Lord Michael Bates continues his journey...Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
As you will know if you have been following over the last few weeks, our good friend Lord Michael Bates is currenlty walking from Athens in Greece, to London in time for the 2012 Olympics all in support of the Walk for Truce campaign. You can find more details on the campaign here: http://www.walkfortruce.org/
Please see Michael's latest update below:
Currently in Sarajevo although I still have 45 miles to complete of the walk from the border—once again there was no accommodation so ended up driving to Sarajevo. Even in Sarajevo hotels have been very hard to come by as it is the Sarajevo Film Festival so staying in different hotels every night.
Weather much cooler in the mountains—means I can walk all through the day so making faster progress. Big debate is whether to head back down the coast (Split) via Mostar or go straight up to Zagreb. Zagreb route cooler, shorter, but limited accommodation Split, hot, longer but lots of accommodation. I have a week to decide.
Have a big event being organised on Wednesday morning by the British Embassy to promote 1 year to go to the Olympics and the Walk for Truce at the Olympic Museum here (Sarajevo was a host city for the Games in 1984—who can forget Torvil & Dean’s Gold Medal winning performance of Bolereo!).
Sarajevo is quite amazing—beautiful old town but still many bullet-ridden and burned out buildings from the Bosnian war. Sobering to visit the exact spot where the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife took place which was the cause of the First World War, which was the cause of the Russian Revolution and the settlement of which (The Treaty of Versailles) lay the foundations for the Second World war and probably in total the deaths of 200 million people (including my Great Grandfather) can be traced back to ‘ground zero’ and the actions of one 19 year old on the morning of 28 June, 1914, how small are the hinges on which the great doors of history turn.
Thank you for your encouragement and support and do point people to the petition and the web-site at www.walkfortruce.org.
Michael