Backpacking around Europe is a right of passage for many (privileged) young travelers who have just finished their university degrees. Emmett and I were no exception to this cliched method of travel, and set out months after he’d completed his degree and a year after I’d completed mine. In case you didn’t already know, we are the type of people who pride ourselves on being just a little bit different. Unconventional, if you will. (I mean, how many people do you know decide to live in an old school bus?) Therefore, when it came to our European backpacking adventure, we decided to pick a relatively unconventional route. We began our trip in Iceland, flew to Norway, and then took trains all the way from Norway to eventually end up in Zagreb, Croatia. We skipped most of Western Europe entirely, only briefly visiting the Netherlands and Germany as we went from Scandinavia to Eastern Europe. It was an incredible trip and cemented our mutual desire to continue to explore the world… indefinitely. Oh yeah, and did I mention that even though our trip took place in 2014, which was well into the age of smartphones as travel tools, we managed to get through our while trip without the use of one? Like I said, we pride ourselves on being “weirdos.”

Last but not least, most of our journey wouldn’t have been possible without the incredibly prevalent and well-kept trains of Europe. We had fifteen day/two-month Eurail passes that took us all the way from Arctic Norway to Prague. After that, we just booked cheap buses on the fly at local bus stations as we made our way south to the Balkans.

Stop One: Iceland

Reykjavik & the Golden Circle

Gullfoss in Iceland, as seen from a viewing platform above the Falls.

Emmett and I spent four days exploring the greater Reykjavik area while basing ourselves out of a small rented tent at the city center campground. Iceland is expensive y’all! Thus we took advantage of every budget-friendly activity that we could. We slept in the airport after our flight into Iceland and before our flight out of the country as well. Lucky for us, our visit coincided with Menningarnott - a celebratory day that occurs once a year as a salute to Icelandic culture. During Meningarnott, museum admissions are free, there are free concerts, bus rides are free... You name it and it’s probably free. We took a free bus ride to the base of Mount Esja outside of Reykjavik, where we were afforded great views of the city as we climbed. We also visited the National Gallery of Art and even participated in video recording for a future exhibit. On our last full day, we visited a very affordable hot springs pool complex called Lagaurdaslag. The hot pools were mostly occupied by native Icelanders and we felt like we’d been let in on a local secret. After Lagaurdaslag, we took a bus tour around the Golden Circle on a drizzly afternoon. Emmett and I got to see geysers, thermal pools, Thingvellir National Park, and the magnificent Golden Falls (Gulfoss). Last but not least, we visited the famous (and overpriced) Blue Lagoon for a few hours on the way to the airport.

For more pictures and details on our time in REykjavik, check out this post.

Stop Two: Norway

Arctic Norway

The town of Reine as seen from our ferry to Bunesfjord.

After Iceland, we flew to Bodø, Norway which is a truly magical city north of the Arctic Circle. Emmett and I spent two full days in the Southern end of the Lofoten Archipelago, where we went on the most stunning day hike of our lives (Helvetestinden). After that, we returned to Bodø for a Couchsurfing stay that we had booked in advance with our hosts. Our hosts treated us unbelievably well. They took us to an international art & architecture festival called SALT, gave us a tour of the beautiful landscapes around the city, and we even saw the Northern Lights twice while there. We were more than blown away, and it was one of the best parts of our entire trip. Our hosts truly spoiled us and we’ll never forget our week in the Arctic.

For more on our trip to arctic norway (including more pictures from lofoten), check out this post.

Trondheim & Bergen

Me being dorky next to Trondheim’s iconic riverfront storehouses.

After our unbelievable first week in the country, we ventured down Norway’s coast to Bergen. We spent one day in Trondheim on our way, exploring the picturesque downtown and visiting a historic fort.

