Sarajevo.
A city split beautifully between empires.

Picture this: you've been driving for hours through the Bosnian countryside, your stomach is eating itself, three teenagers in the back seat have moved past "hungry" into "dangerously quiet," and the suburbs of Sarajevo seem to stretch on forever. And then you find a restaurant that ruins every meal for the rest of the trip — because nothing will ever be that good again.

This is Sarajevo through my shades: a city split beautifully between empires, a restaurant that broke our brains, and a hard lesson about why you should never, under any circumstances, get covid when you're on a tight schedule.

What's coming: a meat platter that caused a solar eclipse, the bread and kajmak that could have been the whole meal, and why Sarajevo earned a rare 5 out of 5 from us — even after losing half our visit to a flu the universe clearly ordered for us special.

The Drive In (and the Hunger)

We were somewhere in the middle of a road trip through Bosnia — heading south from the north, eventually making our way to the coast. Me, Irena, and our three teens. Hours of driving since our last stop, and the Sarajevo suburbs were doing that thing where every block looks like you're almost there but you're definitely not. Was the drive actually that long, or were we just that hungry? Probably both.

A local had told us about a restaurant called Brajlović, right on the river. "It's fantastic," they said. We are people who unfortunately love to eat — our waistbands will confirm this — so we didn't need to be told twice. GPS locked in. Let's go.

Brajlović — Or, the Meal That Ruined All Other Meals

We pulled up along the riverbank on a hot summer day and asked to sit outside. Our waiter — super polite, switched from Serbo-Croatian to English the moment he heard where we were from — walked us to our table and started explaining the menu and the specialties. Professional, warm, the kind of service where you immediately relax.

But here's the thing. On the walk to our table, we passed the other diners. We saw their plates. Our mouths were already watering before we sat down because the portions looked enormous. Spoiler: they were.

We ordered the specialty meat platter. But before that arrived, the waiter brought out the freshest, warmest bread I've had in my life, with kajmak — a local cheese spread that is, and I'm choosing these words carefully, absolutely to die for.

But wait. There was more.

I am totally joking when I say it took 13 waiters to carry the meat platter out to us. But only slightly joking. There was a massive leg of lamb. Steaks. Ćevapi — Bosnian fast food, for the uninitiated, and it's glorious. Things that looked like hamburgers but were not hamburgers. Sausages. And much, much more that I couldn't actually see, because the leg of lamb was blocking the other side of the platter like a solar eclipse. A meat eclipse.

There are not enough words in the English language to describe how good this was. I will simply say that when human beings are presented with food this extraordinary, they will gorge themselves well past the point of reason. We'll leave it at that.

We waddled back to the vehicle. First gear. Drove off looking for our apartment. The three teenagers were silent — but this time it was the good kind of silent. The full kind.

The Apartment, the Architecture, and the Ambush

Downtown Sarajevo: Austro-Hungarian on one side of the street, Ottoman on the other. Beautiful — not designed with car parking in mind.

GPS guided us into downtown Sarajevo, weaving through one-way streets lined with stunning Austro-Hungarian buildings — the kind of architecture that makes you feel like you've stepped into a different century. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Not, however, designed with car parking in mind. We found our apartment, punched in the gate code, and squeezed the car in.

Took our suitcases up, changed, and got ready to go see the sights of Sarajevo on a beautiful summer evening.

And then covid — or whatever flavour of illness it was — took three of us out.

The silver lining: all three of us were good as gold by morning. The body does what the body does. But we'd lost a full evening in a city we were only passing through, and the clock was ticking.

The Centre Line — East Meets West in Three Steps

Here's what makes Sarajevo unlike anywhere else I've been: you can literally walk across a line in the city and watch centuries change in front of you.

On the west side, gorgeous Austro-Hungarian architecture — grand facades, wide boulevards, the kind of buildings that make you think of Vienna or Prague. Cross that invisible line heading east, and suddenly you're in Ottoman-influenced streets — mosques, copper workshops, Turkish-style markets, narrow lanes buzzing with life. We visited the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque, the famous one in the old town, and spent the morning just walking and taking it in.

The blend of east and west isn't something you read about and then kind of see when you get there. It's immediate. It hits you in three steps. Absolutely worth the visit.

Mujo's — Or, the Problem With Eating Too Well

For breakfast-slash-lunch we went to Mujo's, which is supposed to be one of the well-known ćevapi spots in Sarajevo. The key word there is "supposed to be."

Mujo himself isn't around anymore, and I guess his recipe left with him. It wasn't bad — it just wasn't even in the same universe as yesterday's meal at Brajlović.

Sorry, Mujo's. It's not you, it's us. Actually, it might be a little bit you.

What We Missed (and Why I'm Still Annoyed About It)

Losing that evening to illness meant we only really had one night and one morning in Sarajevo. For a city this rich — the history, the architecture, the food, the mix of cultures — that wasn't nearly enough. I could have spent two or three full days here easily. The fact that we were on a tight schedule heading south through Bosnia to the coast meant we had to check out and keep moving.

One more note: we did drive around Sarajevo, and I have stories about navigating European city streets in a rented VW SUV. But those deserve their own post — along with what happened to us later in Croatia. That one's coming. Trust me, it's worth the wait.

The Honest Take

Sarajevo is one of the most beautiful and interesting cities I've visited. The people are warm and genuinely kind. The architecture is jaw-dropping from both its Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman sides. The food — when you find the right place — is some of the best I've ever eaten. Brajlović alone is reason enough to drive to Sarajevo.

On the flip side: we got sick and lost precious time, Mujo's was a letdown, and parking in a city built for carriages and not SUVs is an adventure in itself. But none of that is Sarajevo's fault. (Except maybe Mujo's.)

Highlights

• Brajlović on the river — the meal of the entire trip. Bread, kajmak, and the meat eclipse.
• The east-west centre line — watch centuries change in three steps.
• Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque — stunning, and right in the heart of the old town.
• The architecture — Austro-Hungarian grandeur meets Ottoman charm.
• The people — warm, polite, switched to English without missing a beat.