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Turn Left At The Iron Curtain: The 4 Worst Hostels I’ve Stayed In
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. Leo Tolstoy The opening line of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is one of the most famous in literature. The Russian’s point was that there are myriad qualities that must exist for a family to be happy. And every unhappy family falls short in a different way, each as unique and lachrymose as the next. Two families may be equally despairing, but that despair will be rooted in a different tragedy each and every time. At the risk of contriving this insight to the point of contortion, I believe this wisdom to be equally applicable to the…
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Sarajevo: A Tragic History Artfully Told – But Bring a Packed Lunch
In his book ‘Shadowplay’, Tim Marshall recounts meeting a Serb for dinner in the midst of the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1995. Having listened to the Serb denounce NATO’s bombing campaign of Belgrade, Marshall retorted that Bosnians had endured more in a weekend of the Siege of Sarajevo than Serbs in Belgrade had gone through in two months. Marshall is quick to acknowledge that he was hardly complying with his title of ‘Diplomatic Correspondent’ but that’s not to say that he was wrong. Sarajevo is a remarkable city. Its people are warm, its vistas stunning and the city’s streets hosted some of the 20th century’s most consequential events. Archduke Franz…
