Grand Tour of the Balkans 2026-27

Sarajevo, “the Jerusalem of the Balkans”.

Because of the presence of the three main monotheistic religions, Sarajevo is also known as the Jerusalem of the Balkans. From the outset the city seems suspended between East and West. Here time seems to flow at a different speed from the one we are normally used to. The smells, the flavours, the city's architecture with its domes, minarets and bell towers all help to give the city an exotic, spiritual air. For centuries Sarajevo was a living example of multiculturalism and tolerance between different cultures and religions. In its streets the traces of the thousand-year relationship between East and West, and of the events that have marked, for better or worse, the history of Europe and the fate of the city itself, survive almost intact. Its intimate beauty and the many reasons for visiting it are often overshadowed by the memory and images of the terrible siege of the Bosnian War of 1992-1995 alone. The victim, in those years, of the longest siege since the end of the Second World War, the city has been completely rebuilt, though the scars of the siege are still visible.

Dubrovnik, the ancient Ragusa.

It does not matter whether this will be your first time in Dubrovnik or whether you are a devoted regular visitor to this splendid city: the sense of wonder and amazement you feel when your eyes fall on the Stradun is always the same. It is hard to imagine anyone growing used to the city's marble streets and Baroque buildings, or failing to be moved by a walk along the ancient walls that for five centuries protected an advanced, refined republic and now look out over the glittering expanse of the Adriatic. After the terrible bombardment it suffered in 1991, which horrified the whole world, Dubrovnik rose from the ashes with great strength and is once again able to enchant its visitors. You can trace the rise and fall of its trading empire, admire the Mediterranean way of life and the light reflected on the marble and in the blue waters of the sea.

Poreč's most precious cultural treasure, the Euphrasian Basilica, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997. It is the only early Christian episcopal complex of such scale anywhere in the world to have been preserved in its entirety. Built in the 6th century AD under Bishop Euphrasius, it comprises the atrium, the baptistery, the bishop's palace, the mosaics and the remains of sacred buildings dating from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The mosaics adorning the church's interior walls and façade are a precious legacy of Byzantine art, and thanks to the floor mosaics and the still-visible inscriptions it is possible to trace the different periods of construction and renovation. It was a relatively brief segment of Poreč's long history that changed the town's destiny for good. In the 6th century this small provincial centre, on the fringes of the dying Roman Empire, underwent a prodigious metamorphosis. In his attempt to reunite an empire that had by then fallen apart, the Emperor Justinian restored a fleeting semblance of unity – and not only territorial and political unity, for he also sought to restore art to its former splendour. At the height of the Justinian reconquest, Euphrasius, Bishop of Poreč, raised his cathedral on the site of the town's earlier basilica, setting it within a group of buildings that formed one of the greatest architectural complexes of the age. Here, on the northern side of the peninsula, where a few centuries earlier Parentium, a model Roman town, had risen, the taste, splendour and stylistic opulence of the East became part of the new complex, destined to leave a characteristic mark on that era. The taste of Bishop Euphrasius, accustomed to the sumptuousness of the East, could in no way be satisfied by the provincial torpor of Poreč, of Istria and of most of the crumbling Roman Empire. The great urban works he undertook absorbed only in part the pre-existing ancient substratum and introduced architectural and, more broadly, artistic innovations that the West had never known until then. These concerned both the organisation of space inside the basilica, particularly the east wing, and the iconography that the bishop, thanks to the leading artists who came in his retinue, had executed in the wall mosaics inside the votive building. The great Bishop of Poreč subordinated the church entirely to himself: he had his own initials inscribed at various strategic points, while in the apse mosaics he had himself depicted in the space reserved exclusively for the saints and martyrs, the Virgin and Christ, making unequivocally clear the position in which he placed himself. Such gestures, authoritarian before they were narcissistic, conceal numerous meanings, which may also be traced to the prelate's relationship with the Pope, who execrated him and declared him an apostate. The age of Euphrasius, which still shines through so clearly and comprehensibly today in his basilica and the complex to which it belongs, wrested the small Istrian town of Poreč from an anonymous, if graceful, ordinariness and gave it a unique character. Arriving in Poreč in the mid-6th century, Euphrasius found a town with a long past. Its visible layer matched perfectly the character of the typical late-antique provincial town, worn down by the adversities of time or, more precisely, by the barbarian hordes that in that very period put an end to a rich tradition. It should be said, in fairness, that in Poreč, in Istria and in other outlying regions, their marginal position softened the impact of the barbarian invasions compared with how they were felt in the heart of the Empire. Rome's death throes played out in this area at a slower pace. On taking charge of the diocese, Euphrasius placed himself at the head of a well-organised Christian community which, over its long history, had given the Church several saints and martyrs, among them St Eleutherius and St Maurus. An eminent figure, the latter fell victim in Poreč to the great persecutions, together with all the clergy and many laypeople. The period between the last persecutions of Christians, in the early 4th century, and the mid-6th century was the era in which Poreč, under Bishop Euphrasius, reached the apogee of its development, marked by the steady consolidation of ecclesiastical power.