Some places inspire one to silence. Today we visited the Srebrenica museum and memorial – it is one such place.

Gallery 11/07/95 is a museum and memorial to the 8,373 men and boys who had sought refuge with their families in the UN enclave in Srebrenica. In July 1995 troops from the Army Rebublica Srpska (Sebian Bosnians supported by Serbia) ignored the Dutch UN contingent, separated men and boys from their families, bussed them to various sites in the surrounding forests and executed them.

Modern Europe had thought that genocide was never going to happen again after the Nurenburg Trials. The trials in the Hague showed this to be entirely wishful. It also allowed survivors to ask another pertinent question – why did did the West do nothing forceful to stop Srebrenica, nothing forceful to stop the four year seige of Sarajevo UNTIL two Danish soldiers and two French soldiers were killed?  A massive bombing campaign saw the Serbs sue for peace seven days later. Perhaps four western lives equal 200,000 primarily Muslim Bosnian lives?

’tis a very sombre  and thoughtful group of travellers here tonight….

Despite the horror they are not numbers, they still have names.

​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.

Now If this isnt the worst possible name for a shop that sells children’s  toys and does supervised play groups ….then my name’s not Farley Cunnington-Smythe! 

 Joyce would never allow this in Rosewood.

And this for a shop that sells paper – of all types ……….

Perhaps it’s just evidence of Austrian honesty?

A friend of mine has recently pointed out that I have failed to do the traditional welcome to country in my blog. Therefore I wish now to pay my respects to the traditional owners of the Rosewood district in which I was raised – the Armstrong and the Harding families.  

These pioneers moved here from Devon around 1840. They were primarily responsible for turning the Rosewood Scrub, as it was then called (a useless tangle of a wide range of plants) into productive farmland. Instead of dense bush and native wildlife, under their stewardship it became just 3 species to manage- lucern, pigs, and dairy cattle. (There had been some other peoples there earlier, who it seems, had been steadfastly ignoring the notion of terra nullis for 30,000 years and paid not a penny to the Crown!)

In this part of the world it was the Austrians not the Australians  who owned quite a stretch of Central Europe until they proved themselves to be quite defatigable (I love words where the opposite with a prefix or suffix are the most commonly used. Many of my friends are quite ruth and defatigable) . From Napoleon onwards they managed to be on the losing side of a number of wars including both world wars, and each time having the real estate savagely trimmed. Although things have been quite stable since the 1950’s if Austria gets in another stoush with anyone, even little Slovenia, I suspect there wouldn’t be anything left of the of the country outside, perhaps, Vienna.

Enough of the history lesson. – I’d best let you go Farquar.   It’s -5 ° outside. Time to don the woolies and go exploring.

Ps 

Our German friends have arrived, so i suspect we may be kept just a little busy!