Travels Through History - The Balkans: Journeys in the former Yugoslavia

By Julian Worker

The Macedonians build a fountain and upset the Greeks. Villages on the road to Lake Ohrid fly Albanian flags instead of Macedonian ones. Kosovan taxi drivers believe fundamentalists are being sponsored in their country by former foes. Dubrovnik is so popular a one-way system is now in operation on the city walls. In Sarajevo, the place the First World War started is not easy to find, but evidence of more recent atrocities is. Memories are long in The Balkans, contrasts and contradictions are all around. History is always in your face, reminding you nothing stays the same for long in this most fascinating corner of Europe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AG Books
• Release date: Jul 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781785385148

Julian Worker

“Little Known British Traditions” is my first book of humourous stories. One of my stories, Safari Sickness, has been recently published in an anthology called “Leave the Lipstick, Take the Iguana” by Travelers’ Tales. Other articles have recently appeared in the Expeditioner online e-zine, and in Americas the magazine of the Organization of American States. My travel stories have appeared in The Toronto Globe and Mail, The National Catholic Register, International Travel News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Southern Cross newspaper in South Africa. On the Internet my writing has appeared on the following websites: In the Know Traveller, Go World, Paperplates, Intravel, and GoNomad. I have also taken many photographs that have appeared in travel guides/articles by National Geographic, Thomas Cook, The Rough Guides, and The Guardian.

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Bosnia and Herzegovina

Don’t Forget ‘93 - Mostar

The most famous sight in Mostar is the Stari Most, the Turkish Bridge, crossing the River Neretva. Although destroyed in 1993, the bridge was reconstructed as faithfully as possible to the original specifications - the same construction techniques were used and the stone was obtained from the same quarry. Today, this bridge is the main reason most tourists come to Mostar and there is a long debate as to where the best viewing place is. The problem is that the bridge faces due north or south depending on your position and so, during the day, the bridge is best seen from the south side during the late morning and early afternoon, when the sun is at its harshest.

My suggestion for the finest view is whilst having dinner on the terrace of the Urban Grill restaurant. Sit at the table to the extreme right as you enter the terrace and the bridge will gradually start to glow, as the sun goes down, due to the tasteful night-time lighting. Sitting at this table aligns you with the exact centre of the bridge and so pictures achieve an almost perfect symmetry with reflections in the water. The food is excellent here with local meals being a speciality. I can recommend the cevapi and the local beers.

An added bonus is the call of the muezzin at sunset. This call echoes from two or three minarets around the city and reverberates around the surrounding hills. When I was there, I also heard the quacking of some ducks who were upset when a diver jumped into the river from the bridge 21 metres above. Sounds travel a long way in this beautiful setting. Sadly, this also applies to the remarks of some fellow tourists, who evidently thought that the minarets of the Ali Pasha mosque contained elevators as there were people at the top and yet the minarets were so high.

If the visitor just sees the area around the Turkish bridge, they would find it difficult to believe there was ever a war in Mostar. To find this evidence the visitor should walk past the Karadozbeg Mosque and the Roznamendi Effendi Mosque to the Musala Bridge and look at the ruins of the Neretva Hotel. 80% of Mostar was destroyed during the Balkans War and the ruined buildings in the area of the hotel bear witness to this devastation. The Bosnian Muslim elements within Mostar and the Croats were allies against the Serbs and when the latter were defeated there was peace in the city for roughly a year, before fighting between Bosnians and Croats began with the front line being the street called Kralja Zvonimira.

Walking along this street, the visitor can see the bullet holes in some of the buildings, but otherwise the only evidence of a battle is the Ljubljanska Banka building on the corner. This monstrosity, with its triangular point jutting towards the river a few hundred yards away, is pockmarked with bullet holes that at least give the building some character and interest, which I hope preserves it for future generations to see and remember what happened here. Most war memorials are small and easily missed, but surely no one could miss this ugly, nine-storey, triangular shaped memorial?

Walking south from the former front line the visitor sees a cross on the hill, raised by Croatian forces during the war to remind the Muslims below who controlled the hills around the town. The next major feature is the enormous bell tower of the Franciscan Church, which appears to