Sarajevo

It was dark when we arrived in Sarajevo and we were glad to find our hostel without much difficulty. Like many of the cities we've been to, the river provided a nice reference point. Unlike in Italy, Eastern Europe has no street-level detail on google maps, thus we've been working out of the maps in Lonely Planet. Its more difficult but also more rewarding when we successfully navigate our way through foreign street names to remote locations where hostels are often found.

We really took it easy in Sarajevo, based in the Old Town quarter, where we pretty much stayed the whole time. The weather was 40s and rainy. We walked the cobblestone streets of Old Town and down along the river. The city sits literally right in the middle of the mountains and from any given point you can see how close the snow covered mountains really are. The markets were bustling and the bombed out buildings on random street corners were a reminder of how recently war was a regular part of life here.

We ate really well and got a small taste of the nightlife when we went to see a killer blues band from Mostar at a local bar. Its difficult to explain how it was different from Western Europe and the states... Something in the facial expressions of the local people we passed perhaps. And, like rest of Europe, there is so much more history here, traditions and buildings alike are noticeably older.