Fuel-less in Provence

Versione italiana

It’s a late April Saturday when we meet up at the usual bakery-café in Bazzano for the coffee before the departure. This time it’s Yasmin, Lollo, MadMax, (Uncle) Dema and I. Just a few months before we were in Stockholm, together with many others, for my thesis defense. While MadMax, you will recall, was also part to the adventure in Morocco which was narrated in this blog. But these are other stories, today we are heading towards…..drumrolls…… tumbatatum…… tum…. tum…. tum: Southern France!! Anna, childhood friend and neighbour of mine, is now attending a circus school just a few kilometers from Cannes. What do you think, that we don’t pay a visit?!?! So here it comes the story of a supposedly chilled long-weekend, which actually turned into another small adventure. You'll also find throughout this article: the map of the itinerary we followed, some viewpoint tips in blue and names of tasty recipes in yellow. 

On board of my dad’s Opel Zafira we gladly chat and consume the CNG fuel while on the highway through Emilia-Romagna and Liguria regions. Only once in Savona we recall it would be good to fuel up before leaving Italian territory, as CNG is not so easy to find abroad. We decide to go for the station in Imperia, the last one before the French border. But we get there 5 minutes too late, lunch break has started. Even though the employee is still around he refuses to fuel us up, and self-refill is not allowed. He’s probably already heard hundreds of time the argument: “please, this is the last station before France”. And the fact we are obviously about to start a holiday only seems to make his mood worse than it already is. Before MadMax gets out of the car, we leave again. We start feeling a little bit better only after leaving a horrible comment on Google Reviews. But we’re still optimist to find another CNG station in France, or in the worst case to go with the gasoline tank, which is not as big as the gas one since it's meant to be used for emergencies only.

We reach Montecarlo. We are hungry. While searching for a nice spot where to eat our sandwiches, we end up closer and closer to the sea. Until we’re suddenly at the starting grid of Montecarlo’s Grand Prix. The traffic light is red, MadMax is at the wheel. He turns back towards us, but the answer is obvious: of course we want to make a round of the most famous Formula 1 circuit, with an Opel Zafira! MadMax’s foot automatically can’t hide the joy and as soon as the green comes we’re sprinting forward. Suddenly we’re in a videogame, and the adrenaline kicks in. We pass from the Casino, in front of which there’s a big crowd and more luxurious cars we’ve ever seen. I pray internally that MadMax doesn’t fuck it up, as just a scratch on one of those might compromise all our lives. But everything goes well. We pass from the final tunnel and the harbor with the yachts. Then we’re back where we were, but MadMax is too weak: he HAS to do it again. So we give him a second round of glory. 

Then Dema pulls his first bunny out of the hat. Between him and Lollo we are fully covered in terms of geography-knowledge, we almost wouldn’t need a book guide for this trip. 

“We could eat at Tetê de Chain, the Dog’s Head!”
“What?"
“Tetê de Chain, there’s an incredible viewpoint there”

We trust him and start driving up on the winding, mountain road to Tetê de Chain. Luckily they don’t trust me when I propose to continue walking from a path I see…it would have taken us forever to reach the top. And we might have missed this:

Tetê de Chain (Montecarlo)

The first CNG station in France is out of order. There’s no sign to indicate it but nothing comes out of the pump, doesn’t matter which credit card you put in. So we use gasoline. Cannes is not so far away, anyway. Even though the sea should be close I don’t feel it. What I surely notice is the intense, almost invasive green all along the way. And in a distance, far but endless, the human footprint. Single houses and narrow roads all over the hills in front of us, not a single hectare was spared from these constructions. The weird thing is that houses are so far apart, forming some sort of “diffuse towns” instead of proper urban centers separated by countryside.

We arrive to Anna's circus school, which is located in Grasse. She is specializing in aerial fabrics, but we find her in the middle of a horn-instruments marching orchestra. Kids, youngsters and adults all play and march together, who wants can join them. What a warm welcome, you didn’t have to! Besides Anna, we also find Serena and my cousin Greta. They are video-makers and they just got there to shoot a short documentary. After a brief round of the school and an “exclusive” rehearsal of the students performances, we give each other appointment to the shopping center. We have plans for an evening grill at Anna’s and we need ingredients. 

Anna’s house is supposedly nice, but we’ll never know. We get there when it’s already dark and we are welcomed directly in her backyard. Some of us are sent to gather wood, some others to cut vegetables and cheese. I have the task to start a fire, FAST they tell me. After an hour it’s still not ready for grilling, there’s a lot of smoke and 0 heat. Around eleven someone starts complaining. Luckily there’s a lot to talk about, I think. Eventually we get to eat something. Around us, some of Anna’s housemates are throwing knives against a flipped table. 

