One side of Pecs' main square

After I saw the lovely buildings in Subotica, just over the border in Serbia but clearly a legacy of Austro-Hungarian occupation, southern Hungary became even more enticing. When I ran out of time to visit the Istrian peninsula, and found the train from Sarajevo to Budapest, I added Pecs to Szeged and Kecskemet as stop-offs on the way to Budapest. I didn’t have any guidebook pages for Pecs, but remembered reading about it before I left. I’d get off the Budapest-bound train in Pecs, take a bus over to Szeged, and then ride the train again to Kecskemet and Budapest.

Roof of the Post office

It turned out to be an inspired decision, especially where Pecs and Szeged were concerned. Both towns had undergone excellent renovations, and in both towns I stayed in brand-new, interesting small hotels. Given the unexpected hassle of the train trip from Sarajevo, I was especially relieved to check into an en-suite room in the Hotel Arkadia, which I had found on agoda.com, a site I more often use for Asian hotels.

But I would have put up with much less comfortable digs in exchange for   the town itself. Small enough to be walkable, with a long main “square” amply provided with benches, it still boasted plenty of photogenic buildings. And a remarkable cathedral. Not so unusual on the outside, I was blown away by the interior, literally covered with decoration. I was reminded of Albi, whose cathedral was plain and forbidding on the outside, and a kaleidosope of color on the inside. I was tempted to return to Pecs’ cathedral for Sunday mass, so I could see the place lit up, but wandered the streets instead.

Organ in Pecs' Cathedral

Then there was the 16th century Mosque of Pasha Gazi Kassim, dominating the main square. A reminder of the years of Turkish occupation, it had been converted to a combination church and museum. The Jakawali Hassan Museum was also housed in a 16th century mosque, but a much smaller one, and with a much quirkier exhibition. The main room was walled with mirrors, and I became somewhat disoriented. I had hoped, in true ecumenical fashion, to also visit the large 19th century synagogue, but it was closed and I had to settle for photographing the exterior.

Pecs' Synagogue

Besides the buildings I visited a couple of museums. The ethnographic wasn’t especially interesting, but I had a nice time at the Zsolnay ceramics museum, the firm having been responsible for much of the tile work decorating buildings of the late 19th and early 20th century. Unfortunately, their fountain, one of Pecs’ signature sights, was covered over for the winter.

I ate well in Pecs, too, notably at Susogo, next to the National Theater on the main pedestrian street. Here I progressed from coffee outside, to lunch inside, which impressed me so much I made a dinner reservation. A nice touch for solo diners was the wide-screen TV, fed by a camera in the kitchen, supplementing the view of the action in the street below. But the main attraction was unquestionably the food, notably a couple of soups and a duck breast with foie gras.

I didn’t need the covered fountain to tell me I had arrived in the off season – the evenings were cold, and the souvenir shops a little short of customers. But that was fine with me. I did see one small tour group, clearly on an excursion from a cruise ship, and a number of independents, but I suspect that the town has yet to really make it onto the tourist circuit. See it now!

The Cathedral Crypt

Ottoman era house museum in Sarajevo

This would be the second time I had arrived in Hungary by train, the first being an unfortunate journey from from Zagreb to Budapest back in 2004. The fast train I had expected morphed into a slow train that stopped at every station. The old-style carriages with non-AC compartments, a hot day, and the hours we spent traversing the southern shore of Lake Balaton, a blue vision of coolness out the window, added up to misery.

My go-to site for all things train is seat61.com, and Mark Smith had nothing much to say about the Sarajevo-Budapest Intercity I would take to Pecs. No doubt all would have been well, except that that the railway workers in the Republika Srpska had gone on strike. Where’s that? That’s part of Bosnia. Actually, saying it’s part of Bosnia is shorthand as the country is properly known as Bosnia and Hercegovina, but almost half of it is the semi-autonomous Republika Srpska, the area ethnically cleansed by the Serbs during the war.

Thanks to the strike, my direct train journey involved three trains and one bus. When the train from Sarajevo reached the internal border with Republika Srpska, we got off the train and boarded a bus – only one was needed as there were less than twenty of us. A couple of hours later, at the international border with Croatia, we got off the bus at an isolated station, crossed the tracks and boarded a second train. At this point I figured I was set for the rest of the journey, but no. At the Hungarian border the remaining passengers, less than a dozen at this point, were kicked off the train again.

