Serbia

We left Skopje via a very circuitous route. Got to the border with Serbia, had the most comprehensive car inspection yet (e.g. “how many knives do you have”, inspecting my knitting, querying whether a Highland cow figure was handmade or cast, tapping all van walls to ensure they’re hollow…)
Made it through, one more border crossing to go. We’re ready to re-enter the EU in 13 days.

Before we start, an announcement that the bitching and moaning about hot weather over the past 4 months has likely ceased. It was 13 degrees this morning, with an expected high of 18. (NB: Expect bitching and moaning about cold weather to start imminently. 🤣)

This morning we walked to the “February 12 Nazi Concentration Camp”.

It was named for the first escape from a concentration camp in Europe. 105 escaped, 40+ died. 800 killed in the following days. This was in 1942.

This specific camp was used as a holding camp for captured ‘rebels’, Jewish and Romany people. Around 4200 were sent on to other camps in Europe, particularly Norway, where most died. The people not shipped were killed either just outside this camp or on a hill nearby.

It was a really well presented museum of horrible information.
We then grabbed a taxi to head out of town to the Skull Tower.

The skull tower has been here a long time, it was originally built to intimidate Serbians into not uprising again against the Ottoman Empire, the heads of dead Serbians from the Battle of Cerga were embedded in it. It was surrounded by the chapel building in the late 1800s.

It was originally 4.5m high and contained 952 skulls, there are 56 skulls remaining in the tower.

We walked back into town and stopped at the Holy Trinity Church. Stunning orthodox paintings covered every surface.

We continued to Tinker Street, that used to be home to tinsmiths (tinkers) but now has only restaurants and bars. We grabbed a bite to eat for lunch, walked to the fort, then headed back to our accommodation.

We started our day with a short drive to Bubanj Park where there is a memorial to the approximately 10,000 people (men, women, children, resistors, partisans, Jews and Romany) killed there by Nazi soldiers during WW2. Many were brought here from the camp we visited yesterday.

From Niš we headed north west to Kraljevo, via two historic monasteries from the 6th and 7th centuries.
We finally found some nice scenery driving through hills and valleys for about 4 hours with a stop for lunch along the way at a roadside restaurant.
We got to within about 30km of the first monastery and were turned back as the road was closed until 5pm for roadworks.
Bugger.
So we retraced our steps for almost an hour then headed back towards Kraljevo, now missing both monasteries as they are directly south of the town by 15km and 45km.
We did however stop at a different monastery, St. Petka, a small traditionally decorated church.

This monastery is home to two unique things.
1. A stone that apparently has healing powers

The stone, bottom of picture, slightly left of centre.

2. A biblical Park with replicas of Mount Sinai (& tablets), the Bethlehem stable, Golgotha (& cross) and the tomb from which Jesus rose (& stone).

Clockwise from bottom left: the tomb, Golgotha, Bethlehem stable, Mount Sinai & commandment tablets.

Waking to a cold, grey and wet day, we had possibly the laziest day of our holiday, we both stayed in our pyjamas. We did some planning, booked some accommodation and activities. A previous renter had not logged out of their netflix account so we watched a couple of movies and had a relaxing day.

This morning we checked in on the AFL Grand Final. Couldn’t actually watch it but followed the scores. Well done Brisbane!
Leaving Kraljevo we first went to the Žiča Monastery – one of the ones we wanted to see on Thursday.

It was built in the 7th century and has/is clearly had/having lots of renovation/restoration recently. It’s in really good condition, though many frescos are only partial.

We then pointed the car towards Golubac. There was some sort of police action blocking a road we needed to go on, so we had to do some old school navigation through the town to get past the roadblocks. We made it without much trouble. Even crossing a floating substitute bridge across a river.

The rest of our drive was through farmland and rolling hills. There was one section where I missed my camera and telephoto lens as there were so many birds like pheasants, eagles and others in the fields.
We made it to Golubac and grabbed some groceries – finally remembering that every shop will be closed tomorrow and being prepared – and checked in. Our host welcomed us in the traditional way, with a shot or Raiki, a 40% alcohol spirit. This one was allegedly pear raiki, but just tasted of spirits!

We then went for a walk along the Danube River.

The land on the other side of the river is Romania!

There were so many men out fishing, catching small fish after small fish. The cats were hovering nearby.

This morning we drove south to view a waterfall, sadly there was only a trickle of water from a spout. The water is supposed to have healing properties.

We then turned back towards Golubac and stopped at the Golubac Fortress, it marks the entrance to the Iron Gorge, a geologically significant stretch of the Danube River.