“It’s like this every night” Anna says. “All they do is meditate, throwing knives and drinking wine”. Hopefully they didn’t invert the order today! (I think).

In the meanwhile a Costarican dude has gotten Dema, who is too polite to say anything, into a monologue by the fire. In the meanwhile, MadMax has challenged the knife throwers. And despite his crooked technique, he gains some respect.

Next day, all 8 of us are heading towards Nice. It’s quite late, the sun is shining and the spring is in the air. However our stomachs are not so romantic and we decide -under Uncle Dema’s suggestion- for a short lunch-stop in Cagne-sur-mer. Cagne-sur-mer is a town with a cute old city on top of a hill. A free shuttle bus is available from down town. Once up, we find ourselves in front of one of the most well known stereotypes for France: Boules. Which is called Pétanque here and it’s played like this: each team has 8 metallic balls and 2 players, who play one at a time until they're out of balls or they’ve got closest to the little one. I’m surprised to see players of all ages and colors, and often crowds of people watching the matches. But one thing hasn’t changed: Boules is still a men-only sport.

Pétanque players above and below

A street in Cagnes-sur-Mer

The view from Cagnes-sua-Mer

In the afternoon we reach Nice. Guided by Anna, we first make a stop in a bakery which sells Chichi Fregì. Chichi Fregìs are long and fried sweets, covered with sugar. They are similar to the Spanish churros, but tastier! From the website of the cheese Presidènt you can find all the infos about them. As soon as the sugar kicks in, we decide to climb Colline du Château. Of the Savoia’s Family Castle which used to stood there, very little remains today. However the nice view over the city is still there, while the royal garden was turned into a park full of joggers and a cemetery. When we’re ready to go, the exit gates are closed and we find out that there were opening times for the park. So we’re directed to the other side of the hill, where a long stairway leads down to the sea.

That is how we reach Promenade des Anglais, the palmy and pedestrian alley where a terrorist attack happened in 2016. The 31 year old, French-Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, killed 86 and wounded 302 more by entering the Promenade with a Renault truck during the National Day. Despite this tragic page of history, Nice looks happy today. The sea is shining under the sun, while the other Promenade – Promenade du Paillon- was transformed into a urban botanical garden and playground for children. Nice is an elegant city, bigger than expected. It lives of tourism, as indicated by the number of planes flying in and out on top of our heads. We leave Nice with the feeling of having just spotted the tip of the iceberg, but the time available is what it is and Marseille is already waiting for us!   

Above and below, la Promenade du Paillon (Nice)

View from the Castle Hill, Nice

Anna's circus skills

The next CNG station is as out of order as the previous one. Doesn’t matter. We get to Marseille anyway. My first thought, while crossing a hilly and colourful neighbourhood, is: “Are we back in Italy?”. Then a famous Italian advertising, translated to French, comes out from the radio: “Poltronesofà. Les artisans de la qualitè!”. So far all very familiar then…

We are guests of Abdelfateh. He is an airbnb host and he is VERY concerned to explain to us the instructions for the use of TV in our room. But he also shows to us the apartment, which belongs to a building which is being renovated (by him) but is quite central. The harbour is only 5 minutes away and is the most touristic area. It is protected on both sides by two fortresses and two churches. We pay a visit to all of them, not scared of the cliffs we have to climb in order to reach them. Worth a mention is especially Notre Dame la Garde and the view from its summit.

Looking from above you can see Chateau d’If, the prison of the Count of Montecristo as imagined by Alexandre Dumas. And not so distant, but not really visible, the acclaimed “Calanques” of Marseille. Quite different from the Italian geologic formations with the same name, these ones might remind me more of Irish cliffs diving into the sea. The only difference is that they attract 2 million visitors every year. Not today however, since the Mediterranean has woken up a little bit violent and no boats are leaving the harbour to bring tourists there. It means that we’ll have to skip this part of the plan and be happy with our Emilia-Romagna’s “Calanques”. 

We go instead to the neighbourhood of Panier, which literally translates as “the bread basket”. Historical, all ups and downs and close to the sea; narrow streets with one row of tables outside of the cafés; old looking, colourful, and sometimes filled with graffiti walls. Basically all that you expect from a Mediterranean city. We explore Panier thoroughly, as Lollo is looking for Marseille's soap to bring home together with all kinds of other typical products. It’s actually thanks to Lollo that we get to try the Navettes, ship-shaped biscuits typical of the Provence region. Besides the classic orange flower aroma, you can find all different sorts. I try the lemon ones, which tasted good but are not worth the price they sell them for. It’s true that we probably also pay for the name of the bakery, which claims to own the original recipe. 

