LOCATION:

43.856° N, 18.413° E

As with most my European trips, I tend to visit during the shoulder tourism months. I didn't do a ton of research on Bosnia, it just happened to be cheaper than Macedonia idk. It was a cool experience overall.

My friend Tim from Germany joined me for this trip. We've traveled a bunch in the past and he is always up for adventure so within a few weeks it occurred to me to reach  out and said 'Hey, I'm in Bosnia soon, let's catch up and have a beer!'  A few weeks later we met up at the Sarajevo airport. 

We had good weather throughout our trip, we took the shuttle bus from the airport, although it was just as cheap to take a taxi in hindsight. The bus driver stops briefly at stops without much notice, and wifi connection througout my trip was spotty so we ended up undershooting our stop and walked some to get to the city center.

Bosnia is still recovering from the war in the mid 90's. It's kind of surreal to see buildings with giant holes in them.

There is a gorgeous vantage point called the Yellow Fortress.  Although it's possible to Uber it there, we decided to walk. The inclines were a bit brutal in parts of it, as the streets are cobbled and quite steep.  There is a stretch where the sidewalk ends briefly and you walk on the road as cars occasionally whiz by but overall I would say is worth it.  The views are awesome but kind of dangerous as there are benches that sit precariously over a deep drop, with no railings, and no sign of anyone around if you happened to take a slip. 

My friend Tim was too tired to want to do the climb twice, but I came back for some sunset shots.

Sarajevo hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, the abandoned Olympic village and trails are still available.  There is a rather modern cable car that will take you up there.  It was a pleasant day trip, I recommend it.  We didn't have the shoes for the snow up there so we didn't hike through the trails, you can also walk along the abandoned luge track. Probably not recommended during the cold months as its probably very slippery.

Mostar

We heard a daytrip to Mostar. About 3-ish hours we arrived. I don't know if I would do it again as a daytrip. 6 hours worth of traveling and the Old Town is pretty small so we were done after about 3 hrs.  We ventured out but some areas were a bit sketchy. Maybe it's more fun during tourism months idk.

In Philadelphia we have the Rocky statue. In Mostar, they have a Bruce Lee statue.  Apparently, they couldn't find a celebrity that everyone could agree on and well, everyone loves Bruce so he was chosen.