​To Sarajevo

We spent yesterday wandering around Vienna, including a visit to the Leopold Museum where a huge collection of their Egon Schiele paintings were on display. Such a prodigious talent and such a short life

Today we head to Sarajevo and despite the enormous pressure of modern travel, Linda seems to be coping reasonably well with the wait for our plane. Natalie left earlier, however with her sense of direction she may well be in Stockholm or similar. It will be interesting to see if she will be waiting for us at the airport as arranged.

Bosnia has had such a violent past, even before their most recent war. I remember reading about one such incident that occurred in Sarajevo some years ago. 

Two youngsters from different sectors of the city had a childish crush on each other, she was just thirteen years old and the boy was a couple of years older apparently. Because of some past insult or internecine, clan feud there were a series of honour killings. In just three days six people had lost their lives,  including the two children. Even the family priest was somehow implicated.

When I read this story about Sarajevo I remember thinking that it is no wonder that……hang on, sorry, that story actually came from Verona in Italy and was actually written by an Englisman I think.

But something like that could have happened in Bosnia in the last 400 years. Just we haven’t heard of it. 

I may just be the man to bring such a story to the attention of my legion of loyal followers.

F C-S

Yesterday we had lunch in a building that was completed in 1070.  Since then it has been a monastery and brewery  (700 years), barracks (50 years), restaurant 250 years with part of it being used as a picture theatre for 50 of those years. Boughen’s Electrical in Rosewood is in an old picture theatre but it isn’t quite the same.

Bratisalva’s old town was relatively unscathed by WW2 and is UNESCO listed. We took the one hour rail trip to Slovakia’s capital (Vienna and Bratislava are the two closest capital cities in Europe) Its railway station survived the Soviet era only to be invaded by homeless men who have enthusiastically taken up smoking and public urination as pastimes – a boy needs a hobby I suppose – from there it was a short trip into the centre.

The centre is stunning.  We loved the Christmas Markets – all locals and local products, we loved the buildings and we loved the fact that there seemed to be far fewer people like us.  And  we appreciated that all the homeless, urinating men were concentrated at the railway station rather than the old town.

We will come back to Bratislava.  Rosewood doesn’t have Christmas markets, Boughen’s Electrical isn’t that interesting except for its weirdly sloping floor from its movie theatre days, and the food from the King George Hotel doesn’t really compare with that of a 250 yr old restaurant in a 1000 year old building. Pity about the train station – there Rosewood beats Bratisalva hands down.