Sarajevo: what to see in 1 day

Sarajevo marks on the pavement of its centre a precise point where Ottoman architecture gives way to Austro-Hungarian, the Sarajevo Meeting of Cultures, a visual synthesis of a city grown at the crossroads of East and West.

Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital surrounded by green hills, it still bears the scars of the 1990s siege alongside mosques, churches and synagogues that have coexisted for centuries in the same neighbourhood.

The Baščaršija opens the day: the old Ottoman bazaar, heart of the old town, comes alive around the Sebilj fountain, a symbolic meeting point from which covered streets lined with copper workshops and local crafts depart.

Just a few steps away stands the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque, the most important historic mosque in the Balkans, whose minaret towers next to the city's covered market.

Continuing on, you reach the Latin Bridge, where in 1914 the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand triggered the First World War, now marked by a commemorative plaque on the Miljacka riverbank.

For lunch, one of the restaurants in Baščaršija offers ćevapi, grilled meat rolls served in somun bread, a dish symbolic of Bosnian cuisine.

The Tunnel Museum reconstructs the tunnel dug under the airport during the siege, used to connect the besieged city to the rest of the country.

By cable car you ascend to Trebević, the mountain above the city that hosted the bobsled run for the 1984 Winter Olympics, today covered in graffiti and reopened to visitors.

By evening, returning to the Baščaršija, the restaurants in the neighborhood become the reference point for dinner, with illuminated minarets against the surrounding hills.

Baščaršija, Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque, and Latin Bridge already compose the historical stratification of Sarajevo, while an afternoon choice between the Tunnel Museum and Trebević adds either recent or Olympic dimensions.

The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart and a trip to the Bosna Springs at Vrelo Bosne remain chapters for a second visit. Seeing the minarets of Baščaršija rise among Sarajevo's green hills is the city's most direct image.