Lollo’s passion for typical products almost costs us a dinner. It happens that his personal to-go-list for restaurants (mostly filled thanks to "Truckdrivers at the restaurant" show) eventually ends. They’re all too full, closed or too expensive. But they are definitely far away from each other, so that by 10 pm we have walked several kilometers but haven’t found the famous Bouillabaisse (a special and expensive fish soup). In the square where we have arrived there’s an open creperie. “Don’t enter! It’s food from Bretagne!” you will yell and you’d be right. But you know, hunger makes you do things you would’t imagine…

One of the two old fortresses of Marseille and, behind it, the Palace of the Lighthouse

Notre Dame de la Garde (Marseille)

The French Alps viewed from Notre Dame de la Garde

Marseille's soap

Gorges du Verdon, aka French Grand Canyon. That’s where we are directed after a night in Marseille. But we decide to make another stop first: a few kilometers from Marseilles there's a smaller city, which was the home town of the impressionist painter Paul Cezanne: Aix en Provence. We stop there out of curiosity. It’s market day, which is good because it’s Shopping Day for Taz, the Tasmanian Devil-Lollo. Not only he finds the soap, but also several bottles of wine, cheese and more sweets. So after a stroll around the city center and some shopping, we get back on the road in order to reach the Canyon (and then reach again the coast around Cannes) before it’s night. We meet very few other tourists, also on road trips like ourselves. However the scenery of the Canyon is so cool that I  wish we had tents, bikes or kayaks and, especially, more time to enjoy it fully. But this time we don't.

Once we reach the Cote Azur again, the ring in the map of our journey is then closed. We go for a stroll in Cannes, where Lollo introduces us to another specialty: Pan bagnat, a GREAT sandwich! The bread is round and soft, it’s roasted and dipped into olive oil and vinegar. The filling is with fresh tomatoes, basil, onions, olives, tuna fish and boiled eggs. In the meanwhile the city is busy, the Festival will start in a week and Cannes will become the center of the earth for a few days. Understandably it needs to get pretty now, but we’re so not interested in that. We prefer spending our last day in the nature. So after a very resting night (in a villa we’ll never be able to afford if not through AirBnb), we are fully recharged and we accept another suggestion from Uncle Dema: Le Sentier du Litoral, a walking route along Cap D’Antibes, the small peninsula south of the city of Antibes. The wether is one again mild and sunny, which we enjoy it very much all along the 5 kilometers of the Sentier. We enjoy a little bit less our first and last dip in the sea, which is quite cold and filled with small jelly fish. 

A square in Aix-en-Provence

Here and below is the Gorges du Verdon

The Mediterranean Sea

It’s time to go home. Suitcases and baguettes are loaded… but are we are missing something? Oh shit, the fuel!!! We realize we forgot to refill once we’re already in the highway and we’re approaching Italy, right after Montecarlo. Yasmin is driving and her face turns pale and more serious than usual when she announces us that we’re already half way of the reserve. We knew the tank wasn’t so large, but none of us thought it would be SO small. When the car starts moving intermittently and then stops, our faces turn pale too and our hearts double their speeds. 

What to do? Get out of the car in case someone hits us from the back? Try to reach a fuel station by foot? 

We listen to Lollo, who suggests to try to start the car again. Yasmin tries, and it works. Now the gasoline level is not even so low, even though it's still quite close to 0. We start moving and proceed at 10 kilometers per hour in the right lane. We pass a bridge and a tunnel, a few curves and then we see it: a gas station appears at the end of the road like a miracle. We continue at the same speed until we reach it. We would have payed hundred times more, but the price for our happiness is actually cheap: 1,3€ per liter. So we fill up until it’s full and then we're off again.

Now that we've passed also this last adventure, we know that we’ll sleep well for a while. Satisfied of this journey, happy for the great moments together and grateful for having all this beauty just around the corner. In the end, sometimes, all it takes to be happy is just to hit the road!

