Sarajevo

Why Sarajevo works

Sarajevo sits in a narrow valley along the Miljacka River, ringed by hills that have shaped both its beauty and its history — the same slopes that give postcard sunset views over the old town also held the siege lines during the 1992-96 siege, the longest of a capital city in modern warfare, and the Tunnel of Hope museum on the city's edge preserves a section of the underground passage that kept Sarajevo supplied during those years. In the old town, Baščaršija's Ottoman-era bazaar still trades in copperwork, jewellery, and syrupy Bosnian coffee served in small copper pots alongside cubes of lokum, largely unchanged in atmosphere since the 15th century. A short walk west, the architecture shifts abruptly to Austro-Hungarian grandeur — the point of transition is marked on the pavement — as Ferhadija street continues past the Sacred Heart Cathedral toward wide boulevards and Habsburg-era facades. The Latin Bridge, an unassuming stone crossing over the Miljacka, marks the site of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination in 1914, the spark that set off the First World War, with a small museum on the corner detailing the event. Gazi Husrev-beg's Mosque and the accompanying bezistan market anchor Baščaršija's religious and commercial life, while a cable car up Trebević hill, restored after the 1984 Winter Olympics infrastructure fell derelict, now gives visitors the same mountain views the city has always had, minus the history that came between.

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