Skip to main content

Sobe or not sobe

Dubrovnik/Sarajevo - 29/08/2010

Michelle had taken her throat singing to the patio and the cute French girl (we'll call her Laetitia) was staring at me lustily, an excellent start to the day. The old town of Dubrovnik is undeniably beautiful, a fact not lost on the world's population. It is unrealistic and unreasonable to expect such a place to remain unexploited, preserved for the select few that undertake to make the pilgrimage. Those days are gone in the shrunken world of today. I know not when they actually were but I cannot help but cast my mind back to when it was equally aesthetic but less ruthlessly commercial. It the cruellest of double-edged swords, the money that tourism brings rebuilds, renews and sustains these sights and, to cite the scientific maxim, 'whatever is observed is by definition changed'. What makes, breaks.
Enough cynicism and hypocrisy though, we've places to be and one hell of a coastline to cover. We had hired a car through Croatia as it was (nearly) contiguous and would give miles of scenic emergency stops along the Dalmatian coast. But there was one sight that drew us over the border into Bosnia i Herzegovina (though that is for tomorrow). As we entered Sarajevo the sun removed its hat and declared its day done. A judicious (fortuitous) turn led us down a tight, Turkic street and linguistic recollection found us a pension. The quarter we had stopped in was near dry, the people caffeinated rather than inebriated. Still me hearties, pirates always like a drink so a themed bar provided a sure bet of an earned beer. Byrek is fast becoming our staple meal and so it thus proved in Bosnia's war scarred capital (the bullet holes were resplendent on many buildings).
The Neretva river valley to the tune of Kalman FM and plinky plonky Eine Kleine Nacktmüsik was a wholly awe inspiring foray. Tomorrow Mostar, nos da.
Labels:
Location: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts

The Duke

Pub review They say: "We came for a skittle on a Saturday night and they were very welcoming but you know how you hear about lizards ruling the world, the barstaff had a very lizardy look. Make your own mind up!" --Craig Savage 4/5 I say: 'The place where everybody knows your name' The claim is painted onto the wall and doesn't seem so outlandish on this chilly Tuesday night as there is no-one in the pub to know my name or not. Dry January? I can't imagine that's a thing around these parts. You don't keep over 30 pubs in business with virtuous gestures like that. It might be a Tuesday thing. Per usual I try to find a quiet corner with my beer, surely an easy task in an empty pub? Not so. Speakers hang from every nook and carpet the space in a thick fog of sound. It isn't even the usual autotuned pop/R&B dirge being vomited into my ears. That stuff I can confine to a background hum. Instead it's the pre-match commentary for the Brighto
Post a Comment
Read more

Sisyphean Airlines

Day 56 - Panama City We nearly didn't make it into this slip of a country. Cruel fortune had us standing in the queue for the only Panamanian border officer who had read and decided to adhere to the rules. "Return ticket?" bugger.  His steely, uncompassionate gaze was unmoved by our desperate explanations of our travel 'plans'. Bribery also failed to move him to endorse our entry so our bus driver, with infinite generosity, offered to relieve us of another $36 to write up a return ticket to San José that we would never use. This finally satisfied the entry requirements and the stamp thumped down. The country is divided by a synonymous strip of water down which floats a not insignificant quantity of the world's goods. Though our initial plan was to dive the canal, renovations kiboshed that idea and we had to settle for the traditional topside view.  On initial viewing the city itself seems built on the wealth its transoceanic connection brings.  Buildings soa
Post a Comment
Read more

Angkor Whaaaaat?

Day 5 - Siem Reap With the water festival finished we has one more place to visit in Cambodia. Angkor Wat is an indisputable wonder of the world and the largest religious monument ever constructed. It sits within a temple complex covering 400km², the scale of which is impossible to adequately describe. Its towers seem to rise organically from the ground, the stone flowering from the earth into wonderfully symmetric form. Only modern capitalism and totalitarian hubris seem to inspire similar architectural endeavour as the gods did in the past. I don't necessarily agree with any of those ideologies and their human cost but religion's diminished power permits me a less coloured appreciation of its monuments. In the stone of Angkor Wat you see reflected the same desire for, and defiant belief in, permanence that runs through our species. I see it in the chiselled signage above the entrance to long dead banks and businesses in the City of London. The owners thought the gilded lobb
Post a Comment
Read more