Sophie’s Garden
A memorial with beer and wine
I’m a creature of habit and (despite my love of travel) an essentially sedentary soul, so when I’m staying in a city for more than a few days, I look for a bar, pub, or cafe to become my “local” (Kneipe, neighborhood watering hole, etc.). If the stars are correctly aligned, I’ll discover a place where the atmosphere, menu, and staff make me feel at home, and I’ll spend afternoons or evenings there, reading, writing, and people-watching.
When I was last in Sarajevo, my local was the Celtic Pub, one of those inevitable Irish-ish bars that set up shop in most every European city. I was looking forward to making it my home base on this trip as well but, for the first few weeks I was in town, I somehow managed to misplace it. [FN1]
Rudderless, I resorted to my keen powers of observation. On the first night of this visit, I found myself near the infamous Latin Bridge and decided to take a few pictures of the span in melodramatic twilight. Next to the gruesome museum devoted to the assassination, I spotted a bar I was certain hadn’t been there before. It was called Sophie’s Garden, raising my hopes that it paid tribute to the other person, usually forgotten, who died at that intersection in 1914.
Sophie’s Garden is indeed an homage to Sophie Chotek, the morganatic wife of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose fate was to be slighted in life and death alike. Inside the bar, you’ll find pictures of her on the walls, as well as copies of books acknowledging that a double murder had taken place nearby. She got a shitty deal while she was alive and was reduced to a footnote (if mentioned at all) in the drama of her husband’s death. This small recognition of her life feels like a small act of justice, raising the glass to politicians’ wives who lost it all in their husbands’ downfalls.
All that got me through the door, but after my curiosity was satisfied, I realized I’d discovered a new Kneipe. The wife and husband who own the bar do the bartending, and a sorta-punk waitress backs them up—although, honestly, there was never the impression that rank meant much there. The patrons were an eclectic mix of ages and affect, so I scribbled away in my notebook at a table near the door without feeling unwelcome or out of place. The staff were even patient enough to help me with my stumbling attempts at speaking Bosnian.
And, honestly, who wouldn’t love a bar with this on the wall of the men’s room?
I’m looking forward to spending an evening there on my next trip to Sarajevo (hopefully with a touch more fluency in Bosnian).
1 How does one lose a bar? Well, misremembering the name is a good first step (I was searching Google for the “Irish Pub” without success), and then shifting its location in one’s mental map to another street entirely kind of seals the deal. I stumbled on it almost by accident, thinking “Celtic Pub” sounded like a good place for a drink, and then, overwhelmed by deja vu, confirming this was indeed my old haunt by referring to pictures from 2018. Still, I would have sworn it lay on a different street entirely and, not for the first time on this trip, I was half-convinced that an establishment had moved simply to confound my sense of direction. The bartenders assured me that the Celtic Pub had not done a runner and kindly chalked up my confusion to inadequate signage. I tipped accordingly. ↺ BACK