A part of the Sentier du Litoral (Cap D'Antibes)

Photograph credits: Lollo and Uncle Dema

"Long live Cevapi - Balcan roadtrip" - Part 1: Bosnia and Croatia

The Balkans. As the name, of Turkish derivation, suggests, the Land of Mountains. Land of borders: crossroads between the east and the west, tangle of languages, currencies and religions. Land of poverty, criminality and underdevelopment, in the common imagery. Sad, wounded by wars and fierce histories, but at the same time gypsy, foolishly free and happy. Snubbed and unknown. Yet still Europe, seriously just behind the corner from us.

We leave in August for our IperBalkanTour. It’s the three of us, driving an used Suzuki Swift: I, Enrico called "Enne" and Francesco called "Vacca". We included in our journey-plan a thousand different things and 4000 kilometers of road to drive, despite having little more than ten days of time. Our journey plan is written on a cardboard we are carrying with us all the time: it’s a coloured line, which is going to be filled with the names of the cities and of the people we are going to cross; in fairness, part of the road trip is pre-determined by the hostel and Airbnb accomodations we have booked a few days earlier and little bit randomly.

Graffiti of Sarajevo, our objective for the first part of the trip

Enne, I and Vacca

The first stage is Slovenia, the Italian-Austrian canton which is part of the balcan peninsula even though it’s so different from the rest of it: alpine, clean, tidy. Actually I only see it from the car window, passing by, since I reach my two travel mates directly in Croatia, thus missing out on the staying in Ljubljana, and the deviation across the Slovenian mountains, looking for a "famous" partisan hospital (hidden among the wood and the rocks to stay unnoticed from the German air rides during World War II). 

We meet up next to the ferry for Cres, an island in the north of Croatia, then we make the tickets and get on board with our cars. We are joined by Elena, Chiara and Alek, who wisely decided to start their croatian holiday together with three experienced men as we certainly are. The ride lasts around 30 minutes, less the time it takes us to reach the remote house we have reserved. As we get there, euphoria takes the lead! The house, despite the bad premises, is really cozy and definitely suits us. 

We go straight for a bath into the sea, resisting the cold water and the spikes of the rocks under our feet (things you immediately notice after ten days of seaside on the Salento coast). Nonetheless, putting our heads down the water and swimming with our eyes open, the scenery is marvellous: the blue of the seabed is blinding, while the feeling of cold water on the skin, both invigorating and purifying, is undescribable. In the evening, a violent storm rages outside our little house. So we take shelter inside, playing Machiavelli and eating a lot of food: it feels like being in an alpine-hut, more than in a Croatian summer house. 

As we wake up in the morning we see that the dark clouds, and bolts, are gone; only a very enjoyable Croatian wind is left to live up the day. We move by car until we reach Lubenice, a tiny village perched on a cliff overlooking the sea. In little more than 45 minutes we see everything and decide to take a break from the violent gusts of wind by going inside the Sheep Breeding Museum, the only museum in town. We are welcomed by a nice slim lady, who invites us to start the visit. Old photos and small paragraphs in English introduce us to the secular art of sheep breeding. As it happens almost everywhere nowadays, even in Cres the pastures and the shepards are on the verge of disappearing, and alongside them the traditions based on the results of that activity. It particularly catches our interest a homemade video showing an old chubby woman dealing with homemade tools in order to create the typical shape of sheep cheese of Cres (cheese which, to our bitter disappointment, we don’t get the chance to taste). Straight after the visit we head towards the sea. 

Lubenice (pictures: croaziainfo.it) 

A path, partly well paved, partly very rocky, crosses the woods and descends down the cliff. It takes us one full hour to cover it all and reach the beach. When we get there, we realize it was worth it: the beach, covered in pebbles, is there almost exclusively for us, and the sea is even better than the previous day. On one side of the beach there are vertical rocks, from where you can dive and go explore the sea with a mask, and, literally between the end of the wood and the sea, there is an old fisherman’s house with coloured shutters. To our great surprise, a couple of tourists gets in the house, after trafficking a bit with the keys, and leaves their rucksacks there. Apparently, Airbnb has arrived that far, one hour by foot from the nearest settlement, a village with no market place in an island in Croatia…(and yet, when we notice two kayaks emerging from the basement and a grill with a table in the garden we can only feel pure envy!). 

Another must-see-beach, according to the lady from the museum, is a couple of hours walk from there (Plava Grota nearby Sv beach). Apparently, every day around 5pm there is a wonderful play of lights in the middle of a cave, only reachable by swimming. So we settle for going there early in the afternoon, leaving our place animated by team spirit and advancing into the wood. The cave is beautiful indeed, and it gives a strong feeling to scuba dive through the icy and dark crannies to reach the hidden "main hall", enlightened only by few beams of light that come out the slits in the rocks. But due to misfortune or other factors, the mysterious phenomenon of the lights doesn't take place that day. 

