Today was our travel day from Zagreb, Croatia to where our trip REALLY starts in Sarajevo, Bosnia. We were all bright eyed and bushy tailed at 330hrs in the morning, so we took our time getting ready, showered, trying not to die in the shower, dressed and breakfasted. After a decent breakfast and great coffee, we checked out of the Gulag Hilton (complete with Croatian Adolph at the front desk), and headed across the street to the train station, where the power was out.
We knew we were to catch our train on platform 2, so we waited and sure enough, our ticket out of Zagreb and into the country side arrived. But before we boarded, we partook in some coffee sold by a guy on a bike, who grinds the coffee on site (on site being wherever he parks his bike). It was delicious!
The train was pretty much the Hogwarts Express - if the Hogwarts Express was built by a bunch of communists in the 1980s. But at least we got our own compartment on the non-smoking carriage, which is apparently just a suggestion, and not a rule.
It was really interesting travelling through the Croatian and Bosnian country sides - many differences and many similarities.
The Croatian country was mostly flat with small boxy houses with red roofs. We saw many delapitated and derelict houses, and it was difficult to discern if they had been shelled, abandoned or merely neglected.
The train made many stops on the way and at each stop was a man in a red cap, either waving us by or assisting people getting on and off the train. As we drew closer to the border, we got a knock on our compartment door and two completely humourless Croatian border guards looked at out passports, scanned them and stamped them. About 15 minutes later we crossed the border and a friendly Bosnian police officer took our passports and returned them a few minutes later, complete with a Bosnia stamp.
Going deeper and deeper into Bosnia the terrain grew more mountainous, and the village Catholic cathedral spires turned into the rounded turrets of Orthodox churches and domes and minarets of Muslim mosques. The houses became nicer and everyone seemed to have a lush garden with the beautiful orange flowers of squash season being around the corner.
During the train journey we all decided that we much prefer train travel to plane travel - we were able to walk about freely, open a window, eat whenever we wanted, and look out the window and see more than just clouds, although the washroom left A LOT to be desired (we shall never speak of it again).
After 9 1\2 hours on the train and one compartment guest whose English was just about as good as our Bosnian, we pulled into the historic city of Sarajevo.
We quickly found a taxi driver who started in right away about what we must see while we're in Sarajevo. He pointed out many of the historic sights, told us where to get great Bosnian coffee and a traditional Bosnian meal. He is a native Sarajevan and obviously very proud of his city, telling us he does not like to speak of the war in the 1990s (he was 14 when the siege began). He dropped us off at our pansion, Casa United Apartments in the heart of the old town where we were met by the delightful innkeeper - "My English, CATASTROPHE" who showed us up the stairs to our clean, comfortable and quiet suite.
We dropped our bags, plugged in our devices (thankfully our host has a few outlet converters) and headed out to grab dessert and a drink. Kelly and Judy shared a chocolate cheesecake and Ron had a walnut cake, all 3 of us drinking a refreshing Italian lemonade, all served up by an adorable and personable server. We paid our bill and are turning in for the night, excited for our walking tour of Sarajevo in the morning.
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