics held in a predominantly Muslim city; the venues — Jahorina, Bjelašnica, Igman — were shelled during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War and have since been restored) and the 1992-1995 Siege of Sarajevo (the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare: 1,425 days, longer than the Siege of Leningrad; 13,952 people killed, 5,434 of whom were civilians; the Tunnel of Hope was the only supply route under the airport runway) define Sarajevo's modern identity. Sarajevo is also the place where East genuinely meets West — the four-faiths coexistence (the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque, the Old Orthodox Church, the Ashkenazi Synagogue and the Sacred Heart Cathedral within 500 metres of each other in the Baščaršija district is the most concentrated expression of Abrahamic religious coexistence in Europe).
Baščaršija (the old Ottoman bazaar of Sarajevo, established 1462 by Gazi Husrev-beg — the 500-year-old copper smiths' and traders' market; the Baščaršija is the most intact Ottoman bazaar in the Balkans outside Turkey; the wooden shopfronts, the copper craftsmen hammering, the coffee roasters, the čevapi (the grilled minced meat sausages that are the national dish of Bosnia), the burek bakeries; the Sebilj (the octagonal Ottoman wooden fountain in the centre of Baščaršija, 1753, rebuilt 1891 — the symbol of Sarajevo: the pigeons, the coffee drinkers and the fountain define the visual identity of the city) are all concentrated in a 400 m radius).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque (1531 — built by the Ottoman governor Gazi Husrev-beg, who built the entire Baščaršija complex; the largest and most important historical mosque in Bosnia and Herzegovina; the 26 m diameter dome, the 45 m minaret (destroyed during the 1992 siege, rebuilt 1996), the Persian and Ottoman tilework; the attached clock tower (the first clock tower in the Ottoman Empire to show local solar time, 1667) and the medresa (Islamic school, in operation since 1537 — the oldest continuously functioning educational institution in Bosnia) are all part of the Gazi Husrev-beg Waqf endowment; visitors must remove shoes and women must cover heads).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Latin Bridge (Latinska ćuprija — the 1798 Ottoman stone bridge over the Miljacka River where Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-old Bosnian Serb nationalist, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este and his wife Sophie on 28 June 1914 at approximately 11:10am; the assassination triggered the July Crisis, the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, the mobilisation of the alliance system and the First World War — the deadliest conflict in human history to that date; the Franz Ferdinand Museum is in the corner building adjacent to the bridge, on the exact spot where Princip stood; the footprint markings (the bronze footprints now removed, replaced by a small museum entrance)); the bridge itself is beautiful — four stone arches over the Miljacka.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Vijećnica (the National Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1896 — the most architecturally extravagant building of Austro-Hungarian Sarajevo: a pseudo-Moorish orientalist fantasy in red and yellow brick, built as the City Hall and converted to the National Library in 1949; on the night of 25-26 August 1992, Serb forces shelled the building with incendiary shells, burning it for three days and destroying over 2 million books and manuscripts — the largest single loss of cultural heritage in Europe since the Second World War; the interior was restored to its original 1896 appearance in 2014 and reopened; the guided tour tells the story of the burning and the restoration; the atrium ceiling mosaic is one of the finest interiors in the Balkans).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Tunnel of Hope (Tunel spasa — the 800 m tunnel dug under the Butmir farmhouse in 1993 to connect besieged Sarajevo with Bosnian-controlled territory through the runway of Sarajevo Airport (which was under UN control); the tunnel was 1 m wide, 1.6 m tall, with a pipe for fuel and electricity; it was the only supply route into the besieged city for 2.5 years — 20-30 tonnes of supplies daily, plus the evacuation of the wounded, the movement of soldiers and the escape of civilians; the Kolar family farmhouse (the tunnel entrance is in the basement — the family maintained the tunnel entrance throughout the siege; the museum is in their house, with the 20 m surviving tunnel section, original photographs and the Kolar family testimony).