We arrived in Bergen on a Thursday evening and walked around the beautiful harbor-front. Unfortunately, this visit was an occasion on which our spontaneous nature came to bite us in the butt. We ended up having to immediately depart Bergen the next morning as a food festival was starting that weekend and all local rooms were completely booked. We tried desperately to see as much as we could in our 12 hour visit before reluctantly boarding a train to Oslo. In the end, though we were slightly disappointed to be unable to stay, we didn’t mind too much. Like a lot of our trip to come, half the fun was just deciding to go somewhere new and we knew going in that occasionally our lack of planning would thwart us. As it did. Not only that, but we ultimately saved money because even hostel dorm beds in Norway are exorbitantly expensive. At least we got to experience the world-famous train ride from Bergen to Oslo as we left.

Emmett being awed by the sunset over Bergen on our one and only night in town.

Stop Three: Sweden

Stockholm

I’m proud of this shot I took on the bridge near Skeppsholmen.

After pulling an all-nighter in Oslo at the train station, we took yet another train all the way to Stockholm. The two of us stayed at two very unique and distinctive hostels during our time in Sweden’s capital city. First we stayed at Langholmen Hostel which is located in a former prison. Next up, we stayed at Skeppsholmen Hostel which features dorm rooms on an old sailboat docked permanently in the water. Our trip to Stockholm was very leisurely, we took a few days to just walk around the city, exploring Old and New Stockholm as we went. We also visited the Fotografiska - Stockholm’s Photography Museum - and had way too much fun looking at award-winning art and playing in their photobooth.

See? We had way too much fun with the Fotografiska photobooth.

Me on a walk through Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s Old Town.

Landsort

We loved Stockholm proper, but wanted to see more of the archipelago. I’m not sure how exactly, but we ultimately ended up deciding to spend two days on Landsort. Landsort is a tiny island at the end of Stockholm’s archipelago. In fact, it’s name literally translates to something like “Land’s End.” It is a popular summer destination for traveling Swedes but is not particularly well known among international travelers. Not only that, but it is essentially shut down after August. We emailed the Youth Hostel on island before arriving and luckily they were willing to take us in off-season. We ended up having the entire place to ourselves - and at times, it felt like we had the entire island to ourselves as well. We only saw a few Landsort residents during our two day stay exploring this lovely little rocky island. The hostel is still one of our favorites to this day - mostly because of the picturesque location, though the facilities were top notch as well.

Emmett exploring one of the many abandoned WWII era forts on Landsort.

Gothenburg

Gothenburg is beautiful and expensive. Emmett and I took a few days there mostly just to rest after a lot of bouncing around. The majority of our stay was comprised of eating Swedish candy and baked goods. We did also squeeze in visits to Skansen Kronan, the Gothenburg Botanical Gardens, and the very lovely Slottsskogen park. We were pleased to be able to spend a few extra days somewhere - taking it easy - versus just a quick two day stay with a lot of exploring packed in all at once. Plus we were trying to stay on budget. (Always a challenge in Scandinavia). Our hostel beds were $50 USD a night each - which was adding up alarmingly quickly. Someday, we would both love to go to back to Gothenburg with a bit more money and go see the archipelago beyond the city.

One of our favorite churches we visited in Scandinavia - Oscar Fredrik Church.

I really enjoyed the display of dahlias at Gothenburg Botanic Gardens.

Karlshamn

We spent a very idyllic five days in Southern Sweden near the town of Karlshamn on a help exchange, doing garden maintenance and some babysitting. Mostly though, we fell further in love with Swedish life as we experienced it through the eyes of our hosts U & T. I won’t say too much more out of respect for their privacy. Let’s just say that a seaside Swedish farmhouse is some sort of paradise.

Stop Four: Denmark

Copenhagen

We weren’t in Copenhagen for very long but we definitely made the most of our two days there. The first day was a walking exploration of Copenhagen sights that could be seen for free. (In case you couldn’t already tell, trying to see as much of a place as we could for free & on foot was a big theme of the Scandinavian leg of our trip). We also explored the National Gallery of Denmark, the Kastellet fort, and got a brief peek at the underwhelming Little Mermaid statue.

