The sun has returned...

It's Monday morning and Gavin has gone off to meetings. The sun has returned after 5 days of hibernation behind dismal clouds and drizzle. We are staying at the Holiday Inn, which is where Michael Palin stayed on his recent travels in the region. A tall, bright yellow building, so easy to find your way back from town after a few plum brandies...
Still having trouble loading pictures and now Gavin's computer has decided to rewrite everything by jumbling up what you just wrote... even G gave off a few exasperated noises yesterday whilst trying to write up reports.
The drive to Sarajevo was nothing short of breathtaking, following a spectacularly scenic route through towering mountains and bright autumnal hues all around. The occasional village was a mixture of new, often Swiss chalet-style houses, mixed in with abandoned piles of sheer devastation and, in between, older houses carrying the wounds of war, with bullet holes defiantly left on display. And all too often the black granite and white marble of flower-clad cemeteries at the edge of a village here, on a mountainside there...
Sarajevo is where the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in 1914, hastening the outbreak of the Great War. I took a walk on Saturday with Tony and Anna to see the famous landmark, but the memorial is no longer there. We also saw the imposing building the assassinated couple had just left moments before their death. It is still beautiful, in spite of being in a state of complete disrepair.
The town is a weird mix of ages and architectural styles; from modern (the canary building and a strange green and yellow construction) through typical 18th/19th century Viennese style, back to old Turkish-bazaar style buildings, where the main tourist area is, abounding in jewellery shops and fake designer-wear. Somewhere in the midst of it all, an imposing Mosque stands, where believers were celebrating the end of Ramadan at the weekend. And here, too, the mix of modern stores sit cheek-by-jowl with the architectural casualties of the recent war.
On to Belgrade with Tony tomorrow, so we bid farewell to Rumyana and Anna, the Bulgarian babes. Au revoir...