The Scent of Rain in the Balkans - the gripping story of the five Levi sisters of Sarajevo

Continuing a recent theme, I have just finished reading a totally gripping book by Belgrade born writer Gordana Kuic - The Scent of Rain in the Balkans. It is the story of a Sephardi Jewish family, called Salom in the book, but based on the story of a real family called Levi, who just happen to be the author's ancestors.

Covering the history of the family from 1914 and the assassination of the archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip, through the First World War, the inter-war period and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and then the devastation wreaked on that country throughout the second world war.

The strongly matriarchal family is made up of six diverse characters - mother Esther and her five daughters - Nina, Buki, Clara, Blanki and Riki - pictured right. The story refers to historical characters such as the unfortunate archduke, King Peter and the Croatian Fascist leader Doctor Ante Pavelich as well as tracing the changing social mores of the several decades covered by the book. We see daughters marrying "out", one to a Catholic, another to an Orthodox Christian. We see the youngest daughter Riki leaving the family nest to train as a dancer first of all in Vienna and then traveling across Europe as a successful artist. Of equal interest are the varying reactions of the people around the family - shocked neighbours, occasionally supportive friends and relatives and admiring writers, artists and other bohemian types.

The portrayal of Belgrade society in the inter-war period is fascinating. As with many people in the west, I knew very little about Belgrade's fascinating history until recently, but Ms. Kuic describes a time of great creativity, frivolity and also of hope for the future. The family's changing fortunes mirror those of the times with stunning highs followed by crashing lows - sometimes quite literally, including the inevitable tragedies experienced by a family that considered itself Bosnian, Serbian, Yugoslavian and Jewish in the Second World War.

This is not a short story - the English translation runs to almost 400 pages, but it is fast moving, gripping and has many twists and turns that held my attention throughout. I particularly like writers who can make me feel that I am in the place or the time that the story is set whilst I am reading and I certainly had that experience here - I could feel the cold of the Balkan winter, the fear of who might be knocking at the door during the war years and the anger of Clara at her frankly useless husband! Kuic has a real feel for the characters, especially the women who all display great strength at different times and in different ways. Her men are less developed and much weaker individuals, with a couple of notable exceptions - Blanki's eventual husband, Marko Korach being a bit of a quiet hero and one or two of the bit part male characters are also interesting. But this is a story about women being determined to survive against all odds and to live with hope for the future.



The book has been phenomenally successful in Serbia, including having been turned into a TV series, as well as there having been a ballet produced using elements of the story - you will need to read the book to understand why! The story of the Salom/ Levi family is played out over two more books that take the reader through the communist period and then on to the collapse of Yugoslavia and the wars of the 1990's. Unfortunately the other two books are not yet available in English - but I understand that another of Ms Kuic's works - "The Legend of Luna Levi" is in the process of being translated.

Gordana Kuic was born in 1942 and worked for 27 years as a translator, cultural assistant and English teaching assistant in the United States Embassy in her home town Belgrade before the collapse of Yugoslavia. You can read more about Gordana and her work on her website. I think London's Jewish Book Week in February next year would be a great place to hear more about her work...and to get my book autographed! If Jewish Book Week friends are reading this - please take note!

Jewish Sarajevo, a beautiful church and the Bosnian Pyramids

Sarajevo has a Jewish community of about 700 people. About 300 of these are "halachically" Jewish with the rest being offspring of mixed Jewish/ non-Jewish marriages. This is the remnant of a once much bigger presence, firmly established in the 16th century century with an influx of Sephardi Jews as a result of the earlier expulsion from Spain and much reduced during the Holocaust and by the exodus of several hundred community members during the Balkan War of 1992-95.

Sarajevo has been referred to as the "Little Jerusalem" due to the long and proud Jewish history in the city. The legacy of this long presence includes probably the most famous Jewish Book in the world - the Sarajevo Haggadah, hundreds of beautiful songs brought from Spain at the time of the expulsion and still sometimes sung in the original Judeo-Spanish, a wealth of Jewish learning and writing and a story of  largely peaceful co-existence with Muslim and Christian neighbours.