Turned out we had to wait for the southbound Budapest-Sarajevo train to arrive, and for its passengers to clear immigration, before we able to board the third train of the day. I believe that the people going through to Budapest had to change trains yet again in Pecs, but I was so glad to arrive I didn’t hang around to find out. I was too busy tracking down the (helpful) Tourist Information office.

Central Pecs

The Ottoman quarter

And I did enjoy myself. Mostly outdoors, although besides the History Museum, dedicated to the siege, I visited the neighboring National Museum, where I paid my respects to the Sarajevo Haggadah – is it blasphemy to say I was less impressed than I expected? I found the Jewish Museum, in the quiet, stone Sephardic Synagogue more evocative. And I visited a couple of house museums, much more to my taste than art galleries.

Jewish Museum

Sarajevo was already firmly embedded in 20th century history before the break-up of Yugoslavia, as it was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on its Latin Bridge that led to the First World War. The bridge was attractive enough, but not particularly impressive, given the weight of history it carried. Several other bridges crossed the Miljecka River, but the water level was low, and the north shore home to a major road, and I mostly walked further north.

The Latin Bridge

The older, Turkish, section was home to the souvenir shops, and to craftsmen, mostly metal workers. In additional to traditional materials, the casings from the shells that had fallen on the city were now being remade into souvenirs. Further west, in addition to the cathedrals, I found a big square, where even in the rain men played chess on the pavement with over-sized pieces. But mostly I just strolled, admiring the buildings and soaking up the atmosphere, and stopping off for coffee both in the old section, and in a newer, multi-story mall.

Chess players

It turned out that I had timed my visit well. My last day I ate lunch in the Holiday Inn and bought a train ticket at the neighboring station. The US embassy used to occupy a house in the center of town, but had just been moved to a purpose built fortress near the Holiday Inn, and when I walked past I noticed one bored looking guard and a line of people sheltering from the rain as they waited to enter the consular section. The next day, a gunman opened fire on the embassy, wounding the guard. It’s hard to imagine what he hoped to achieve.

Austro-Hungarian quarter

Of course, getting there had put me in good mood, despite leaving Mostar under gloomy skies and from a cavernous bus station. Although I’m a big train fan, I had passed on the train ride between Mostar and Sarajevo partly because the train left uncomfortably early, and partly because I didn’t want tunnels obscuring the views. And the views as we followed the Nereva river valley through the mountains were indeed impressive.

The Turkish quarter, from one of the surrounding hills

Then, I got a very warm welcome at my hotel, the Safir, especially when I showed the young woman on the front desk the Fodor’s trip report which had led me to choose it. (True, I wasn’t quite as pleased with the hotel myself, as I explained on tripadvisor.) But I think I would have fallen for Sarajevo anyway. For all three Sarajevos, that is: the Ottoman quarter with its pedestrian streets and quaint shops, the Austro-Hungarian quarter further west, with its stately buildings, and even the newer section still further west towards the airport and “sniper’s alley” where people daily courted death during the siege.

With the notable exception of the National Library, still being rebuilt, fewer bombed out buildings were in-your-face reminders than in Mostar, and I saw few “Sarajevan roses” – star-shaped shell craters in the streets, painted red – but the war was still very much a presence. Just eight years after the city hosted the Winter Olympics, Serbian regiments of the encircling Yugoslav army attacked the city and started a siege that lasted close to four years. “Siege” is almost too tame a word for the shelling which resulted in over 10,500 deaths and 50,000 injuries, and targeted, besides the irreplacable contents of the National Library, the Winter Olympics’ venues and even hospitals.

The Austro-Hungarian section

I took a tour that included a visit to the 800 meter tunnel under the airport runway that had kept a vital trickle of supplies coming into the city. I spent a sobering hour in the History Museum. I even ate lunch in the Holiday Inn, which was the home of the foreign journalists during the siege, and therefore largely spared attack. And I marveled both at the endurance of the inhabitants, and the viciousness of the attackers, who had so recently been citizens of the same country. I also wondered why it had taken so long for the rest of the world to try to stop it.

Sarajevo could have been depressing, just one more chapter in the dark history of human warfare. Instead, the spirit of the Sarajevans, their refusal to surrender, was inspiring. Here were people, used to a comfortable, 20th-century, urban life, suddenly back in the Dark Ages, living in the basements of bombed out buildings, risking death every time they ventured out to find food, fuel and water. The museum shows how they improvised and made do, how teachers and doctors and nurses continued their work. The tour shows the odds against them, the damage the town suffered, but also how they kept fighting.