The second day in Copenhagen included a bit more exploring and then an evening out with some other travelers that we met through Couchsurfing’s meetup section. We met up at our host’s apartment and then set out for Christiania, the free state in the center of Copenhagen. Never heard of Christiania? An old military base was taken over by squatters and eventually became it’s own independent territory within Copenhagen. Christiania has a large alternative and bohemian scene and has long been regarded the hippie capital of Denmark. Also, importantly for our story, marijuana is legal within Christiania’s bounds. Enter Emmett and I trying marijuana edibles for the first time. Our poison of choice were the classic “space cakes” that are most often associated with Amsterdam. We entered Christiania’s dimly lit and unfriendly Green Light District. Another American traveler in our group helped us navigate the camouflaged booths and we bought one cake each from a seller wearing a ski mask. We ingested our cakes and then joined the rest of our crew at a very fun concert. What band played that night? I don’t know. What concert venue did we visit? I also don’t know. It wasn’t very long before we were both as high as kites. The rest of the night is a series of flashes in my memory. Grooving with the crew of other tourists, visiting a bar and feeling like I couldn’t find words (but could definitely laugh idiotically to myself), returning to our dorm by Emmett’s miraculously strong sense of direction, being convinced alternately that either Emmett was dying or I was dying… It was a time.

Photo via Unsplash. This is the only photo in this post that’s not mine. Thought it might be good to have a filler in this section about getting high in Christiania.

If you have ever decided to dabble with edibles yourself, you may have caught our mistake. As complete amateurs, we would have been better off splitting a space cake versus each having one of our own. I think we both may have enjoyed ourselves more if that had been the case. Instead, I was nearly too high to function after a point that night. I don’t necessarily regret it per se, but I would probably ingest less weed-laced cake if I had to do it again. If you ever find yourself a newbie to marijuana tourism the way that we were, take it easy on yourself. Eat less than a full cake or brownie. And give it time, it won’t kick in for a little while.

Fejo

Fejø Church, which dates back to the 1600s.

After Copenhagen, we were ready to immerse ourselves in a tamer version of Danish life. We ended up doing a help exchange on Fejø, a small island southwest of Copenhagen. Most well-known for being Copenhagen’s biggest apple producer, Fejø is a charming and pastoral island. Outside of Summer holidays when it’s a popular vacation getaway for Danes, Fejø is a very quiet place to be. We stayed with a wonderful couple, Peter and Anna-Pia, who treated us incredibly well. Along with a number of other volunteers who came and went, we honestly felt like one big happy family during our two-and-a-half week stay. We baked bread together, learned all sorts of new recipes, drank hard cider, biked the entire island, and learned a lot about permaculture homesteading.

This stay on Fejø would lead us to realize later that we wanted our future to include our own permaculture homestead. A year later, we took a Permaculture certification course and we haven’t looked back on our homesteading future goals since.

Emmett and another volunteer, Gabe, cycle on Fejø.

Emmett and I in the nasturtium patch on the farm.

We were also lucky enough to be on Fejø for Æblets dag (pronounced Ay-blitz-dog) or Apple Day - a large festival held on Fejø that celebrates the island’s apple production. We drank cider, ate our fair share of apple baked goods, thrifted for sweaters, and Emmett even joined in a music group for the day. It was the perfect way to celebrate the onset of Fall in Denmark. If for some reason you ever find yourself in Denmark in mid-September, I definitely recommend you celebrate Æblets dag with the rest of Fejø.

Each Æblets dag features a unique apple mosaic like this one.

Stop Five: The Netherlands

Amsterdam and Nijmegen

Amsterdam Central Station on a rainy October morning.