There have been dark periods in this history. The darkest of course occurred during the Second World War when the former Yugoslavia was occupied by Germany and when some 85% of the city's almost 12,000 Jews were transported to their deaths at a variety of camps in the former Yugoslavia. During this period, a number of Jewish intellectuals played a significant part in the resistance, including the writer Laura Papo La Bohoretta was eventually arrested and murdered. There are many stories of Muslim and Christian Bosnians helping Jewish friends and neighbours to evade the German occupiers and there are currently 40 Bosnian names on the register of Righteous Gentiles at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. However, this is only one side of the story as the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, who spent much of the war in Berlin and broadcast messages of support for the German regime also came to Bosnia during this time, recruited local Muslims to a special SS Division, who then participated in the killing of Jews and other minorities.

Ashkenazi Synagogue, Sarajevo

Jews have generally been well integrated into Bosnian society over the centuries and an example of this continuing acceptance included the Jewish relief organisation, La Benovelencija, assisting Muslims, Serbs and Croats to leave the city during the siege by taking them out with groups of elderly Jews and Jewish children who were evacuated from the city. Jewish community leaders have described this as repaying the help given to by fellow Bosnians to many Jews during the Second World War.

There are few remaining Jewish institutions in Sarajevo. The Great Synagogue in the city centre, built in 1581, is now a museum exhibiting a collection of religious objects, photographs and biographies of leading Bosnian Jewish artists and intellectuals including La Bohoretta (who is honoured by a plaque on the building's exterior), Daniel Ozmo and Doctor Isak Samokovlija. There are also exhibits relating to the Holocaust, to Bosnian Jewish life between the wars and a replica of the Sarajevo Haggadah is on display. The building is very well maintained and the damage sustained during the 1992-95 war has been repaired but it is not hard to feel the sense of loss of this once great community as this once "great" synagogue no longer serves a living community. Adjacent to the synagogue is the New Temple Gallery, another building owned by the Jewish community and used for art exhibitions. it was closed on the day I visited the Museum.

There remains one working synagogue in Sarajevo - the Ashkenazi synagogue across the river Miljacka, and a short walk from the Latinska Bridge. This synagogue is one of the largest in Europe and was built in 1902 to the design of architects Karl Parzik and Jungwirth. Built in the Moorish style, it is the only working synagogue in the country today. I understand that the interior is also in Moorish style with arches and wall pantings by Ludwig Oisner, but at the time of my visit the synagogue was locked. I have no count I will return to Sarajevo so seeing the inside of this imposing building will be on my list of must-dos.

One of the most enduring legacies of Sarajevo's Jewish community is its influence on music. The Sephardim spoke, read and wrote in Judeo-Spanish having brought the language with them from Spain following the expulsion of 1492 and many books, songs and poems were written in this beautiful, but now almost dead language. A number of singers such as Israeli's Yasmin Levy and Mor Karbasi are working hard to preserve this music and to promote it to a wide audience. Flory Jagoda, born in Sarajevo but now resident in the United States has recorded many of the specifically Bosnian songs. You can hear one of them by clicking on the video below.

Although Sarajevo has only one working synagogue today, the city is not short of religious buildings with many mosques and Orthodox and Catholic churches. I especially enjoyed visiting the Franciscan Monastery and Church of Saint Antonio in the Bistrik quarter of the city, very close to my hotel. The church was built in a very short period in 1912 and replaced a less robust earlier structure. Designed by architect Josip Vancas in the new gothic style, the church is a very large structure, towering over the neighbouring residential buildings and the famous Sarajevska Pivara brewery. The interior was refurbished in the 1960's and features stunning stained glass windows by Croatian artists Ivo Dulcic, wood carvings by sculptor Zdenko Grgic and a beautiful mural of the Last Supper behind the central altar.

Bistrik is a pretty quarter with many interesting buildings in a range of styles including art nouveau apartments, brightly coloured houses and rows of well maintained cottages. It is also a very green part of the city with many gardens, trees and grassy areas.

The final stop on my short visit to Bosnia was Visoko, a small town just a short drive from Sarajevo and which until recently attracted visitors with its leather trade and handicraft workshops, its fortress and a small town museum. This all changed in April 2005 when Semir Osmanagic, an American based Bosnian researcher noticed two geometrically symmetrical hills close to the town. Osmanagic maintained that the Visocia Hill (now known as the Bosnian pyramid of the Sun) and Pljesivica Hill (now the Bosnian pyramid of the Moon) shared characteristics with pyramids he had studied in Egypt and in South America. As you might expect, his assertions created quite a stir amongst archaeologists and the general public with a great deal of doubt being cast on his views.

