Sarajevo, BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA

Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984. This famously picturesque city of 388,000 people, now the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, used to be part of Yugoslavia. When Bosnia's people voted in a referendum in 1991 to call for Independence from Yugoslavia, the local Bosnian Serbs (with support of the Yugoslav army in Belgrade) started their aggression against the people of Sarajevo.

The Serbs' 1,400-day choke-hold on Sarajevo during the 1992-1995 war cut Sarajevo off from the rest of Bosnia, and the rest of the world. During the siege, the UN looked on and did little more than talking. Under the eyes of the international media and the world, more than 10,600 Sarajevans, including 1,060 children, died from snipers bullets or exploding shells. By the end of the war, 200,000 Bosnians were dead and two million displaced or refugees.

Its been 12 years since the end of the war in Sarajevo. Little evidence is left as the people rebuilt their city in record time. Only cemeteries that dot the hills around the valley of Sarajevo are the silent reminders of the hell this lovely city went through.

The food is good...I even like the national dish, cevapcici, which is a stubby lamb sausage served with inside a thick, greasy pita, topped with fresh chopped onions. The national beer, Sarajevsko, is great, and even their wines are excellent.