The way back to the car is very unstable, but rewarded with an orange sunset I will never forget and a round of ice- cold Karlovačko (the local beers) in the only bar in town. We pick up an Austrian girl looking for a lift and give her a bit of a cultural shock, being quite outgoing for her standards. That night, unfortunately already the last one in Croatia, we somehow find the energy to go out and stroll around Cres city, the main centre of the island. Driven by the relentless rythm of a far music of Balkan root, we get to a picturesque square, located between the harbour and the old town area. 

Lubenice's surroundings, Cres (Croatia)

The following morning, sadly, we have to split. We are heading towards Bosnia, while the girls will remain in Croatia. Being ridiculously lucky as we will be for the whole journey, we are among the last few cars which are embarked on the ferry to the isle next to Cres (Krk). At first sight, the island is less bare than Cres and Pag, and is connected to the mainland by a bridge. Which requires a toll, but only in the way in, meaning we can cross it for free. Back on continental Croatia, we start our southward descent. 

We drive through a good chunk of the coast, and make a deviation towards the inland only to stop at Plitvice Lakes. The price of the entry ticket, almost 20 euros for students, and the absurd amount of people we find as a welcome spoil the natural show which lays in front of us. With the long face, sensing to have been ripped off, we proceed towards the wooden walkways, and don’t miss the chance to use shuttles and ferrys which are at disposal of the visitors. The park is really vast and definitely well maintained. The plays of water and the colours of the trees may be worth the price of the entry ticket (wait, what am I saying? Natural parks should be for free, what the f…). However we could have expected such an amount of people, being a Sunday of the summer holiday. While head ing back to the car, I promise myself to get back there on a winter day and not inform the guards of my presence next time. 

National Park of Plitvice Lakes (pictures: unconventional tour.net)

After some driving, the night falls and it seems like we will never make it to our hostel room in Jayce, one of the first towns in Bosnia over the border. We drive past mountain areas and valleys. One, in particular, where we foolishly wanted to find a place to eat, really resembles the American flatlands you see in western movies, where the buffalos live and the Indian tribes ride their horses. In the first village we cross after 30 or 40 kilometers in the darkness, we eat the first cevapi of our lives. Up to the border to Romania, we will be haunted by the cevapi signs, but we won’t have the guts to stop by  one anymore. To be honest, cevapi is quite tasty… Yet the sense of fullness and greasiness it conveys in us will be stronger than that. As a matter of fact, since that moment cevapi undoubtedly becomes for us the standard economic value: it can be very useful as a measure if you're not so at ease with Bosnian marks and Serbian dinars. 

At midnight we finally arrive in Jayce and settle in the hostel. After enjoying some well-deserved wifi for a bit, we are all sound asleep. However, I wake up quite early and take a chance to see the town. The streets are still desert, and I easily reach the old town, waiting for me in its decay and medioeval fascination it still evokes. In the highest point is located the castle, which is closed due to maintenance works, even though I can’t see any from the outside. All around it the historical city centre unfolds, as a cone. I’m impressed mostly by a Christian church, whose plant and tower bell are the only parts left nowadays. There is no roof anymore, neither doors nor windows, grass and moss are now growing where once there was the floor. 

Around the castle hill other hills can be seen, just like it will be in Sarajevo, where lots of white houses with red roofs and pointed minarets stand out. On the way back to the hostel, along the river, I notice that that at last the city is awakening. On a few kiosks of souvenirs some products are displayed, cars start to fill up the streets and a few elders are sitting at a bar. My mates wake up as well, so we pack everything and go downstairs to eat our breakfast. Breakfast so to speak, since, while we painstakingly swallow the biscuits and fruit we have left, a bunch of guys is cooking their meal: standing around a stove, they are waiting noticeably hungry for a sort of meat broth to be ready. 

Jaice's roofless church

At 11am on day five we triumphantly enter Sarajevo. Without even realizing it, we drive through Sniper Alley. The street is one symbol of the siege of Sarajevo, which lasted from 1992 to the end of 1995. Today is a boulevard, with really a lot of cars. Pass me the bad joke: today on Sniper Alley you risk your life in a different way than 25 years ago. We struggle to reach an indoor parking, which we think is close to our hostel. In reality it's close to the hostel’s reception, while the rooms are  actually half an hour away at the end of a really steep street. When we get there, walking, we feel like in the middle of a movie from Emir Kusturica. A not-recommendable guy welcomes us, showing us the place: a couple of huts in cheap material host both rooms and the kitchen, while a few foldable tables form the eating space outside, where chickens run around freely. The huts look from the World War II era, with gas reservoirs in plain sight and an old stove to heat up, but we somehow take it well.