Near the end of the tour, I asked the guide, a man who spent many nights camped in the winter snow on the one mountainside the Sarajevans held, defending his city, what relations were like today between Serbia and Bosnia. He replied that they weren’t fighting. In the Balkans, perhaps that’s as good as it gets.

Entrance to the tunnel

Mostar's rebuilt bridge

October 21-23, 2011: I suspect that the Balkan department is where Professors of History send their enemies, that they may be driven mad. While I did some rudimentary research on Balkan history (I recommend Rebecca West’s “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon” and Robert Kaplan’s “Balkan Ghosts“) I don’t pretend to an understanding. The shortest and simplest outline I can manage goes as follows: in the beginning there were Illyrians and Thracians, influenced by the Greeks. The Romans ruled for a while, and after the Empire fell the area was overrun by Slavs from the Caucasus. In the west the Slavs became Croats – coastal and Catholic – and in the east they became Serbs – inland and Orthodox. After the Ottomans took over from the Byzantines, some communities converted to Islam. The descendents of the converts are known as Bosniaks in what is now Bosnia.

When I was growing up (right after WWII, a shockingly long time ago) the comforting mantra about the Holocaust was “never again”. Yet, just fifty years later, ethnic cleansing was once again disfiguring Europe, along with rape camps, and the almost medieval siege and bombardment of cities like Dubrovnik, and of Mostar and Sarajevo, where I was headed next. Mostar was a particularly sad case. After the Croats and the Bosniaks collaborated to defeat the invading Serbs, the Croats turned on the Bosniaks, bombarding their section of the city and eventually destroying the beautiful and historic bridge that was its symbol. (Not that I want to suggest that any one side was noticeably better-behaved than any other.)

There are a lot of graves in Mostar with the same end date

On my last visit to the Balkans I had seen war damage in Croatia, although not in Slovenia, which was able to leave the Yugoslav federation largely unscathed. This time I had seen none in Macedonia, which had left with no fighting at all, or in Montenegro, which had been responsible for the seige of Dubrovnik, but seemed to have escaped damage itself. Bosnia was another matter. The iconic bridge in Mostar had been rebuilt in as faithful a reconstruction as possible (there’s an excellent museum devoted to the bridge), and buildings along the river front have also been restored. But wander a little away from the river, and damaged buildings and even streets are not hard to find, and the place still feels like a divided city.

Mostar and its bridge seem to be well-established on the tourist circuit, although while I had to dodge groups near the bridge, at least during the day, I saw no other tourists further afield. Based on a photo on the town’s tourist literature I trekked out to the Partisan Memorial, built during the Communist era to honor WWII guerilla fighters. Good thing I enjoyed the walk, as the memorial was in a horrible state of neglect. It must have been impressive in its day, but instead of the graves and tombstones visible in the photograph I had seen, it was littered with beer bottles and broken glass. I did encounter three young men there, one of whom managed a successful climb up the central relief. That made a better photograph than the memorial.

I was still fighting my Albanian cold (flu?) and Mostar was a pleasant enough place to wander around, drink coffee by the river or in the rather posh Bristol hotel, and take lots of photographs of the bridge. I walked through souvenir central, cobbled Kujundziluk, several times, but felt no impulse to buy anything. I preferred mosque-lined Brace Fejica, further north. My hotel, the Kriva Cuprija, was well-located along a side stream, but its restaurant was remarkably expensive (partly because of extra charges for bread, potatoes, service, etc) and I didn’t appreciate being constantly reminded to write a tripadvisor review.

Souvenir street

Dubrovnik, well-defended from the sea

My arrival in Dubrovnik had been a lot drier, but not a lot more auspicious. I navigated the bus station easily enough – ATM, money changer, toilet, ticket to Mostar, ticket into town – but then got off the bus one stop too soon. Worse, I arrived at the Pile Gate into the old town at the same time as another flood – this one of people. A rope divided those entering from those leaving, and I actually had to queue to get into town. Eventually I managed to extricate myself from the mob milling around inside the gate and once I’d made it up the stairs past the first two side streets I was on my own.