After numerous subsequent excavations, he has been able to convince many experts (although not all), that the formations are not natural. Evidence to support Osmanagic's case include geological verification that the Visocica Hill is a massive stone formation in the shape of a pyramid, with excavations showing large slabs of hand carved stone at each level of the hill. Satellite, thermal and radar images of Pljesevica Hill show perfectly identical dimensions - surely indicating that the structure is artificial in nature.

On the morning of my visit, the upper levels of the hills were shrouded in mist and a steady drizzle was falling. Accompanied my travelling partner, I slowly made my way up Pljesivica Hill. There is a small entry fee to climb to where the excavations are exposed and after asking whether or not we spoke German (which we don't), the attendant explained to us (in German) that we must keep to the wooden edged steps cut into the mud (so maybe we do understand German?). Good advice, but some stretches of the climb either don't have steps cut in, or the wooden edges have already been worn away. What did I think? Well, there is definitely a massive sloping rock formation under the heavily forested top soil of the hill and it does look man made to me, although very different to the Egyptian pyramids which have been exposed to centuries of weathering. Osmanogic believes the structures to be more than 10,000 years old and they may have originated when the Balkan peninsula was a refuge for Mediterranean civilisations during the last ice age.

Still the subject of much debate the site is now being further excavated by a number of experts drawn from across the world. One thing for certain, looking down on the exquisite green countryside from the misty and heavily wooded hill top, it wasn't hard to imagine that an ancient civilisation would choose this place as a refuge from the encroaching ice.

And a confession. Visoko wan't my absolute last stop in Bosnia. That honour and delight fell to Samis, where there was just enough time for another coffee and a piece of baklava before going to the airport.

More from Bosnia-Herzegovina

I have already written about some of my favourite parts of Sarajevo - the art nouveau architecture, the coffee, the cakes...but I must also mention a couple of other things. Regular readers will know that in addition to coffee and cake, I have a passion for books and book shops. Sarajevo has many good quality book shops and there is clearly a burgeoning publishing industry here with many well produced local titles. Several book shops carry at least some titles in English but my favourite has to be Sahinpasic, located near to the Europa Hotel where I picked up a couple of treasures - Sarajevo Rose, subtitled a Balkan Jewish Notebook and Forgotten Sarajevo - a truly wonderful collection of old photographs of the city, many retouched with colour. Fantastic. Incidentally, the rebuilt Hotel Europa is worth a visit to sample the above average priced, but very good cakes in their Vienna Cafe.

Speaking of books, I have almost finished reading the Nobel prize winner Ivo Andric's The Bridge Over the Drina which follows the history of the bridge at Visegrad, built during the Ottoman period and its relationship with the city and its inhabitants over the next several hundred years up to the tragic events of 1914. The story is interesting, tracing the changing relationships between the city's different ethnic groups, the ongoing struggle for independence from the Turks and then from the Austrians and also the day to day lives, loves and struggles of Visegrad's citizens. Andric was born in Travnik of Croatian parents, served in the pre-war government and then again under Tito. The book is controversial in some quarters with what is described as an anti-Muslim/ Turkish stance, but I don't think it is as clear as that, with several Muslim characters being drawn sympathetically. Read it and make your own mind up.

I must also mention my hotel - Pansion Kandilj, a small, cosy, family-run hotel just a few minutes walk from the Latinska Bridge and the old city. The Kandilj (meaning candle) is very comfortable, has free wi-fi (and PC access if you don't have your laptop with you), and provides a nice breakfast with all the usual things plus omelettes to order! But, more important than this, the staff are extremely helpful, friendly and knowledgeable and can arrange tours and drivers to other parts of the country. The common areas are set out and decorated in Ottoman style and there is a nice small terrace area for evening relaxation. Good price too.

Sarajevo is a fairly small city so its easy to see a lot of it in a short time. One of the good things about this, is that it means you can squeeze a lot into a short trip and some of the country's most interesting sites are within a couple of hours drive of the city. Having agreed a very reasonable price with one of the staff from the Pansion Kandilj, we visited Mostar and Blagaj, two of Herzegovina's most beautiful locations.

The drive from Sarajevo to Mostar took about two hours - some of it on the very small amount of motorway the country has, but almost all of it through stunning scenery. This country is extremely green and mountainous, still has forests and it is still possible to see bears, wolves and other wild animals. I didn't see any on this drive, but when stopping to take some road side photographs, it was possible to hear wild pigs in the forest.

