Strolling down an Olympic Bobsled Track and other Sarajevo Adventures

Five nights in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, are almost over. We enjoyed our time here and recommend the city to other travelers.  Our favorite adventure was strolling down an abandoned Olympic bobsled track. Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984, before the Bosnia War of the 1990s. For the Olympics, bobsled/luge tracks were built on a mountain close to the city. FYI, Bobsled and luge use the same track, but the competitors start at different parts of the track. And, in the USA we call it bobsled, Europeans call it bobsleigh. The bobsled track, now over 40 years old, is still on the side of the mountain. After the Olympics, it remained in use for competitions until the Bosnia War and the Siege of Sarajevo. During the siege, the track was used as an artillery position by Bosnian Serb forces. Unsuccessful attempts to fund a renewal of the track, which did get some damage, have occurred in the past thirty years. Now, visitors can take a cable car to the top of the mountain and visit the tracks. 

Looking back at the beginning of the cable car ride

And the city grows smaller.....

Still quite a way to go up the mountain

The city is quite small as we near the top of the mountain

The trail at the start of the walk down went under the cable car

Just after going under the cable car, the trail met the beginning of the bobsled/luge runs. The runs, made of reinforced concrete, were in remarkably good shape and curved down the mountain for over 4200 feet (8/10 mile) with a vertical drop of over 400 feet. Phillip and I walked in the runs for their entire length, about 1/3 of the mountain' slope.

Sometimes the walking path was right next to the run. We
stayed in the run as we walked down.

We weren't sure how these sections of track fit together

The banked curves were graffiti canvases

True artists who used spray paint and concrete as their medium

The final curve out of the trees, probably had a spectator area

This part curved uphill to slow and stop the competitors

We were still 2/3 of the way up the mountain when the bobsled run ended. We hopped out and found the walking track to continue down the extreme slope. The middle third of our trek wound thru trees with switchbacks and some small plateaus.

We passed war-damaged buildings

We saw sheep and goats with a shepherd.

The shepherd is sitting, in about the middle of the picture

The final third of the mountainside took us through neighborhoods, but the path, now a one-lane road, was still extremely steep. There were sections that Phillip and I could barely stay standing, probably over a 25% grade. Fortunately, it was paved. Had it been gravel, cars could not have made it up and we would have slid going down. 

Our steep trek took us right to the edge of the main central city area. Although we walked the bobsled track two days ago, our legs are still sore. The extreme downhill used muscles in a way that our previous level and uphill walking had not. And... I'm glad we had trimmed toenails, or we would have had sore toes and holes in the tops of our shoes!

Other sights we've seen in Sarajevo include the Latin Bridge and the exact location where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, starting WWI. A replica of the car in which he and his wife were riding when they were shot was parked nearby. Phillip and I had seen the actual death car in a museum in Vienna, Austria, so it was fascinating for us to see the actual historic location, too.

The Latin Bridge, site of Franz Ferdinand assassination

Soon after our arrival in Sarajevo, Phillip and I took a two-hour walking tour to familiarize ourselves with the city and to learn a bit about the Bosnia War of the 1990s. Our tour guide told us of the history of Sarajevo as a place of harmony and tolerance and the crossroads for different cultures and religions. 

Note the different paving stones, Eastern (Ottoman) style on the
lighter side, Western with the darker stones

Sarajevo as a city was established by the Ottomans (from the East) in the 1400s and became part of the Silk Road (trade from East to West). By the late 1800s, the Ottoman empire was dissolving and Hapsburg rule came to Serbia. Standing on the sidewalk above, looking one direction are vendor stalls like a bazaar:

In the other direction are buildings in the style of the Hapsburgs of Vienna:

Our tour guide, to illustrate the city's historical tolerance of diversity, told stories of how, during WWII, the Muslims of Sarajevo (who were not persecuted by Hitler as he did not want to fight what was left of the Ottomans) would hide their Jewish neighbors in their homes, giving them fake Muslim names and passing them off as relatives so the Nazis would not take them away or kill them. After WWII, the local Muslim community paid to rebuild the Jewish synagogue. 

The Bosnia War, which involved several of the Balkan countries, and the Siege of Sarajevo (1992-96) was caused by tensions that developed during the dissolution of the country of Yugoslavia. Ethnic minorities were not happy with the country lines being drawn out of Yugoslavia and they ended up with the weapons from Yugoslav military. War raged in this area for several years during the 1990s, with 14,000 people killed in Sarajevo alone. 

All the gravestones we could see in this cemetery were from the early 1990s

Bullet holes are still seen on many of the buildings

The Siege of Sarajevo involved one side trying to take Sarajevo but Sarajevo being defended from within. A blockade of supplies occurred as well as snipers set up in the mountains around the city, firing down into the city. We visited two of the museums dedicated to this terrible time in Sarajevo. 

Museum display

We also saw the "Roses of Sarajevo," red paint on the sidewalks to commemorate where a regular citizen had been gunned down by snipers. 

We saw these all throughout the city

Sarajevo isn't just war memories. It's a nice town with a river running thru it, with ducks and public art.

The people are friendly, and English is taught as an elective in high school. A trolley or tram ticket is about US$1 per person to go across town. Spring-like weather right now, warm some days, jacket needed on others. We enjoyed our time here. Tomorrow: a flight to Belgrade. No train and a bus would have been an eight-hour journey.