Sarajevo: More Beauty and War

Unlike Mostar, to walk around Sarajevo you aren’t immediately greeted with reminders of the war. You see banks, bakeries, shops just like any other high street, but if you look down occasionally at the ground you will see splotches of red paint, symbolising where blood was shed during the war. It’s a unique city as within a small space in town there is a Christian Cathedral, Jewish Synagogue and Muslim Mosque. We met up with a lovely local while there who not only showed us a brilliant bar but also took us to the top of the hill and showed us …

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Mostar: Beauty and War

We’d met a few people on our travels who had expressed how much they loved Bosnia and Hercegovina, so I was excited to see what all the fuss was about. We spent a couple of days in Dubrovnik and then headed up to Mostar, mostly famous for its stunning bridge, Stari Most. We looked at the picture in our Lonely Planet book and thought that it must be photoshopped – it didn’t look real, but it really was. That photo is real and it does look that beautiful in reality. I was beginning to see why people loved this country …

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Montenegro: The Country that Stole my Heart

If you visit Montenegro, you’ll understand why I love it so much. Montenegro: Budva and Sveti Stefan Whilst in Budva we took a trip to Sveti Stefan, a gorgeous island off the shore of one of the beaches. Unfortunately, the whole thing is privatised and you can’t go on it unless you are staying there, which of course we weren’t because it’s way over our budget and was closed during low season. But we looked and marvelled at it as we walked along the beaches and watched the sunset over the sea.   We weren’t sure how long to stay …

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Falling in Love With Montenegro

We arrived in Ulcinj in mid-afternoon when the sun was shining and the wind was blowing. We headed down to the beach, where in the summer it’s packed with holiday-makers, mainly Albanian and Serbian, although also well known for German sun-seekers too. On this cool February afternoon, the resort is like a ghost town: shops and restaurants with shutters pulled down, holiday apartments with broken windows, empty beaches apart from a few odd people walking their dog or taking a stroll. I picture it in the summer: the hustle bustle of people looking for a good spot of sand, ice …

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Kosovo: Politics and Partying

Kosovo:  Europe’s newest country (although still not recognised as a country by Serbia – they still count it as part of Serbia, making border crossings somewhat complicated depending where you are coming from). Border crossings aside, we arrived and found ourselves at a very lively hostel, the busiest one we’ve stayed at so far on our travels through low season. We headed out for food, it was very cheap with big portions, although the price of beer was a bit more than we’ve had in other places. One thing that you will notice about Kosovo is their love of NATO, …

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