https://www.visitsarajevo.ba/ Archives - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

C’est magnifique, and as world leaders gather in Paris today we say merci mon Dieu for Notre-Dame and other phoenixes from the flames.

Notre-Dame de Paris (Our Lady of Paris) is the very spiritual soul of the French capital and said to house Christ’s crown of thorns.

As well as Quasimodo!

Of course, it is always a cause for celebration when God’s children raise themselves up.

After fire has razed their churches.

And so we will be rejoicing in Notre Dame’s grand reopening, nearly six years after an electrical fault caused it to burn.

And giving a thought to other great buildings that have been rebuilt from embers to stand ever taller than before.

The buildings that wouldn’t die

Put on a pedestal: Bandanaman, Martin Luther and the Frauenkirche

The Frauenkirche, Dresden, Germany: Now while Notre Dame and our other prized buildings were gutted by fate.

The pride of Dresden was flattened in war.

Before the good people of the Saxon city, the Florence of the Elbe, rebuilt their Renaissance city.\

Brick for brick, mural for mural as it was before it was firebombed.

Bosnia’s National Library, Sarajevo: The 19th-century National Library sits proudly on the Milijacka river.

And unbeknown to visitors its current iteration is less than 30 years old.

It had housed some two million books, old scripts, photos and transcripts before the Serbs bombed the heck out of it.

The 47th President of America: In Washington DC

The White House, Washington DC: And isn’t it apt that it was an Irish-American, James Hoban, who rebuilt the US presidential residence.

After their previous overlords had burned it down in the Second War of Independence in 1812.

In the midst of the Napoleonic Wars.

St Paul’s Cathedral, London: The highest-profile casualty of the Great Fire in London.

St Paul’s has in fact been in the wars itself over its 1,300-year history.

Burned four times before that 1666 tragedy, hit by lightning and the Blitzkrieg .

It has survived all of that to be the church of choice for British Royal family weddings.

Il Teatro La Fenice, Venice: And we’ll finish on a centrepiece of the city on the lagoon which literally means The Phoenix.

The opera house has been destroyed by fire three times, the last arson, before reopening in 2003.

Our prayers answered

So give up a prayer for all these and other great buildings.

As we mark Notre-Dame and other phoenixes from the flames this weekend.

Countries, Europe

The principal player and hero of World War I

28th April 202428th April 2024 funtime65

It will go little noticed but today marks 106 years since the death of the principal player and hero of World War I, Gavrilo Princip.

Gavrilo’s lasting historical claim to fame, of course, came four years earlier in Sarajevo.

When he shot dead the heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia.

And sparked a series of reactions and responses which led to a World War in which 20 million died.

Including two proud brothers of Donegal in the north-west who I was the first of my family to pay tribute to, in Flanders.

Czech out for Princip

Money shot: Where Princip killed Franz Ferdinand

Few around the world acknowledged or would have commemorated Princip’s passing today in 1918.

Busy as they would have been in trench, sea or air.

Nineteen at the time, Princip’s age was to save him from the death penalty.

But not the Small Fortress in Terezin in modern-day Czechia where he was sent to serve a 20-year prison sentence.

A long stretch it was all right with the Slav nationalist chained to a wall in his cell.

Royally stuffed

It may have come as a blessed relief to Princip then that he escaped this life seven months before all fighting finished.

In a war he always claimed would have happened anyway without his intervention.

Which, of course, may have been right with Queen Victoria’s descendants, on the thrones of Britain, Germany and Russia hell-bent on empire building.

It is worth remembering too that while the First World War began with the death of two royals more were to be lost across its duration.

The whole Romanov line in Russia and 30 odd others (and they’re all odd).

Back from the dead

Two years after his death, Princip and the other conspirators were exhumed and brought to Sarajevo.

And buried together beneath the Vidovan Heroes Chapel.

The house where Princip lived in Sarajevo became something of a political plaything.

Destroyed an rebuilt three times over the next near 100 years.

While his pistol and Franz Ferdinand’s undershirt reside in the last place Princip would have wanted.

In the Museum of Military History in Vienna.

For everything else Franz Ferdinand related then the Sarajevo Museum is a time capsule.

Princip on a pedestal

Wall of fame: In the FF Museum in Bosnia

But if it’s Princip you want to celebrate then you can visit his bust in Tovarisevo or a statue erected in East Sarajevo on the centenary.

While a 2m-high bronze statue was put up in Serbia capital Belgrade amid much fanfare a year later.

All to the principal player and hero of World War I.

America, Countries, Europe

Diana’s last summer holidays

31st August 202231st August 2022 funtime65

It may be a quarter of a century since Diana’s last summer holidays, but plus ca change, because it will be forever frozen in time, in our consciousness.

The way her life ended it is heartening to think that her final summer saw her shine, on the humanitarian stage in Sarajevo.

At her most empathetic consoling Elton John at the funeral of Gianni Versace in Milan.

