See the Balkans by train with Railbooker's Balkan Explorer

Rain falls softly on Sarajevo, the sombre, almost melancholic capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Winter has set in and it's bleak, grey and cold. Sarajevans huddle inside the bars and cafés of Stari Grad (Old Town), a checkerboard of low-slung wooden and stone buildings separated by cobbled pathways that were built by Turkish traders in the 16th century.

Rebuilt and slightly gentrified after the Yugoslav wars, fought between 1991 and 2001, the former trading stores are now packed with well-dressed locals and the odd tourist puffing on silver shisha pipes, sipping cold beers and gorging on slices of burek - delicious pastry rolls stuffed with cheese or minced lamb.

Of course, Sarajevo isn't exactly on the tourist trail. Besieged by Serbian forces for almost four horrific years from 1992, when more than 10,000 people lost their lives and the only link to the outside world was a tunnel that ran under the airport, the once handsome and famously multicultural city is now best known for its battle scars, many of which still pockmark the grand rococo buildings skirting the Miljacka river.

But with a youthful population and strong creative energy, Sarajevo is being forged anew. Buildings are being restored, innovation is thriving and visitors are trickling in. It's also a key stop on a new train itinerary that links the former states of Yugoslavia.

Established by the Ottoman and Austrian-Hungarian empires in the mid-19th century, rail lines once criss-crossed much of former Yugoslavia; from the dazzling Adriatic Sea and the medieval cities snuggling into its coastline, to the snow-capped peaks of Serbia. The lines were shut down during the first Yugoslav war, in 1991, when the region dissolved into a complicated web of bloody ethnic disputes.