Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Tunnel of Hope - Sarajevo

The Sarajevo Tunnel was an underground tunnel constructed between March and June of 1993 during the Siege of Sarajevo in the midst of the Bosnian War.  It was built by the Bosnian Army in order to link the city of Sarajevo, which was entirely cut off by Serbian forces, with Bosnian-held territory on the other side of the Sarajevo Airport, an area controlled by the United Nations.  The tunnel linked the Sarajevo neighborhoods of Dobrinja and Butmir, allowing food, war supplies, and humanitarian aid to come into the city, and allowing people to get out.  The tunnel became a major way of bypassing the international arms embargo and providing the city defenders with weaponry.
(Taken from Wikipedia)



















Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

We were excited to see Sarajevo (especially Erik).  It is a huge city in a bowl.  Everyone there burns coal so it was really hard to breath.  It was the coldest place we stayed.

Mountains with frost on the ground.

Huge river we drove by.

More frost.

View from our motel.  This is about half of the city.

Night views from the motel.



Better view of the city.

Looking in the other direction.

We went to the tallest building in Sarajevo and looked at the city.  This is a view of the HUGE graveyard.

Close-up of some of the graves.


All you see is red roofs.

The Olympic stadium where the opening ceremonies were held in 1984,



Dad took us to see some ruins on one of the mountains.  Us with Sarajevo in the background.
The ruins.

See how cold it was....frost on the trees.
 Dinner on the first night with these two.
 All four of us.
 The wall of the restaurant we ate at.
The yummy food!  It was so good!!!
Downtown Sarajevo
 Can you see all the coal smoke?!?
 New building
 Old building
 Old buildings are usually left standing.
 McDonald's
 Inside McDonalds
 Our cups
 An interesting bulding
 The town watering hole
 A mosque in the middle of Old Town.
 An interesting door.
 The best car we saw in Europe!
 New apartment building.....I loved the colors.

 An awesome blown out building.  We pulled in there to turn around and looked up and there was a security guard asking us what we were doing there.  It was kind of scary, but the guard turned out to be really nice.  This is the front view.
 This is the back view.
 The entrance to Old Town.  There was a fire where we saw people huddled and people performing.
 The US Embassy.....see the American flag.  It was a cool sight to see our flag being flown on American soil.

 The trains that are still used today on the streets of Sarajevo.

 A very old graveyard in old town.
 Looking down the street in old town.