English/Nat The first tourist to arrive in Sarajevo since the end of the war has ridden into town. American Willy Wier cycled through three continents before deciding to visit Bosnia. Now he hopes many more visitors will follow in his tracks. Sarajevo's first post-war tourist has arrived - on two wheels. Three years ago Willy Wier left his home town of Seattle on the north west coast of America to cycle to the Mexican border. He enjoyed it so much he kept going, through South America, on to Africa, then India and eventually into Russia. As he came closer and closer to Europe he decided to visit the country he had seen so much of on news bulletins. To do so he had to break a promise he had made back home. SOUNDBITE: "I had to promise my family and quite a few of my friends that I would not go to Sarajevo, because people in America have seen it on the news for so many years and it's - for America it means danger ... people getting killed and what not. I began in Budapest - and as I worked my way down and got closer and closer I realised how open the road was, how people were travelling here, how the situation was so much safer. And so I decided to see for myself the city that I had been watching on the news for years and years." SUPER CAPTION: Willy Wier, Cycle tourist Wier found a city struggling to get back to normal life and put right the devastation of the war years. Sarajevo's national library is a reminder of everything that was lost. It's priceless collection of rare books was completely destroyed by fire during the war. Now it is just an empty shell. The city needs money to be rebuilt - tourism used to be one of the mainstays of the city's economy - Willy thinks it could be again. SOUNDBITE: "For this whole area, the sooner that the rest of the world can see it as coming back to normal and the sooner that tourists and other people can come back in ... the better it will be for the country and for the economy. And as everybody here knows the only way that homes and houses and businesses get rebuilt is if money comes into the area. And if people think that this area is very dangerous then of course the money isn't going to come." SUPER CAPTION: Willy Wier, Cycle tourist Willy spent a day in the city before restarting his epic journey. Then he rode through bombed out streets and smashed suburbs before eventually reaching the Bosnian countryside. He passed easily along roads which were impassable just a few months ago - on his way to his next stop in the Croatian capital Zagreb. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/7d119e97688870aad2bb44af9369ffe8 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork

• published: 21 Jul 2015
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