There are four tower route options, but only two were available today. We didn’t fancy rock climbing to the highest tower so settled for “Very hard route”.

We climbed up and down about 500 steps, some of it just rock with a chain, to visit two of the fortress’ 9 towers. As it was a gorgeous day, the views from the top were vast.

We then toured the museum section of the fort that included the palace and three more towers. All up we calculated about 1000 steps. Not paces, actual up and down steps. Leg day for sure!

This morning we drove east from Golubac along the Danube, for about 100km.
The scenery is beautiful, soaring cliffs, autumnal red and orange trees, a glassy flat river and blue skies.

When we reached our destination, we boarded a boat for a trip along the river to see some sights on both the Serbian and Romanian sides.

The first stop on the boat was the Tabula Traiana. This has been here since 100AD, inscribed in Latin. It originally sat about 1.5m above the Roman road, but due to the installation of a hydroelectric dam further up river, the settlement was to be covered by water, and the tablet was raised to it’s current position. It is only accessible by boat.

We then crossed the river into Romanian waters – this counts as visiting a new country surely? If so, country #30 of this trip!

The next stop was a 40m rock sculpture that was carved between 1994 & 2004. It shows the face of Decebalus.

Decebalus was the last Dacian king reigning from 87-106AD, a warrior involved in three wars against the Roman Empire. The businessman who funded the creation wanted Serbia to reciprocate with a carving of a Roman king so they could be facing off for eternity, so far Serbia has declined!

Just up the river was Mraconia Monastery, first built in the early 1500s.

It was destroyed in the late 1700s during the Russian/Turkey war, destroyed again early 1900s and the ruins submerged when they built the Iron Gates reservoir. The new version of the church was built above the original one around 2000.
Next point of interest was a restaurant on the Serbian side, not for food, but because it was previously a signal station to assist navigation along the river.

The silver ball was raised or lowered to advise boats if they could proceed or needed to wait.
Next was an art gallery/restaurant that was used as a balloon station. This sits near the narrowest part of the river where there is just 140m between countries!

This was also one of the prettiest areas the boat took us with steep sided mountains that climb straight up out of the river.

At the end of the trip we had lunch in a local restaurant overlooking the Danube. The speciality if the house was catfish, a fish we’d not had previously. Tasty, but bony, served with raw garlic vinegar!
We then drove back to Golubac, through the 22 tunnels along the road, just admiring the scenery and listened to Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz, because where better than here to do that? We noted wildlife warning signs for Eurasian Otter, Red Deer, Red Fox and Balkan Lynx. Sadly we didn’t spot any of them!

As we passed by Golubac Fortress – we visited this yesterday – we saw a river cruise boat docked, we googled and there is a cruise from the Black Sea to Vienna (& the reverse) – sailing through the gorge we visited today would be a cruising highlight!

After two really good days, we left Golubac for the capital of Serbia, Belgrade. Our route was designed to take in three monasteries.
First up was Tumane Monastery not far from Golubac. After a quick change into long trousers for Kevin and grabbing a headscarf from a bag, we headed in.
The monastery had lovely, well-tended gardens; on the way to the main church we passed a resident priest holding a service under a shelter.

The main church, although small, was covered in stunning frescos. Kevin got told off for taking a photo by a nun (we think), but three ladies without headscarves didn’t get told off. Explain that!

Google gave us headaches on the way to the second monastery, trying to take us up non-existent roads whilst ignoring perfectly good roads. The final 2km was up a gravel/rocky track. Upon arrival the monastery wasn’t visible, were we lost? No it was just tiny and a little bit hidden. Bradača Monastery was, despite its size, very pretty. Originally built in the 1300s, it had been destroyed and rebuilt several times with a complete renovation/rebuild in the 1990s. The priest tried to explain the history, his English proficiency matched our Serbian.

The last monastery of the day was Манастир Сестрољин, we’re yet to find an English name. So again over crap roads, some less sealed than others we went. It was shut. Oh well.
We headed to our accommodation in Belgrade. We checked in and booked some accommodation to keep us going for the next 3 weeks, after that we’ll see where the road takes us.

Our first full day in Belgrade saw us heading to St Sava Temple, the main church of the Serbian Orthodox religion.

This was simply stunning in size and grandeur with mosaics covering every surface.

It was very gold.

We then went for a stroll back through Old Belgrade towards Belgrade Fortress. Belgrade is very different to what we had expected, with very “European” architecture and trams, it feels a bit like Zurich.

We stopped for a coffee and morning tea on the way. The fortress is located on a hill overlooking the junction of the Sava and Danube rivers.