Cooking tunafish pasta without any oil or pan, we really identify with the trash character Bello Figo, thinking we should be in the video instead of him. We settle pretty well with the style of the city: trashy, a bit dirty, old yet modern, intellectual, crazy and sad, but interesting in each of its corners. It’s different from any other city I’ve seen so far. There is a reason why Sarajevo is called the "European Jerusalem" or the "Door to the east": here the west frantically lives together with the bazaars, the mosquees and everything else the Turkish dominance left behind. Every side street sparkles with life and hits you with a whirlpool of weird noises and big cars riding fast a few inches from the sidewalks, really narrow and bumpy. It makes a strange effect, Sarajevo, with the decaying and coloured houses in the city centre and the funny look of its inhabitants. I’m instantly conquered by it. 

Our hostel in Sarajevo

Muslim cemetery in Sarajevo

We decide to spend the afternoon in the historical centre. We move on foot, passing by the main landmarks (some of them really touristic). One of the most interesting to me is the Muslim cemetery, made of thin pale white gravestones, on which the names of the Arab people who died are embossed. From up there, there is a really nice view on the city suburbs. We are struck by Svrzo's House, the old house from an upper class Ottoman family, which is now a museum. We cross the bazaar and eat our bellies out in sweets, and have some hot drinks too, for the price of about 2 euros overall. 

After that, we enjoy a really nice yet "smoky" night at Kino Bosnia, a vintage pub made out of a dismissed yet conserved cinema, where once a week groups of sevdah players perform. Sevdah is a traditional romantic music from Bosnia, really melancholic. To be fair, we are not in the mood for Sevdah that night, so we take advantage from meeting other young travellers and from the reasonable price of beers to get a little tipsy. The way back to the hostel is a tiny odyssey which will be one for the books: a communal pee down from a bridge, followed by an hallucinated discussion over the willow trees and a historical disquisition sparked by the place where Franz Ferdinand was shot, only to reach desperation when we find out our bancomats don't seem to work anymore and that the last uphill actually lasts forever.

The courtyard of a mosque in Sarajevo

Shop of a metal/copper artisan

By the following morning, we sober up enough to understand that we are in Sarajevo and we cannot afford to sleep over and miss to pay a visit to all the war related places. We pick up the car from the garage and go back to the sniper boulevard, Ulica Zmaja in Bosnian. Slowly, palace after palace, the boulevard gets repaired and goes back to normality. In the 90s though this was a clou spot, or at least a symbol of the Serbian siege, since especially in the area between the national museum and the Holiday hotel many civilians lost their lives, hit by the snipers stationed on the roofs. Those who find death couldn’t avoid moving to get some food or just as a refusal of that prisony. 

Parallel to Sniper Alley, Visnovo Boulevard has always carried a very different connotation. With its lime trees and the romantic atmosphere along the river, it was the meeting point for lovers and families who just wanted to have a stroll. For many years it represented a place of tranquility and everyday life, but then -for five long years- it had not been accessible anymore. We got to know all this partly from a very special guide ("Scoprire i Balcani. Storie, luoghi e itinerari dell'Europa di mezzo" - CIERRE Edizioni), and partly from the peculiar historical museum of Sarajevo.  

The museum, already from its disorganization and tha palace inside which is located, is the essence of the past century in Bosnia and in Sarajevo, evoked particularly through photos and objects. From there we head to the Tunnel Museum, located outside Sarajevo and used to connect the airport, where the humanitarian aids arrived, to the city centre. Thanks to a reconstruction of a trait of the original tunnel and other pieces of evidence from those years, we have a first-hand experience of how living in Sarajevo should have been like during the conflict. 

Back in the car, we talk about the events that led to the war and how the conflict unfolded, but the more we discuss, the more we are confused about the issues from those years. And yet we leave Sarajevo behind us. We would be very tempted to stay, but we have decided to reach Belgrad within the same day. So, once again, we set up Enne’s old navigation system (which not only has to be restarted every time the engine of the car has been off, but apparently it has never been updated) and we let ourselves be carried away by the roaring of the Suzuki. A long road is still in front of us and the adventure has barely started!

In the Tunnel Museum of Sarajevo

Reconstruction of the city

English translation by: Giovanni De Maria (Zio Dema)

Italian version of the article