Mostar was our first stop and arriving on the Bosnian side of the city, we made straight for the famous bridge. The bridge at Mostar stood for more than 400 years and was a symbolic link between the two halves of this small and ancient city. Destroyed during the war in the 1990's, the bridge has been completely restored, again attracts many visitors and dominates the centre of the city, just begging to be photographed and admired. The bridge is faithfully restored to the original design of Ottoman architect, Hajrudin, a pupil of the famous Hodja Mimar Sinan who designed many of Istanbul's best loved buildings.

The Mostar Diving Club has its home on the bridge and during peak tourist periods, young divers can be seen dropping the 21 metres from the high point of the bridge into the summer water level of the shallow River Neretva below. They don't do it just for fun though. Each dive is a performance which begins with the diver climbing over the railings at the peak of the bridge and teasing the tourists about jumping. One of his colleagues takes a hat around to collect money to encourage the diver, who gradually prepares for the jump  - removing the t-shirt, then the shorts, then hanging from the railings, perhaps climbing back on to the bridge and feigning disinterest until enough money is in the hat. Then very quickly, the diver is back over the railings, composing himself, bends his knees and then he's gone to the gasps of the crowd and (at least on the two dives I saw) quickly resurfaces down below the bridge.

The narrow street on the other side of the bridge is filled with small tourist shops selling postcards, guide books, home made jewellery, a variety of trinkets and some interesting goodies such as hand made herbal soaps - I bought some for my mum! This side of the river also has a number of small cafes including the high level Terrace Cafe which has great views of the bridge, the streets below and the many tourists that have began to pour back into Mostar. There are also some interesting roof top views here and a great view of an old building gradually being overtaken by vegetation! The Terrace Cafe has a slightly relaxed attitude to service, but then it was 40 degrees on the day of our visit and the coffee and cherry cake were very good once they arrived.

Strolling through Mostar, walking through the main tourist area, there are a number of interesting sites, including the Koski Mehmed Pasha mosque built in 1617, again with great views of the bridge and the river and a small bazaar in the grounds of the building. A little further along comes the Kara Ozbegova mosque which has a very cooling and beautiful external lobby, which afforded us a little shelter as we felt the first drops of rain during our stay in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is one of the most important Islamic monuments in the country and was completed in 1557 to the design of the great Sinan. Badly damaged during the 1990's war, serious restoration work is now under way.

However, for me, the star of the show is the 17th century Biscevica House, located a few steps away from the main drag. For a couple of marks admission fee, you can visit the first floor divanhan (conversation room) preserved in Ottoman style as well as an inner room overlooking the river. The house is decorated with Ottoman era furnishings, carpets and household items, including an "Ottoman" or storage trunk with beautiful if faded original decoration. The upper floor of the house affords views into the shady, whitewashed courtyard. It is easy to imagine generations of residents and visitors enjoying this cool retreat from the heat of Herzegovinian summers.

A short drive from Mostar brought us to Blagaj. Blagaj is best known for the Dervish tekija, or monastery. Built in the 1500's for a Dervish cult, the tekija stands at the base of a 200 metres high cliff wall and overlooking the source of the River Buna, which is larger than the source of the Danube.  The tekija itself has a quiet, peaceful atmosphere despite the large number of visitors every year and contains  a number of Islamic religious implements and artefacts spread throughout the various sitting and prayer rooms. The wooden lattice work is also interesting and the decorated wooden ceiling in one of the larger rooms is extremely unusual, featuring twisted wood. Visitors can also walk out onto an outside balcony which gives good views of the cliff and the water.

Less well known, but well worth a visit is the Velagic House, approached by walking down a steep lane on the approach to the tekija. The complex was built in 1766 and consists of three houses with courtyards, a guesthouse, a mill, granary, water channels and beautiful gardens. Visitors are shown round by a member of the Velagic family who originated in Hungary and who still own the house. We were guided around the parts of the house that were open by Mirza, a very knowledgeable teenager who speaks good English and is clearly very proud of his family's heritage.