After lunch we went and did something a bit unusual for us. We went to an indoor shooting range and shot seven different types of guns including a glock pistol, Smith & Wesson revolver, pump action shotgun, AK-47 Kalashnikov, .44 magnum.

Several pieces of paper and a balloon sacrificed their lives for our amusement. (I didn’t take any videos of Kevin shooting, too busy holding my hands over my ears because it was so loud, even with ear protection!)

The shooting range team at Target were lovely, they picked us up, brought us home and even gave us a shot of Rakia when we were done! Highly recommend it as an activity in Belgrade!

Today we joined a food tour, meeting our guide and 7 others at Hotel Moskva. Our first stop was breakfast, even though it was already 11am. In the Balkans, burek is a traditional breakfast: filo pastry wrapped filled either meat or cheese, today we had both. This was washed down with a traditional yoghurt drink and a cookie.

Then it was into a small area that is home to artists to try some artisan chocolate. These were OK, not as smooth as we like, plus one was flavoured/coloured with pumpkin!

The next stop was supposed to be a fish restaurant, but the owners had a wedding to attend. This was to our good fortune as we had incredibly juicy, flavoursome sausages at a small sausage stand. This stop seemed to be the favoured dish of most of the group.

We then stopped a few doors down the street for Cevapci, another Balkans meat speciality, served with bread, onions and a dairy product we can most closely compare to thick sour cream. This meal was washed down with the local beer.

Another Balkans favourite is Rakia, a spirit made from plums alone, or with a variety of fruits. It is normally 40% abv. Kevin thought it was just one drink so drank his full shot straight down. We actually had four, each a different flavour. The one with strawberries was the best/least burny.

We then stopped at a truffle place to try some truffle pastes on crackers; we’ve had truffles before so knew what to expect. Truffles are a fairly new industry in Serbia.

From there a quick four metre walk across the alleyway to our next stop. This was a traditional dish of northen Serbia, a kidney goulash served with cream in a cob loaf. Thankfully this was shared with others, it was tasty with a nice sauce. The kidneys, not so tasty!

Dessert followed, a cake called tres leche that was almost custard pudding consistency.

We then visited a bar and climbing gym located in the old concrete tanks of a defunct brewery. It was in a cool building but no food.

Our last stop was the local market, we feasted on punnets of berries and wandered around looking at all the fresh produce.

Our guide then grabbed two trays, one with five different meats and pork crackling, the second with five different cheeses. The meats were all tasty, the cheeses creamy, a nice ending to a good food tour.

We walked a couple of km back to our accommodation.

As we creep closer to our return to the Schengen Zone today we drove north to Novi Sad, Serbia’s second biggest town.
In one village we passed a church that had shiny green and gold material on the roof, with the sun shining on it, it literally glowed and sparkled!

The drive took us through wine country, frequently in sight of the Danube River. Obviously we thought we should support local industry so we chose a winery off the map and went there.

The winery we chose – Vinarija Vinum in Sremski Karlovci- ended up being one that has won multiple gold medals for their wines. With the aid of Google translate we had a tour and some tastings.

We then finished our drive to Novi Sad.

Today we walked into the old town area of Novi Sad and just wandered around the streets. The architecture in the old town is quite “European”, with rendered finishes, intricate plaster details, large windows and lots of wrought iron.

The colourful facades and cobbled streets were really pleasant to wander through and of course a couple of churches to visit.

We walked to the river and sat to admire the view across to the fortress and enjoy the sunshine for a bit, we can’t believe it is still t-shirt weather in October! We then took ourselves out for lunch.

The restaurant we went to is called “Project 72” and they serve ‘modern traditional Serbian’ food. It was actually ranked in the top 7 restaurants in Serbia last year. The food was delicious. Our food blogging was once again not great. We forgot to take pics of the main courses before devouring them!

After lunch we walked the 4km back to our apartment

and spent some time doing some trip planning and bookings.

We drove further north this morning for our last night in Serbia and our last night outside of the Schengen Zone before we enter Hungary tomorrow. Driving was mostly through farmland. We noticed a large number of Sparrow Hawks perched on posts next to the road, almost like km markers about 16 along the trip.
We reached Subotica and the hotel let us check in early.
After a drink on our balcony we went for a walk into Subotica. It is so pretty although many buildings have seen better days.

We found a restaurant that has been here for almost 140 years and stopped for lunch.

An hour and one beer after ordering, we checked with the waiter…who had forgotten to add our food to the order. So we ordered another beer and continued enjoying the gorgeous afternoon until the delicious pork knuckle arrived.
Afterwards we strolled back through town to our hotel.