Our trip to the Netherlands ended up being a mix of our normal city exploring and an opportunity to re-visit with friends we’d met on other travels. When we first arrived in Amsterdam, we spent time with our friend Eros who had been one of our travel companions in Guizhou province, China. He had just begun his Master’s program in Mathematics at University of Amsterdam. A few days later, we reunited with my friend Nikki, a Dutch native, who I had traveled with in Central America the year before. We visited her in her university town of Nijmegen for an evening of drinks and catch up.

Besides visiting with friends, our explorations of Amsterdam mostly included wandering the canals and eating a lot of Dutch food. Dutch fries with mayo, stroopwafels, poffertjes, cheese - we did all the vegetarian essentials. Unlike many young backpackers, we did not visit any of the infamous coffee shops. (We felt we’d had our fill of marijuana tourism during our night in Christiania just a few weeks prior). We did make a visit to the Van Gogh museum and perused Albert Cuyp market for a few leisurely hours.

Stop Six: Germany

Berlin

Berlin was probably one of the European cities Emmett and I were most excited to visit beforehand. And Berlin did not disappoint. A few hours after arriving, we checked out the Berlin Wall, grabbed some halloumi wraps from a Turkish takeaway in Kreuzberg, and walked around the Brandenburg Gate and other monuments lit up for the Festival of Light. The next few days, we did even more walking around than usual. We window shopped at some very cool record stores and vintage shops. - Luckily, our already over-stuffed backpacks kept us from blowing our budget in each of the shops we visited. We also tried some vegan versions of famous German food - currywurst and schnitzel - at Yellow Sunshine in Kreuzberg. On our last day in the city, we took a free Alternative Berlin Tour around the city, during which we learned about graffiti artists, squatters dens, and other unconventional aspects of Berlin’s history.

Festival of Lights at the Brandenburg Gate.

I am very intrepid and definitely always act natural around graffiti.

Munich Pt. 1

It was super rainy - all I got photo-wise of our Munich tour was this not-so-great pic of Emmett at Marienplatz. (He liked the dragon).

After spending a long, cold night at Berlin’s central train station, we arrived in Munich early. We already planned to return to Munich later after spending a few days in smaller Bavarian cities. Thus, we spent our one day in Munich on a Sandeman’s Free Walking Tour of the city. Our guide was an Aussie transplant with a great sense of humor who kept our spirits up on the very rainy tour. We hit all of the city’s central highlights and saw a lot of odd pigeons.

Füssen & Schwangau

We knew that we didn’t want to leave Germany without seeing some castles, so we ended up picking arguably the most famous and most photogenic castle of all: Neuschwanstein. We stayed in a hostel in nearby Fussen, an incredibly delightful Bavarian village lined with pastel buildings (see photo above). On our first day in the area, it rained profusely. We took a tour of Hohenschwangau castle first and then Neuschwanstein second. We did not get many pictures of Neuschwanstein’s most famous angles that day because a) the visibility was incredibly poor and b) the cold wet killed our camera. The next day, however, we went back to Schwangau and took a few pictures of the castle’s exterior in clearer weather. We then hiked back to Fussen from Schwangau along the smaller alpine lakes between the two villages.

Pleased to be at Hohenscgwangau with Neuschwanstein photobombing in the background.

I really dug the views of Neuschwanstein from the Alps. (Who wouldn’t. though?)

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Looking back on the Bavarian Alps from the funicular.

My cousins lived in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on the U.S. Air Force base when they were teenagers. Growing up, I can remember getting postcards from them and hearing a lot about the charms of Bavaria. Thus, I figured I ought to check it out for myself. When in Bavaria and all. We spent one full day in the area - most of it on top of Germany at it’s highest peak: Zugspitze. Our day passes were a bit pricey but the views of the Alps made it more than worth it.

For more on our trip to Zugspitze, check out this post here.

On top of Zugspitze in our matching Uniqlo jackets.

Munich Pt. 2

Out of respect, this was the only photo I took that day.