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Yellow Fortress (Žuta tabija — the Ottoman defensive wall above the Baščaršija, 16th century, the most easily accessible of Sarajevo's hillside fortifications; the 15-minute walk from Baščaršija via steep cobblestone streets through the residential Ottoman quarter with the wooden houses, the small mosques and the cemeteries with the Ottoman-era turbaned gravestones; the view from the Yellow Fortress at sunset is the most photographed perspective of Sarajevo — the minaret forest (Sarajevo has 78 mosques, the most in any European city; the sound of the ezan/adhan from multiple minarets simultaneously is an unforgettable experience); the sunset call to prayer from the Yellow Fortress.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe War Childhood Museum (the 2017 museum based on the book by Nermin Tulić, collecting 140 objects with 140 stories of what a particular person's childhood memory of the Sarajevo siege was — a pencil case, a set of playing cards, a Christmas ornament, a can of humanitarian aid food — the most affecting museum account of the siege, because it is told through the specific and the intimate rather than the statistical; the Srebrenica Gallery 11/07/95 (the genocide in which 8,372 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed by the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska in July 1995 — the worst atrocity in Europe since the Second World War, ruled genocide by the International Court of Justice in 2007)).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe definitive Sarajevo food experience — čevapi (Sarajevski ćevapi — the Sarajevo-style grilled minced meat sausages: the Sarajevo version is smaller and fatter than the Belgrade version, made from a mix of beef and lamb (never pork in the Muslim Bosnian tradition), served in a freshly baked somun flatbread with finely chopped raw onion and kajmak (the Serbian/Bosnian clotted cream made from skimmed milk fat, richer than crème fraîche); the Ćevabdžinica Željezna (the oldest and most famous čevapi restaurant in Baščaršija, open since 1921 — the benchmark čevapi of Bosnia); paired with Sarajevo Brewery beer (1864 — the oldest continuously operating brewery in the Balkans, in the Austro-Hungarian building on the Miljacka; the Sarajevsko beer) or home-distilled šljiva rakija (plum brandy).
Mostar (130 km south of Sarajevo, 2h by bus — the historic city of the Stari Most (Old Bridge), the 16th-century Ottoman arch bridge over the Neretva River; the original bridge was built 1566-1567 by the Ottoman architect Mimar Hayruddin (Sinan's student — Sinan also designed the Suleymaniye and the Blue Mosque); the bridge was deliberately destroyed by Croatian forces in November 1993 during the Bosnian War (the most symbolically devastating act of cultural destruction in the war); the replica bridge built in 2004 using original Ottoman techniques and stone from the same quarry was designated UNESCO World Heritage; the Mostar "Stari Grad" with the 16th-century mosques, the Kujundžiluk bazaar, and the Neretva turquoise water is the finest Ottoman urban landscape in the Western Balkans).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideBlagaj (15 km south of Mostar, accessible by taxi or tour from Mostar — the most remarkable single site in Herzegovina: the Blagaj Tekke (the 16th-century Dervish monastery built directly into the cliff face above the Buna spring; the Buna is the largest spring in the Balkans and one of the largest in Europe: 43 m³/second of clear water emerges from a 100 m cliff at a constant 10°C; the tekke was built on the spring for the Bektashi Sufi order and is still an active place of worship; the monastery room with the Ottoman-era carpets and the view from the terrace of the turquoise spring water emerging from the cliff is one of the most visually extraordinary natural and architectural combinations in the Balkans).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuidePočitelj (45 km south of Mostar — the 15th-16th century fortified Ottoman village built on a cliff above the Neretva River; one of the most intact and visually dramatic Ottoman settlements in the Balkans; the Gavrankapetan Tower (1563), the Šišman Ibrahim-pasha mosque (1563), the medresa, the sahat kula (clock tower) and the hamam are all preserved; the village was shelled and burned in 1993 and has been partially restored; no permanent residents — the village is a living monument; the cobblestone stairs, the stone houses growing from the cliff, the pomegranate trees and the fortress walls above the Neretva create the most cinematic Ottoman village scene in the western Balkans.
Return from Mostar to Sarajevo (last bus 18:30; the evening in the Baščaršija) and the Bosnian coffee ritual — Bosanska kafa (Bosnian coffee — the Turkish-style unfiltered coffee served in a džezva (copper pot) on a small tray with a cube of Turkish delight (rahat lokum) and a glass of water; distinctly different from espresso in method (the grounds settle in the cup over 5 minutes before drinking) and from Turkish coffee in social ritual (you pour slowly, sip slowly, talk slowly; Bosnian coffee is a social institution, not a morning caffeine delivery system); the best coffee houses in the Baščaršija: the Inat kuća (the Spite House) and the old hans (caravanserais converted into coffee houses).