At her most playful as a mother with her boys in Saint Tropez.

Fast cars: Well, a Fiat 500 in Saint Tropez

And in a relationship, and maybe even in love, on a cruise with Dodi to Sardinia and then up to Paris.

All different destinations in their own right but all reflecting aspects of her character.

But not just hers as at her crux Sarajevo, Milan, Saint Tropez, cruises and the City of Light and Lovers Paris would entrance anybody.

And certainly those of us who has had the good fortune to visit them.

The life of a royal

Diana rules the waves: The People’s Princess

Now we might not have lived the life of luxury that Diana did (although we did try).

And I should imagine I drew the same inspiration from each experience.

Birthday girl

Sandals in the wind: Di’s pal Mother Teresa

Diana kicked off her summer on June 18 in her celebrity home bolthole of America.

Where she surprised by shunning glitzy Manhattan for the broken Bronx to walk hand in hand with Mother Teresa.

All to spotlight poverty in the borough.

She spent her birthday on July 1 working, in her home city of London, at the 100th anniversary of the Tate Gallery.

Where she received 90 bouquets of flowers.

An upgrade on the late night garage bunch many women up and down the country receive.

She took to the sea with her kids as many of us do in mid-July although perhaps not all of us in a super yacht.

Vive La France

The French Riviera though is doable for us mere mortals particularly if we seek out more affordable options such as the Mimozas Resort Cannes.

Such as neighbouring and more authentic neighbouring town Mandelieu La Napoule.

While staying in your own holiday homes at family specialist resort XX won’t require a royal divorce settlement.

Take too a speedboat tour around the Cote D’Azur for a window into the yachts and super yachts of the riche.

La Dolce Sweeter

Italy’s fashions and melodramas were always going to be as much as a fit for Diana as her iconic cocktail dresses.

Many of whom she sold off at auctions at Christie’s that summer.

She had a mercy mission in Milano to attend Gianni Versace’s funeral and consoled Elton John.

It wasn’t all cocktail hour that summer though with Diana throwing her weight behind Landmine Survivors Network in Sarajevo.

Diana explored further afield down to Sardinia.

And you can too aboard MSC cruise specialists.

Paris for lovers

Before following Diana and Dodi up to Paris and her final days at the Ritz.

The Ritz will of course attract the ghoulish to stand outside and gawp much as others do outside John Lennon’s Dakota Building in New York.

But Diana, like us all, liked a plush hotel and how the Ritz likes to do plush.

Among the swathe of programmes on the Princess of Wales’ life and death to mark 25 years since her death is a Channel 5 production Diana’s Last Summer.

And while absorbing the tragedy of her demise lap up instead a young woman’s tour de force.

Diana’s last summer holidays.

Countries, Deals, Europe, Flying

We came, Warsaw, we concurred

20th July 202220th July 2022 funtime65

It’s our own Bandanini and Bandanette Warsaw pact because of its value… we came, Warsaw, we concurred.

For those of you wanting to escape the British sun (the new normal) the Polish capital won’t have you sweating.

About the costs with a two-day getaway for a couple only setting you back £426.

Our friends at Viator do the heavy lifting for us with a priced guide to what’s best to do in Warsaw and its vicinity.

And, of course, we’ll always be drawn to the history and the hops which means, Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz and a pub crawl.

Chopin list

Viator’s guide leaves us free to break bread, or seeing it’s Poland dumplings, when they invite us out to their embassy, or events.

Eastern and Central Europe has long since topped our shopping list, or Chopin list if you’re Warsaw.

I remember well being seduced by the value of Bulgaria 25 years ago.

And then meeting a family who were back in the autumn for their second holiday after saving on their first earlier in the year.

Sofia so good, Prague’s brag

Sofia is second on the Forbes Advisor list at £432, Vilnius in Lithuania (£465), Skopje in North Macedonia (£511) and Belgrade in Serbia (£521).

Prague at £523 ticks most boxes for us (particularly the Strahov Monastery Brewery).

While Podgorica and Montenegro at £528 is one of those discovery destinations.

Must Sarajevo

We know about a day in Sarajevo in Bosnia & Herzegovina on a coach trip from Medjugorje.

But two days in the Balkans crossroads city is 8th on the list at £538… and you won’t be disappointed!

We’ll pick out the Franz Ferdinand museum, the Atrocities Museum and the Winter Olympics vista as a starting point.

Riga in Latvia at £550 and Bucharest in Romania at £561 make up the top ten.

Figure it out

So you want to know how they come up with the figures.

Well Forbes Advisor factors in the average price for return flights for two people…

With the help of Numbeo.com, BudgetYourTrip.com and CheapFlights.com.

Two nights’ accommodation, two days’ worth of excursions, a taxi for the entire vacation, and meals out as well as alcohol.

Sounds like our kind of mini-break.

And seeing we like a challenge we might start at the very beginning… it’s a very good place to start.

So we can say, we came, Warsaw, we concurred.