Autumn in Central Europe

There is something about the crunch of leaves beneath my feet and the distant smell of chimney smoke at dusk that capture my heart every autumn.  The past couple of weeks the leaves have begun to change colors and the sun is slowly making itself scarce earlier and earlier.  Autumn is one of those seasons you can easily miss if you don't look up and notice what is around you.  Sure you will feel the weather getting cooler, and you can notice the days getting shorter, but it is the radiant colors of fall that can come and go so quickly. We didn't want fall to pass us by without really embracing it, so this past weekend we spent a day at the imperial gardens in Vienna: Schonbrunn and Belvedere, and then an afternoon exploring the many colors of Gellert Hill in Budapest.

Schonbrunn Palace Gardens

Catching leaves at Schonbrunn

Prancing in the leaves

Stadt Park with Strauss in the background

Belvedere Palace

Gellert Hill

Gellert Hill

Sarajevo

We took a nine hour bus ride from Belgrade to Sarajevo. I was planning on sleeping for a lot of the ride, but the scenery along the way was absolutely stunning that I just couldn't shut my eyes.  We were weaving between jagged cliffs and driving along water nearly the color of emeralds.  We spent four days in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, but I felt like I could have stayed forever.

View of Sarajevo

Sarajevo might be one of my favorite cities in the entire world.  It has a depth of beauty that is greater than most cities.  On the surface you see a city sprawling within a basin of beautiful green hills, cobbled streets with old ottoman architecture, minarets in every direction, and an overall calm and stillness when you take it all in from a higher vantage point.  As you scan more closely and deeply you notice countless cemeteries, streets that wear scars in the form of bullet holes and mortar impressions, and a city full of people who saw more death and destruction than anyone should have to see.  Sarajevo was under siege for nearly four years during the 1990's, making it the longest siege of a capital city in modern warfare. Despite all of the scars the city might wear, the people have such a beautiful attitude and outlook on life.  They look forward, to what is good and in front of them, when it would be so easy to just look back and stay consumed in the pain and fear they had to endure. There was a true sense of positive energy in Sarajevo, unlike any other place I have ever been.  It might seem strange to describe a place that visibly emanates pain and destruction to have positive energy, but it was there, and it was radiating from the people.  There was this strange mix between positive energy from the people and feelings of heavy emotions that were impossible to shake when seeing  and hearing about what the people of this city had to go through. I really cannot fully describe it; it was just something that could so clearly be felt.

Men watching a chess game in a park

Bascarsija Square

Islamic Cemetery

Sarajevo Rose (mortar explosion)