The view from outside my apartment

Things had indeed grown much worse since my first visit in 2004. Then I had slept out of the old town on the Lapad peninsula, and I had only noticed cruse ship people one lunch-time, when the couple at the next table had wanted to pay with euros. Now, even in October, there are days when 9,000 passengers – 9,000! – descend on the town on the same day. Under this assault, any authenticity that had remained in 2004 has pretty much vanished. All the level ground, and the first two streets up the hill are given over to shops and cafes. Higher up, locals still live, but rent out rooms. You can’t even buy groceries in the old town, the nearest place is a cramped store a short walk away that no-one would visit for serious food shopping.

The in-town end of the Stradun

It’s true that on my second day, with no cruse ships in port, the emptier streets felt a little eerie, but that was because of the lack of locals. I did appreciate having the walls almost entirely to myself, when I went up late in the afternoon, but I didn’t appreciate the steep price increase since my last visit. I noticed that the whole town had been further prettied up – in 2004 you could still distinguish the houses that had survived the 1991 siege and bombardment by their weathered roofs, but now all were uniformly new.

The Stradun on a quiet day

The daily influx of visitors who eat only one, or maybe two, meals had had a bad effect on some of the restaurants. One of the most expensive meals of my whole trip, at Wanda, turned out to be one of the worst. The next day I listened to my landlady and ate much better food at the family-run Spaghetteria Toni, even though I’m not that fond of Italian food. My best meal in town, though, was shrimp at a cheap and cheerful little place tucked down a side street opposite the cathedral.

The old port (not the cruise ship dock)

The town is still, of course, marvelously pretty, and the marble streets a delight to explore. It would be a shame to miss it, and to miss the approach along the coast – my bus ride north from Kotor featured mile after mile of lovely scenery. But do try to avoid the busiest days. The Port Authority publishes a handy list of expected arrivals which should allow land-based visitors to avoid the most crowded days. As with Venice, though, the only thing that will really help is a limit on the number of passengers per day. But that would affect profits…

Some of the stonework was lovely

Kotor's main square

I had intended to day-trip by bus to Perast and Risan, and even entertained thoughts of climbing the 1,350 steps that led up along the extended town walls to the fortifications perched nearly 4,000 feet above the harbor. But not with a cough, a runny nose, and no energy. I settled for sipping coffee, either in one of the outdoor cafes in the town, or in the mall, and exploring the maze of streets inside the walls. I got lost a lot, but that was fine. The place was small enough that I didn’t stay lost for long.

I also spent a little time outside the walls, by the harbor. The bulk of Kotor’s tourists arrive on day trips from Dubrovnik, but some arrive on the smaller cruise ships. A rather grubby looking OAT boat was in the harbor both days, but the beautiful Sea Cloud II, masts rising high above her decks, seemed only to stay a couple of hours before disappearing again.

Town walls

Besides the cold, I had a nasty heat rash on both legs. I put this down to the very, very cheap Dove soap I had bought in Albania not being Dove soap at all. Then, as all bad things are supposed to come in threes, I found that the bus I wanted to take to Trebinje in Bosnia only ran on the weekends. It seemed I had no choice but to reach Bosnia via Dubrovnik in Croatia. Since I had visited Dubrovnik in 2004, and all the reports said that it had just gotten more and more touristy since, I wasn’t very enthusiastic about going back. And even then, the buses to Dubrovnik didn’t run every day.

I cut a day from Kotor, bought a ticket to Dubrovnik, and arranged to stay in a small apartment in the old town.

Sea Cloud II

The island, from the beach

I had no thoughts of staying on the island itself, I’d stay in the new village on the mainland, and enjoy looking at the forbidden territory offshore. It had occurred to me that I might splurge on a meal there, but fortunately I couldn’t indulge this extravagant impulse as the hotel had closed for the season the weekend before. In fact it seemed that about everywhere in Sveti Stefan aside from the Vila Drago and a tiny village store had closed as well. And the Villa would close the next week.

The island, from my balcony

I had reserved room five at the Vila, which meant I had two balconies, one looking along the coast towards Budva, and one looking directly at the island. And the island, all grey stone and red tiles, its church spire rising among sentinel cypress trees at the highest point, was drop-dead gorgeous. Just too picturesque. I figured I had better views on the shore looking at the island, than I would have done on the island itself. And as an extra bonus for arriving at the dead end of the season, the beaches were deserted. In season, I heard, you had to pay anything from 50 to 125 euros for a beach chair and umbrella. That’s if the beach in question wasn’t off limits to the hoi polloi altogether.

It’s true that the weather could have been better, and I could have been feeling better. Even with the sun shining, it was chilly, and the wind made eating outdoors problematic. Plus, I seemed to have caught a cold, and the remedy that had worked in Serbia was of no help here. But this was a great place to sit around admiring the view, and I did manage a hike up the coast to the next village, finding beautiful views round every headland.

