we arrive in the centre of Sarajevo to find a mixture of damaged and repaired and ok buildings, we park the bikes and walk in the traffic free centre and find a lively cosmopolitan city centre, what a contrast, after asking directions we find the tourist office and ask about campsites in the area, but we are told there are none, so we enquire about accomadation and the lady in the tourist office makes a couple of phone calls then tells us that someone will come for us in five minutes, he duly turns up and we walk across town with him to an office were we book and pay for accomadation in a private house, this is when we find out that our cheap accomadation is going to cost us 75 euro's for two nights, we are hoping that the accomadation will therfore be quite good!!, then we walk back across town with our escort, over the river,down a street then up a very steep cobbled hill, I am quietly turning the air blue and hoping that the accomadation is good whilst Mrs 'B' is telling me there is no way she is going to ride the bike up that hill, our escort says it is 'OK for the Moto's ....yes'. I look at the bloody great big kerb stones at the top of the hill and reply whilst gasping for air No F***ing way Mate, I have visions of getting to the top, hitting the kerb, the front wheel heading skyward and the bike then going back down the hill end over end, probably with me still on it, had I have managed to keep the front wheel on the ground the momentum would have sent me straight into the cemetary wall which only a few feet away!!!! and he gives us a look of disbelief 'no good' he says 'no good' we say, 'ok we go back to town another way'. A couple of minutes later we arrive at our accomadation, 'UNBELIVEABLE', what a shithole, I then told the fella that this was not good enough for £25 per night without breakfast, he assures me that this is very cheap for Sarajevo, this turned out to be correct, I presume that the UN have been there in such numbers that the price of accommodation is out of all proportion to the relative economy ( or to put it another way the hoteliers are making hay whilst the sun shines ).

The hotels are so expensive that I would say unless the UN is paying your bill you would be absolutely stupid to go there. Sarajevo itself is quite a nice place bearing in mind the war damage etc. But the hotel prices spoiled the place for me. On the plus side 20 ciggies were 50p and food and drink was relatively cheap. The people were very friendly and very helpful. Even the grubby little street urchins were OK. We saw a few beggers, young girls with small babies being the most annoying. An old lady was curled up sitting on the street and several what appeared to be locals all stopped and gave her some small notes.

The highlight for Jenny was getting to go into a Mosque in the town centre, complete with loaned head-scarf. Normally no non-Muslims are allowed. The claim that Sarajevo is Europe's Jerusalem seemed a bit far fetched - there was a great mixture of cultures, Muslim, Catholic, Jewish and Orthodox plus others ( all catered for in the Church departments adequately ) but no other real signs of this being a "holy" place. Maybe we missed something ??

We left Sarajevo after only two nights and one full day - we both felt this was enough really to see it all.