On our return to Munich, we spent one very somber and informative day walking around Dachau; the memorial site and concentration camp. 32,000 documented deaths occurred at Dachau Concentration Camp and it was almost like you could feel it in the air when you walked through the gates. Emmett and I spent a lot of our time at Dachau in tears - but it was more than worth it to become more aware of the atrocities of the Nazi regime.

Stop Seven: Austria

Salzburg

As a child, I absolutely adored The Sound of Music. It was my maternal grandmother’s favorite movie and I loved to re-watch it on childhood visits to Virginia. Thus, Salzburg was a natural stop on our European rail adventure. Emmett and I did not want to shell out for an official tour, so we did a low-key one of our own by visiting the Mirabell Gardens and Nonnberg Abbey. As per our custom, we walked all over the city from our hostel. We started with Kapuzinerkloster, then Nonnberg & old town Salzburg, Mirabell Gardens, and then Hohensalzburg fortress & castle. We took breaks for sweets - of course! We tried the Salzburg Nockerl, Mozartkugel, and the famous Sacher Torte. All three definitely lived up to the hype - do try them when/if you are presented with the opportunity.

Vienna

Our Eurail pass was about to expire with two more journeys still un-stamped. Thus, we hurried onto Vienna after just one full day in Salzburg. Vienna was all about the culture for us. We did a little of our usual exploring on foot and then bought tickets to see a film at Viennale - Vienna’s International Film Festival. The film in question was a documentary called The Iron Ministry about what it’s like to experience Chinese trains. Emmett and I thoroughly enjoyed it and left feeling nostalgic for our own train rides in Guizhou province just a few months before. The two of us also made it to a free performance of the Viennese orchestra, which brought Emmett back to his classical roots (he did concert choir all throughout middle school, high school, and college).

Our Viennale tickets to see Iron Ministry.

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Stop Eight: Czech Republic

Prague

At this point, Emmett and I were still hustling to fill up our Eurail pass before it’s expiration date. Our very last stamped ride took us from Vienna to Prague just in time for October’s end. We spent our first full day in Prague in our hostel because I came down with a violent 24 hour stomach flu. Then, the very next day, we explored a large chunk of the beautiful older parts of the city and our camera died COMPLETELY after we’d taken maybe 100 pictures that we loved. The part of the camera that saved files was somehow damaged and started corrupting and deleting each saved image on our memory card. Our second evening in Prague became a hunt for a camera shop where we hoped to find a cheaper replacement for our beloved DSLR. We settled on the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS which took decidedly lower quality images but had an incredible zoom function. We then rushed around and tried to take a few photos of parts of the city we’d already seen.

The obligatory “we visited Prague” photo.

On our third and final day in Prague, we took two Sandeman’s Free Walking Tours of Prague hosted by the same tour guide, a very congenial and knowledgeable local guy. (Reminder to self: check his name in my journal from Prague next time I visit my parent’s house). The first tour was of Prague central and the second was of Prague Castle. We got the quintessential tourist pic above Prague and saw a number of the most famous sights in the city. I highly recommend Sandeman’s tours if you only have a limited time to visit a location. It’s a good way to see the greatest hits of a city.

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Stop Nine: Slovakia

Bratislava

Bratislava is a city that we knew absolutely nothing about prior to our trip to Europe. We knew we wanted to visit Prague and Budapest and so, on a whim, we decided to stop in Bratislava in between the two. Boy are we glad we did! Emmett and I ended up falling in love with Slovakia’s capital over our three days there. We visited the city’s Old Town and Castle on our first day and then bussed out of town to the Devín Castle ruins on our second day. We also ate our fill in sheep’s cheese which quickly became our new favorite snack during our time in Bratislava. 10/10, we can’t wait to return and see a lot more of this underrated country.

Me & the famous UFO Bridge in Bratislava.

The ruins of Devin Castle outside of Bratislava.