Much of the house is under restoration and it should attract many more visitors once the work is complete. Photographs are allowed in the house itself, but rather strangely not in the very attractive and peaceful garden. Mirza explained to us that this is because of some "problem" with a neighbour who does not like them to have visitors and objects most strongly to photographs. We actually saw this neighbour during our visit who stood scowling across at us from his own garden. Very strange, but don't let this put you off. The house has some beautiful Ottoman area furnishings and some very charming and interesting historical photographs as well as an opportunity to see some of the prized possessions of the Velagic family. Well worth a visit.

All of this in one day and still back to Sarajevo in time for dinner and the evening promenade. And of course, coffee and cake at Samis!

For more pictures from Bosnia-Herzegovia, view the "otherness website" here.

Sarajevo - art nouveau, baklava and carbonised chips

I had never been to the former Yugoslavia before a recent short trip to Sarajevo. There are no direct flights from London, so I spent an hour at Zagreb airport waiting for a connection. Technically I've now visited two of the former constituent states of Yugoslavia, but I'm not counting an hour in an airport as a real visit to Croatia, even if I spent another one on the way back.

Sarajevo is a city with a big history. Invasions or annexations by Turks and Austrians. Occupation by Germans. A narrow escape from Stalinist domination due to former leader Tito (who is still much revered) and of course more recently the siege of 1992-95 during the collapse of Yugoslavia. From arrival in the city there are visible signs of almost all of these events, some less expected than others.

Above - war damaged art nouveau building in the old city centre

The Sarajevo skyline is full of minarets dating from the Ottoman period to the present day and these stand out on the descent to the city from the surrounding hills. Many buildings still show signs of shelling from the most recent war and others remain in ruins. The Latinska Bridge remains as a memory to the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by one Gavrilo Princip in 1914 - lighting the fuse to the First World War. One of the main boulevards is named for Tito. And somewhat unexpectedly, there are many stunning art nouveau buildings from the Austrian period.

The people of Sarajevo also reflect this history. The city is a mix of Bosniaks - Bosnians of muslim background (if not necessarily overtly religious), Serbs and Croats as well as Gypsies and a remnant of a once much larger Jewish community. For the most part its not easy to know who is who. There are fair skinned, fair haired, blue eyed women in headscarves and obvious Islamic dress and there are dark skinned women (and men) in very revealing clothing during the evening promenade around the old city centre when the streets are full of people in their best clothes, shopping, meeting friends and generally being seen. There are very few fully covered women here, although it appears that this is a growing phenomenon and that Saudi Arabian investment is underwriting the provision of new mosques, madrases and cultural centres.

Sarajevo is a very young city - there are children and young people everywhere and although unemployment is sky-high, (indexMUNDI quotes the official rate in 2010 as 43.1%), there is a feeling of confidence here.  The cafes are full and people seem to have money - much of it sent back from relatives working abroad. The city has been regenerating itself through culture. The Sarajevo Film Festival was on during my stay and there is an international Jazz Festival every winter, but these important events can only bring limited job opportunities for locals. The main cultural and historical buildings have been restored and tourists are coming and very welcome.

But back to the art nouveau. There are examples of this architectural style throughout the old city. The largest concentrations I saw were along Marsala Tita (a Parisian style boulevard named for Tito - pictured below), on Obala Kulina Bana (the busy main road running the length of the old town beside the river) and a residential area north of the old town, centred on Tina Ujevica.

Marsala Tita has a number of glorious apartment blocks with shops on the ground floor. The Salomonova Palace dates from 1912 and was designed by Rudolf Tonnies. The street facing facade of the building has clearly been restored and cleaned and is extremely impressive with a range of nouveau motifs and a quality book shop on the ground floor. The courtyard is open and reveals a commemorative sign to the architect as well as stylish cafes on the ground floor and several floors of flats with walk along balconies. It is easy to imagine such a courtyard in Budapest or Vienna. On the opposite side of Marsala Tita, stands the stunning National Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina (pictured below) - a much reduced form of art nouveau, but with the entrance guarded by two classic nouveau figures holding lamps and decorative freezes on the external walls.The architect was Milan Zlotovic and his building is a showstopper on this busy boulevard.

The art nouveau ensemble around Tina Ujevica was originally residential but has been used for various purposes over the years. The Villa Mandic  (pictured below) was built in 1907 for lawyer Dr. Nikola Mandic and designed by architect Karl Parzik. The building was once the American Consulate and latterly the Museum of the 14th Winter Olympics held in Sarajevo. Badly damaged in the recent war, the Museum is relocated and the Villa requires significant restoration. It is located at the top of some very steep steps on the side of a hill which gives it a tremendous view of the city. The turrets, colours and grandiose entrance to the building make it well worth the climb.

