As our bar circle thinned out (because at this time, the youngsters had already formed their own little bands, my roommate included, and made their own night-out plans), I told our Tour Director that I had two questions for him before I retired for the night. First, I wanted to know where Medjugorje is and what the closest major city is. I told him that I am Catholic and that a pilgrimage to Medjugorje is on my bucket list (even though this apparition site is not yet formally

On our way to the hotel, our Tour Director once again reminded us that we were in Bosnia, so we had to lower our expectations a little bit when it comes to hotel amenities. He said that our hotel was not bad at all and the staff are friendly and helpful, but the rooms could be lacking in certain ways. Once we got there, we understood what he meant. The room assigned to my roommate and I was a spacious suite in a corner of the top floor that could fit a family of five or more.

Our Tour Director walked with us to the Latin Bridge, the one place that I wanted to see in Sarajevo. This is not an ordinary bridge. This pale-stone triple-arch bridge was constructed in 1798 to replace a stone bridge that was washed away by the floods in 1791, and an older wooden bridge. It was named after the neighbourhood on the other side of the river where Sarajevo’s Catholic community resided. But the attraction here is not the bridge per se, but the incident that occu

No, we didn’t go to Nikola Tesla’s house nor visited a museum dedicated to him. We didn’t ride a Tesla car either (this was 2019). Instead, we went to the Tesla Pub, obviously named after the famous inventor and engineer. And if anyone had doubts, the life-sized sculpture of Nikola greeting you by the pub’s door would obliterate it. The Tesla statue sits there, in a “thinking” pose with a light bulb placed on his lap. It was as if he was pondering on his next invention. On th

Sarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located in the greater Sarajevo Valley of Bosnia, surrounded by the Dinaric Mountains (which we just traversed) and situated along the Miljacka River. The first thing we explored in Sarajevo was the Old Town. I couldn’t help but notice how starkly different it is from any European city I’ve been to. In fact, it felt like I was outside Europe, or maybe, its outskirts. The vibe was a blend of East and Wes

The drive from Belgrade, Serbia to Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina took around five hours. We drove west on Highway E-70, south on Route 20, then southwest on Routes 136 and and 26, all mountain roads, until we were driving side by side the Drina River to the Karakaj Border. Our Tour Director said that the Drina is the largest tributary of the Sava River and forms a large portion of the border between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that moment, we were on the Serbia

The Balkans is the region in southeast Europe long overshadowed by its western, central, and northern counterparts, but is now emerging as a tourism hotspot. More than a decade ago, I almost visited this place when my Iberian trip nearly fell through the cracks but got salvaged at the last minute. The Balkans was my second choice that time. Fast forward 2019 and it was also second on my travel options list. I was traveling solo again that time. My first plan was to visit Mach