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Stop Ten: Hungary

Budapest

Our last night in Bratislava had been spent washing everything we owned on high heat because we had gradually found ourselves in the midst of a bedbug infestation. I had dozens of bites on every limb and even a few on my face. In Budapest, I was absolutely miserably itchy and felt like I also looked as awful as I felt due to my skin being covered in bedbug bites. I wanted to hide myself away. Emmett and I did manage to make it out into the city for a bit - we wandered around the Central Market Budapest, which is an incredible enclosed market featuring food and (slightly overpriced) Hungarian souvenirs. We also ventured to the Budapest palace grounds and saw everything we could without paying for a tour. I would love to revisit Budapest in the future when I’m in better spirits. Bedbugs are a serious downer, especially when your stuff somehow becomes infested.

Interior of the Budapest Great Market Hall. Every city needs one of these.

This photo pretty much perfectly sums up how miserable I felt in Budapest. Thanks, bedbugs.

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Stop Eleven: Croatia

Pula

After one quick overnight stay in Zagreb, Emmett and I set off for our first Croatian destination: Pula. Pula is on the often-overlooked-by-Westerners Istrian peninsula of Croatia. It is home to olive groves, truffles, beautiful beaches, and an astounding amount of in-tact ancient Roman architecture. We went to Pula solely thanks to a recommendation from another traveler and had no idea what to expect. We booked bus tickets to go after doing absolutely zero research and then found ourselves blown away by this beautiful seaside city. We loved Pula so much that we ended up sticking around for about five days, taking it easy and seeing as much of the city as we could (on foot, of course). We also took a daytrip to nearby Brijuni National Park, which was full of even more ancient ruins. Everything about Pula and Istria is wonderful but I think the breathtaking, well-preserved Roman amphitheater in Pula is one of the most impressive examples of architecture that I have ever seen personally.

Me and the maze-like ruins of the Byzantine castrum in Brijuni National Park.

Dubrovnik

Sticking to our spontaneous nature, we decided to leave Pula and take a ten hour overnight bus directly to Dubrovnik - all the way at Croatia’s opposite end. We woke up to views of the unbelievably gorgeous Dalmatian coast as we briefly passed through a tiny strip of Bosnia and then into Dubrovnik. What is there to say about Dubrovnik that hasn’t already been said by countless travel sites and books? It is arguably the most famous tourist destination in Croatia - if not all of the Balkans. The incredibly well-preserved seaside fortress of Dubrovnik’s Old Town was also featured in Game of Thrones as King’s Landing. Since then, Dubrovnik has become an oft-overcrowded place to visit. But it is overcrowded for a reason - it is an absolutely incomparable place to visit. It truly feels like walking through some sort of fantasy fairy tale setting. Though we stayed a decent walk’s distance away, Emmett and I spent two full days in Dubrovnik’s Old Town. On our first we explored virtually every single nook and cranny, alleyway, and stone dock that we could find. It was like being transported back hundreds of years and then exploring the most delightful maze of homes and buildings. There was always a surprise around the corner - whether it was cute cats, a charming alley covered in bright bougainvillea flowers, an old church, or an adorable restaurant - we couldn’t stop walking around and soaking it up.

I was splashed by a wave on this hidden rock dock we stumbled upon as we wandered Dubrovnik’s passageways.

On our second full day in Dubrovnik, the forecast called for rain. Emmett and I didn’t let that stop us from our plan to explore the city walls of Old Town so that we could see the bewitching alleyways from above. I don’t know if it was the rain or the fact that it was mid-November, but either way we were incredibly fortunate to encounter only about 4 other people total as we leisurely walked the walls above Old Town. Our day was nearly as magical as the one before and worth every penny of the entrance fee.

We were happy to be above Dubrovnik on a grey November day.

For more on everything we loved about our trip to Croatia, check out this post here.

