Sarajevo Top 5

It has been an amazing trip; my tendinitis got better eventually -even if I haven’t fully recovered yet- and so I’ve been able to walk around Sarajevo, to see many interesting places and –most of all- breath again that Balkan spirit I love so much. And even if the question I’ve been asked the most has been “where are you from?”, I’m very proud of my knowledge of the language (also because, let’s face it, I couldn’t have survived 10 days without talking to anyone!). During these last 3 days I’ve met Amira, a girl from the Couchsurfing website, and she brought me to smoke narghila at Dibek in Baščaršija, as well as introducing me to the best pita place in Sarajevo (Buregdžinica Asdž, of course!).

This sort of working-class district -built in the ‘60s/’70s- is not far away from the town centre: you can reach it by a 20 minutes’ walk from Alipašina Mosque (if you don’t happen to have tendinitis…) and it is a great place where you can mingle with locals and enjoy some truly Balkan spirit, starting from the flea market where you can find fruits and vegetables, Bosnian specialties as well as clothes and artisanal crafts. I went there because a friend told me to go graffiti hunting among Ciglane buildings from the communist era, which are constructed on a fairly steep hill; there is also an elevator you can take to get until the very last raw of buildings, from where you will enjoy an amazing view over the town. In Ciglane you will also find a big park and several restaurants and cafés to relax.

I’ve already been in Vratnik with Darijana to enjoy the view from the Žuta Tabija (the yellow bastion), but I couldn’t get enough and the day after I came back to admire the town from a higher viewpoint: the Bijela Tabija (the white bastion), which is just a ten minute walk away from the yellow one. From the ancient fortress (according to the most established opinion it has been built in 1550) the view is breath-taking, and you can even climb it to take more spectacular pictures. In fact locals say it’s a place designed for historians and photographers! Coming back downtown, you can enjoy this characteristic neighbourhood built in the XVIII century and fortified in 1816, its old houses with picturesque red roofs and its ancient mosques (some of them even with a wooden minaret or a wooden balcony), among which the Lučevica Mosque, which has been built in 1560.

Sarajevo Top 5 > BJELAVE 

Sarajevo Top 5 > TEA HOUSES 

Sarajevo Top 5 > EATING OUT 

M. CHAT (THOMA VUILLE) STREET ART