Godspeed to Olympos, Tue, 26 Sep 2023 | written by Simon
Simon at a City, Transit in Bosnia and Hercegovina, Europe

The bunker turned out to be totally worth the wait. Already getting the ticket was an experience – as it’s still a military zone, I had to go to the nearby village to get a permission to access.

Compared to Scotland Secret Bunker, it’s massive and so well equipped! The sheer scale of this project, capable of withstanding a 25KT nuclear explosion, and host the entire Yugoslavian top executive and military for six months, is astounding. The scale of the infrastructure, the air supply, water tanks, diesel engines, the decontamination stations… And the general and presidential suite that had luxuries such as wooden furniture and wallpapers! What is even more astounding, is that they only made space for exactly one woman in the entire plan – Tito’s wife. Well, maybe some nurses would be women, too.

The bunker is also filled with lots of contemporary art related to the cold war, the Yugoslavian war, and modern conflicts. The tour took two hours, but it was hardly enough to see the bunker itself, barely to scratch the surface of the art.

As I was driving off to Sarajewo, the van just stopped and wouldn’t start. I managed to restart it after it cooled down, same get to the nearby car mechanic. Something with the fuel pump or injectors. They said they can’t do anything and I need to get to Sarajewo. Somehow I managed, stopping to cool down and starting again, including in a lay-by in the middle of a tunnel. It is so noisy there is you stay for a while! And, to make things worse, it started raining really heavily.

It took 4 different workshops to diagnose the problem. The official Opel service changed the fuel filter, told me it’s done, so I rode to Sarajevo town and… the Baron stopped again just as I was getting there. It was too late to go back to the garage, so I decided to go visit the town.

I got to see the town centre including a nice panorama from the Yellow Fort hill before it got dark. But the main thing about Sarajevo doesn`t seem to be the touristy sights. It’s the general atmosphere. I really like the feel of this city, it’s a bit more relaxed, but at the same time teaming with life – real life, not tourist life. The bars and cafes have a fantastic atmosphere, even the tourist shops at the Baščaršija district are somehow more relaxed and classy than they were in Mostar. And this is particularly amazing given that it’s very recent history is visible on every corner – gunshot wounds on so many buildings, a number of museums devoted to the siege, the genocide, pavement grenade holes filled with red resin…

Before the night set, I visited the Museum of Genocide. Lest we forget. It`s this thing where you kind of know that utterly horrible things were happening, but you don’t really know until you see. And now I am having second thoughts about my visit to Serbia.

In the morning, I got back to the garage and after some more shenanigans, I was vaguely assured that the Baron should be fine. I was planning to spend more time in Sarajevo and only set out later in the afternoon, but given that I wasn’t sure how this is going to go and if the van is really fixed, I decided to change plans and leave earlier. On the way, I only visited the museum of the Tunnel through which the besieged Sarajevo was in contact with the world.

Thankfully, the Baron got me all the way back home. On Tuesday, I drove all the way to Austria and on Wednesday afternoon I was happily chilling in Berlin. And guess what? The Baron was super kind and only started complaining once I got here. The light comes up. Not to worry – now I’m on my turf, can sort it all out.

So that’s it, journey done. A month on the road with ??? km total distance driven.

I spent just short of 2100€, including some 850€ on petrol, motorway and car repairs, and about 400€ on gifts for self and others. Thus, a whole month of eating in bars, museum entries, Olympus climbing costs, and so on, was less than a 900€.

I set out to the Balkans completely without a plan. My map was blank and I was making it all up as I went, finding places to visit on a bunch of blogs, asking friends for recommendations, and aiming to catch as many UNESCO sites as possible. There are many points left on my map where I didn’t get to – probably more than those I visited. But not to worry – by now I know I’ll be back and see them all in time.

I do, however, feel a certain urgency with this. That’s because the Balkans are visibly changing. Montenegro and Croatia are so different from the inland countries. The seaside is already completely set up for the most boring kind of tourist, Dubrovnik is uninhabitable and Kotor is not far behind. Not to mention that the prices for services, including restaurants, nearly double between the countries. I’m also worried that what I love the most about the Balkans – the fact that it’s not as sanitised as Western Europe, that you can go in places that in the West would be locked up or made into paid and tacky tourist attractions – I worry this will slowly erode and disappear.

And thus, I’m pretty sure I’ll be back in the next years to see what remains, but also go to Albania, Romania and Bulgaria which I completely skipped this time. And this is a perfect trip for September, as autumn sets in Berlin but here it’s still gorgeous summer.