Split

Emmett and I actually visited Split after our trip to Bosnia & Herzegovina but for organizational purposes, I want to put all of our Croatian stops together. Anyway, Split is yet another amazingly preserved ancient city on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. Split’s Old Town features Diocletian’s Palace, a Roman palace founded in the 300s. (Yes, back in the triple digits A.D.!) There’s an amazing enormous greenmarket that happens just off of the Palace, and every alley of Old Split is nearly as enchanting as Dubrovnik. We explored Diocletian’s Palace, the Green Market, and Marjan Forest Park for views above the city. We also took an afternoon boat to a nearby island, Brač, where we wandered through olive groves and crept around an old church.

Zadar

Zadar is also another incredible Dalmatian city in Croatia. Sadly, we did not spend much time here at all. We arrived on American Thanksgiving and spent one lovely afternoon and evening being given a tour of the ancient port of Zadar by a British lad who worked at our hostel. Zadar is the oldest continuously-lived-in city in Croatia and seems incredibly interesting from what we saw and heard while there. Croatia is on our must-return list and Zadar is one of the places we’d definitely like to return to explore a lot more.

Zagreb

Zagreb is a lovely capital city! The very end of entire Europe trip was spent in Zagreb. We were feeling a bit burn out, so all we did was eat our weight in burek pastries and wander through the beautiful Advent Markets in Zagreb’s city center. We were lucky to be there at the beginning of December during the Advent kicked off and Zagreb was in full Christmas spirit.

An apple burek! Do not leave Croatia (or Bosnia) without eating too many bureks.

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Stop Twelve: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Mostar

Our visit to Mostar came after we’d left Dubrovnik. Again finding ourselves knowing very little about a country, Emmett and I had decided to check out Bosnia & Herzegovina after befriending a very amicable Bosnian named Dado back in Fejo, Denmark. He had insisted that we visit Bosnia when we found ourselves in the Balkans and we decided to honor that request. I don’t know about you but my knowledge of the Balkans - prior to this trip - was virtually non-existent. I vaguely recall hearing about the Bosnian war as a child but I was very very young when the conflict and genocide occurred. However, though it had been nearly 20 years since the war’s end in Bosnia, the extensive damage is still visible everywhere. As is our modus operandi, we explored Mostar on foot. The Old Town and it’s famous bridge, Stari Most, were well worth the hype. Old Town Mostar is incredibly picturesque. We also checked out Koskin-Mehmed Pasha's Mosque, which gave us great views of Stari Most above the Neretva River.

Emmett and a bullet-ridden building in Mostar.

After seeing the prime tourist destination of Old Town Mostar, we wandered around more of the city for the rest of our full day there. We encountered wrecked building after wrecked building, and entire graveyards where each headstone had the same day or year. There were so many unbelievable testaments to the city’s bloody history around every corner. We couldn’t help but notice that it also seemed like there was nearly an entire generation of men missing among the local population. It was staggering to encounter a place that was so absolutely a recent war zone. Emmett and I frequently found ourselves speechless and overwhelmed by the damage we encountered.

Sarajevo

We bused ourselves from Mostar to Sarajevo the next day, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cultural epicenter of the Balkans. Like Mostar, Sarajevo was devastated during the Bosnian war of the early 1990s. As we explored the city on foot, we encountered even more wreckage. We also explored Baščaršija, Sarajevo’s old bazaar. So much of our time in the Balkans exploring well-preserved Old Towns felt like taking a trip back in time. Baščaršija was no different and every street corner, mosque, or vendor seemed to have a timeless quality about them.

Me on the Festina Lente Bridge in central Sarajevo.

After seeing so much wreckage in both Mostar and Sarajevo, we decided to spend the majority of our second day in Sarajevo to educate ourselves further about the Bosnian war. We did this by visiting Gallery 11/07/95, a memorial gallery featuring photography and documentaries about the Bosnian conflict through the lens of the Srebrenica tragedy. The Srebrenica tragedy occurred when 8,372 people died on one day (July 11, 1995). It was a somber yet interesting experience to learn about the genocide in such an in depth way.