Adjacent to Villa Mandic is Heinrich Reiter's villa (pictured below), also designed by Parzik. A fascinating slim tower peeps from behind the overgrown garden and is adjoined to a wonderful piece of Central European architecture, decorated in rich alpine floral style and which at least according to the sign outside is partly used by the British Embassy. If it is the Embassy, and they occupy the part with the satellite dish for goodness sake can they remove it, or put it at the rear of the building - hasn't it already suffered enough? Parzik was Born in 1857 in Jicin in the former Czechoslovakia,spent 60 years of his life in Sarajevo and designed many buildings in the city including the National Museum, the Ashkenazi Synagogue, the Islamic Foundation and numerous churches - evidence of early ecumenicalism perhaps?

A walk along the riverside of Obala Kubina Bala affords great views of the many banks, villas and apartment buildings in nouveau and other interesting styles, including the magnificent Fine Arts Academy, again resembling Hungarian architecture of the period. Most of these buildings are in desperate need of cleaning and further restoration before they are lost.

Food usually features largely on my travels and although I've been very good recently and significantly reduced my cake dependancy, I am afraid I had a major relapse in Sarajevo. These people know a good cake alright, and how could they not, with the Turkish and Austrian influences. Its a bit of a cake paradise. Coffee drinking is a national sport - real coffee that is - in independent, long established cafes with baklava and other eastern sweets, cream cakes, fruit tarts and flakey savoury pastries stuffed with cheese, potato, spinach or meat.

My cafe of choice has to be Ramis (pictured below) on Saraci in the old town. Established in 1912 by one Nezir Nezirovic who named it after one of his sons, four generations later the cafe is still with the same family. Not only are the cakes terrific (best baklava on all my travels) but its also a great location for people watching - get one of the outside tables if you can and see most of Sarajevo come past at some point in the evening. The cafe attracts locals of all ages as well as tourists and its not hard to imagine how it must have been back at the beginning of the last century when perhaps Sarajevo was at its most elegant.

Continuing the sweet theme, Bosnians like their ice cream too. You can see it everywhere. Cafes sell it from the window, kiosks sell it in the street and queues form at the best shops throughout the evening. The most popular ice cream shop is Egipat on the busy Ferhadija thoroughfare in the old town. There are many flavours to choose from but the vanilla is legendary. There is a story that some Italians were so impressed with it that they offered a huge amount of money for the recipe, but the owners didn't want to sell! I tried it and liked it and thought I detected a taste of caramel in there too...

Bosnian cuisine is very (very) meaty, but the vegetarian can survive quite well here. There is Vegehana, which is not only vegetarian but also non-smoking. Tucked away on a side alley at Ferhadjia 39, the restaurant occupies the ground floor of what appears to have been a residential property, is nicely decorated and furnished in modern minimalist style and has a good menu with vegetarian staples like tofu and seitan as well as salads and my choice of falafel and humous (no surprise there then!). The service is friendly and welcoming although a little disorganised, but certainly worth a visit if you've had enough meat or are looking for a vegetarian oasis. Elsewhere good salads are easy to find, but don't expect a long list of veggie options in most places.

The Inat Kuca restaurant on Veliki Alifakovac has great views of the river from the outside tables and on the evening I ate there, there was also an open air concert in the adjoining square - part of a month of free concerts held during the summer each year. My guide book praised the food (salads, soups, meats and the ubiquitous cheese, spinach and potato pies) but had harsh words for the service. I enjoyed the food (cheese pie with various salads) and thought the service was fine - although there only appeared to be one waiter for rather a lot of tables. The interior of the restaurant is worth a look with its beautifully decorated ceilings, walls and open kitchen. Cosy in the winter. The cheese pie by the way is a variation of what some of us know as burekas.

The only food "disaster" I encountered was in another restaurant where my friend ordered chips as a side dish. Well, chips appeared but not like you've ever seen in a restaurant before. Blackened and hard and as my friend Claudio described them, "carbonised". A new dish perhaps - chips carbon(ise)ara? But even here, there was much smiling and wanting us to enjoy the food, so a few burnt chips can be overlooked...

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