Bosnia, Hungary, Turkey, Kosovo, and Macedonia

These photos are from the stops that I made on the same trip as Perspectives, which I cover in its own gallery.

After Perspectives, I flew very cheaply to Istanbul, then from there to Cappadocia. I really got lucky with this trip. I came at the perfect time: the weather was great, everything was green and in bloom, and the city felt alive. Cappadocia was everything people said it would be. Istanbul could never be everything people say it is (not so sure about “east meets west”), but it was really great. I stayed in a super crappy hostel and had a great time.

After Cappadocia, I flew even more cheaply to Kosovo, where I mostly hung out with some Erasmus exchange students for a few days and took buses around the country, seeing the sights. I liked it enough to end up going back.

Then I took an overnight bus (big mistake) to Kotor, Macedonia, an absolutely beautiful town with a party-ish atmosphere that just didn’t match the serene scenery. I hiked up to the fortress, took a ferry out to an island, and appreciated the natural and human-made beauty of the place. Then I moved on.

I took a much more humane bus to Mostar, Bosnia, which was incredibly gorgeous but still heavily war-scarred. The old bridge, which was intentionally destroyed during the war and rebuilt in 2004, was the best part.

From Mostar I headed toward Sarajevo, with a stop to explore Tito’s bunker in the mountains, which was well worth the stop. A nuclear bunkers, listening devices, underground conference rooms — what’s not to love?

Then Sarajevo. The weather was cloudy but still bright while I was there, and it gave the place this genuinely magical feeling, with sunbeams streaming down onto red-roofed buildings sprawling across the city’s hills and valleys. I really loved it. The historic center was neat, and I went on a tour of sites from the 1984 Olympics that were later repurposed as theaters of war. The siege ended less than thirty years ago. Almost every building in the city center is pockmarked by bullets.

After Sarajevo, a short stop in Budapest to connect to my flight home. It was OK, but I wasn’t enchanted. A little too much partying in the hollowed-out remains of synagogues for my taste.

And then home.