On shore

Fortunately, the Vila Drago provided good food as well as good rooms, as I ate all my meals there. Indeed, the daily fish special was far more food than I could eat. I caught the bus back to Budva after two nights very satisfied with my visit, and with absolutely no need to go back.

Budva's old town

The border crossing went quickly, and Montenegro looked a bit better cared for than Albania, but here in the south still quite empty. I only saw the outskirts of Ulcinj, as a bus was leaving for Budva just 15 minutes after I arrived. Ulcinj looked small and quiet, whereas Bar looked busy and industrial, and I was glad to keep going to Budva, spreading around a pretty bay and up a hillside. I followed the Lonely Planet map from the bus station to the Kangaroo Hotel, where I rejected the first room, with the smelly bathroom I had read about on tripavisor, and settled happily into the second, with a little balcony.

Outside the walls

I spent the afternoon a fair trek from the Kangaroo at Budva’s tourist central, the walled old town. After my time in Albania, where I had encountered a bare handful of independents, plus a couple of bus tours at Butrint, Budva came as a bit of a shock. It might be the tail end of the season, but there were still more tourists than I had seen in a while strolling the narrow marble streets of the old town. Given the number of souvenir shops and the size of some of the cafes, it was clear that in season the place expected to be mobbed.

The library in the museum

I enjoyed the views from the walls, I admired the old buildings, and I had a lovely time in the library in the museum, with its extensive collection of books on the Balkans. After an expensive coffee in one of the cafes on the pebbly beach beyond the walls I walked around the nearby headland admiring the strata lines. On the way back I met an Austrian woman who said she visited the town every year and was thinking of buying property. I, on the other hand, would prefer to move to Austria…

With the Austrian I visited the Orthodox church and enjoyed its interesting iconostasis, and then she found the T.I. for me. I had searched for it in vain, and I was glad to be able to pick up the timetable for the bus I would need in the morning. She also recommended a seaside restaurant for dinner, but the weather had turned cold and windy, and I chose to eat at the Kangaroo instead.

Shkodra

Albania was certainly cheaper than its neighbors, and I decided to treat myself to a multi-starred hotel for my last nights in the country. I picked the Europa Grand over the Colosseo based on its extra star and the pictures on its web site, but I nearly left when the front desk initially refused to match the website rate. I laughed a little when I saw my room, all black wood and red brocade, heavily trimmed with gold, with a large black and white bathroom featuring a glittery sink. Quite a change from my usual digs. (Later I found a shortage of both light and hot water, that the AC was hopelessly feeble, and that wifi only worked in the lobby.)

The ride from Tirana had been a bit more interesting than the ride to Tirana, mostly because of the mountains visible to the east, although the foreground remained scruffy. The town itself wasn’t very interesting, though, and I was unable to take the ferry ride I had hoped for on Lake Koman. The young woman in the little T.I kiosk was very helpful – just like the T.I. people in Tirana – but at that time of year there was only one ferry a day. I could travel east, but not get back west.

Rozafa Fortress

I did take a taxi out to the Rozafa fortress, where there were some good views (and a few local couples making out), but photos of a nearby Ottoman-era bridge were marred by construction work and lack of water. My attempt to visit the Marubi Permanent Photo Collection was no more successful than my attempt to visit the Medieval Arts Museum in my first Albanian stop, Korca. However, the two women students I had asked for directions (they were actually as clueless as I was) tried so hard to be helpful that after we finally found the museum entrance (down an alley behind an apartment building) and saw that it was closed, I invited them for coffee. They had very little English and I had no Albanian, but they were fascinated by my phrase book. I did establish that one was a Muslim (no veil) and one a Catholic, and that neither of them would think of having a boyfriend.

Shkodra seemed well supplied with students: my last night in town a large group took over the rooftop bar for an early evening event. The music reverberated through the hotel, but fortunately ended around 7:00. As I watched the students leave I marveled at the shortness of the girls’ skirts – we could have been back in the 60s, when I wore mini skirts myself….

I did see a couple of women on the street in full black burkhas, and the two mosques did seem to compete for how long and loud their call to prayer could be, but it’s not clear how much religious observance has recovered from its ruthless supression under Hoxha. Cafe culture, on the other hand, was as popular as in the other Balkan countries.

Mes bridge