It’s a thing they have in these European cities: free city tours. You have a guide, who takes you around town, showing things, and in the end you’re expected to tip them. So they aren’t really free, but you can choose how much you pay for them.
I went on the city tour in Sarajevo, on my last evening there. And it was a really weird experience.
We started in the old part of town.
Our guide showed us some of the important buildings, and took us through the old market hall.
A visit to the Orthodox church, and the post office, and some monuments, and all through the tour she talked about how inventive and artistic and just utterly amazing the Bosnian people are. But at the same time, the country is also poor and then there is the war trauma and the completely worthless political power, divided into three and therefore without any way to make any decisive changes in the country.
I felt I had walked into a strange combination of a bragging and pity party for Bosnia, and I didn’t at all feel like she was giving a fair picture of the country. But, I guess you can’t expect too much from a free tour.
Katja Malmborg 