New Years Whirlwind: Italy, Croatia, Bosnia

Planes, trains, and automobiles -in the rain- could be the title of this post. That, and a multicultural whirlwind of language, food, and environment, is the story of our New Years travels. Long-envisioned, planned and scrapped and re-planned, our big trip to Italy and Bosnia finally came to pass. First, though, we shared a small warm Christmas in a packed apartment in Motril, Spain during the rainiest week of the year. ‘Twas a far cry from the white Christmas enjoyed stateside, but full of holiday spirit nonetheless. Being away from familiar settings for important occasions has the positive effect of refocusing that time on the people around you, and we made the most of the company with good food, small gifts, and indoor laughter to warm everything that the heater under the coffee table couldn’t cover. On a related note, warm feet are consistently undervalued as a prerequisite for winter happiness.

In an unfortunate and freakily unusual weather phenomenon, rain practically covered southern Europe during the 3 weeks of our Christmas vacation. So, after hiding from the cold and wet in Spain, we had no choice but to face it during our exploration of Italy, Croatia, and Bosnia. The journey began with a delayed flight, missed train, and language barriers. Before long, however, Jasmina and Jordan (a visiting friend from Raleigh, N.C.) and I were hopping night trains across Italy, passing Milan, Verona, and Venice by in the dark. We passed the night on the cold marble floor of the Trieste, Italy, train station after brushing our teeth in a plaza fountain. Needless to say, it was an exercise in maintaining our positive travelling attitude in the midst of less-than-ideal circumstances.

A series of buses through the gray and beautiful evergreen landscape of Croatia landed us in the capital city of Zagreb. Left with a full day until the next available bus departure, we explored the parks, plazas, and alleys of this quietly regal city. We toasted Jordan’s 23rd birthday with midnight red wine our of paper cups, shortly before our bus crossed into Bosnia. By the time of our arrival in Sarajevo, we had endured more than 20 hours of public transportation in a variety of forms. The power of new places, youthful positivity, and good company prevailed in our hearts though, and we were able to reflect fondly on our journey thus far.

In Sarajevo, we re-united with another travelling pod of ex-pat friends in the apartment of Jasmina’s gracious and hospitable aunt. We got lucky with a break in the rain for New Year’s Eve, joining the masses in the city center for a raucous gathering that included live music, street drinking, and ear-splitting fireworks from every side at once. We explored the boisterous nightlife, finally settling on a pub with a live band doing rock covers of American songs, where we danced into the first morning of 2010.

Although somewhat daunted by a steady cold rain in a city that is normally a winter wonderland in January, we set out to get to know the mysterious and haunting beauty of Sarajevo. As the epicenter of civil conflict in the former Yugoslavia, Sarajevo bears many scars of war. Faces of people, as well as buildings, showed the effect of a long siege and a difficult recovery. Juxtaposed with this painful history, however, was the quiet impressiveness of a city that has been an important cultural capital in Byzantine, Ottoman, and Austrian Empires. “Balkans” in Slavic means “war”, and a history of conflict has endowed Sarajevo with architecture, culture, and collective memory that is as diverse as any in Europe. In one street, I stood on the spot where World War I started with the shooting of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The streets of the old town feature Turkish markets alongside Austrian government buildings, all overseen by the multitude of minarets reaching skyward from Sarajevo’s countless mosques.

The view from a high lookout, of mosques and churches and graveyards and a winding river and houses lining the slopes of the long valley like a quilt, cemented the physical beauty and emotional pull of Sarajevo in my mind. During our time in Sarajevo, we also drove out to the mountainous site of the 1984 Winter Olympics, visited the city’s Sarajevsko brewery, and enjoyed a plethora of home-cooked Bosnian food and Turkish coffee. After a short 4 day visit, we left Sarajevo on a bus through the dramatic landscapes of Herzegovina and Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast. Before catching an overnight ferry to Italy, we spent some time wandering the old town of Split, which includes the well-preserved ruins of Diocletian’s Palace.

Once in Italy, on our train from Ancona to Florence, we observed the rare and unusual view of a snow-covered Tuscany. By the time we arrived in Florence, however, and for the duration of our trip, cold constant rain was back as the norm. We were lucky to find an apartment of young Italian hosts through the travel networking site CouchSurfing. Staying with locals, rather than in a hostel or hotel, is a sure way to introduce some excitement and unpredictability into your stay in a place, and our friendly Italian hosts were true to this maxim. We cooked dinner for a big group of Italians one night, shared stories and trivia questions over red wine, and tagged along on some nightlife adventures around Florence during our 3 nights in the apartment.

Florence, renowned for its artistic history and cultural vibrancy, had plenty of charms even in the rain. With cheap umbrellas and wet shoes, we braved the rain to walk and walk and walk, seeing as much of the city as we could on foot and on a budget. We also visited the nearby city of Siena, Florence’s historical political and social rival, where the feeling of old Europe filled every street and doorway. Our last stop was Bologna, where we enjoyed the free museums and exhibitions that so nicely distinguish a well-established university town. There, as elsewhere in Italy, the amazing pizza and diverse aperitivi (drinks and finger-food buffet) made food a highlight of the trip.

Upon our return to Spain, I reflected on the whirlwind of language, food, culture, and environments that we encountered in our travel. It was a challenge to sort through the chaos of impressions left by such an intense experience, containing as it did 4 countries, 3 languages, and over 45 hours of transportation in its different forms (plane, train, taxi, bus, car, tram, ferry) in the space of 2 weeks. Ultimately, as ever, I am left full of gratitude to be able to pursue such transient experience and to appreciate the people, food, surroundings, and thoughts that I encounter along the way. And again, the excitement of being surrounded by a new language and working to expand my mastery of a few basic phrases only deepens my desire for new languages. After 11 days of this intensity, the familiarity and rhythms of my relatively settled life here in Spain seem almost surreal in their normalcy. But, as always, there is a job to do and a life to live upon any return, and so I do my best to turn my mind back to that world even as this experience remains large in my thoughts.