Serbia! Final Exploration & Day 26!

Today is my last delicious breakfast in the Balkans since we leave for the airport at 4 AM tomorrow.  Our itinerary indicated a European breakfast each morning which I confused with a continental breakfast.  I’ve learned it is vastly different!  

Stale pastries and maybe a muffin with cereal and yogurt versus hot eggs, bacon, sausages, waffles, fruit…oh, the fruit!, multiple pastries, smoothies, roasted and fresh veggies, smoked meats, and cheeses..and on and on.  I even had pickles a few mornings!

Since it is our last morning meal together, I bring the smuggled persimmon with me!  I cut it and offer it to the others, but only Robyn is brave enough to try it.  It is filled with tiny seeds, and I think it has absolutely no taste.  Robyn thinks slightly peachy.  I don’t think my poor misguided hope for a new taste sensation has been realized!

 


We catch a bus for the Church of St. Sava, a relatively new Serbia Orthodox Church built over the site where the Ottoman Turks burned the holy bones of a priest turned saint.  Someone talks about the ABC’s of Europe…Another Bloody Church or Another Bloody Castle!

 

One of the world’s largest orthodox churches, it is impressive from the outside, and even more ornate and impressive on the inside!  

 

Vast open spaces with huge green marble columns 

 

rise up to a domed ceiling, 

 

and everywhere on walls and ceilings are mosaic tiles creating iconic pictures of biblical scenes and religious figures.

 

These shine and shimmer with a golden hue!  Gorgeous!

 

Downstairs in the crypt is another beautiful space with frescoes on the walls.  This space was used for services until the upstairs was finished.  

 
 

Craftsmen worked for the past one hundred years to create this church, and at one time, twenty different artisans were working on the mosaics upstairs simultaneously.

Thank you for us seeing another church!

We catch cabs to the House of Flowers, one of Tito’s favorite places and his final resting site.  This was the Winter Garden during his presidency filled with plants and flowers.  

It now contains articles about his final days, magazines covers which all dedicated an issue to him, 

pictures of his funeral procession and dignitaries from around the world paying their respects…Margaret Thatcher, Fidel Castro, Brezhnev from USSR, and multiple other European and Asian figures.

President Jimmy Carter did not attend, but sent his mother, Miss Lillian, to represent the US.

There is also his desk,

and a framed picture that the majority of households would have hanging in their homes during his presidency.

Tito’s marble mausoleum is fairly simple.

One of the bronze statues outside is how Tom says he feels when he gets his monthly credit card bill!

 A bus ride through the city reveals a number of interesting older buildings.

 
 

We walk by some of the Belgrade University buildings, and the film studies building has a statue outside of actor Karl Malden whose father was Serbian.

The Belgrade Fortress has endured 140 battles and been destroyed forty times!  While medieval stone walls and gates still remain, much of the fort has been turned into a city park.

 

At the main gate, enemies’ cannon balls are imbedded in the walls to re-enforce them, and I wonder, if for some dramatic effect.

 
 

Stone walls show centuries of different stones and bricks used to rebuild them.

More recent military equipment is also displayed here, 

and even in the haze, the views of Belgrade and the Vasa river on the left joining the Daube on the right are wonderful!

It may be my last chance to show I really was here!

It would be easy to miss if Dejan didn’t point out some unobtrusive earthen mounds.  These are actually concrete bunkers for anti-air artillery guns built when Yugoslavia thought Russia would attack.  When they didn’t, Yugoslavia quietly covered them with dirt!

A final cannon goodbye!

We have a quick lunch…more goulash or stew served over potatoes for me.  We have had lots of thin broths called soups here and thicker ones are shorba.  All have been delicious!

We meet a friend of Dejan’s and fellow historian to discuss Serbia’s tumultuous history and try to wrap up everything we have learned.  He has so much knowledge and presents the Serbian history in a sequential fashion as I busily take notes.  We are very interested in his view of the Balkans War since we have heard the Croatian and Bosnian sides.  We also discuss the NATO bombing in 1999.

Our farewell dinner restaurant is on a small alley which use to be in the red-light district of Belgrade along with the home of multiple Romas or Gypsies.  It is now the popular “in” restaurant area.  Another delicious traditional Serbian meal, but we could be satisfied with half portions!

It is time to pack, and hallelujah, there is a scale in my room!  I must weigh my suitcases ten times and repack a little here and a little there.  Robyn takes a bottle of wine for me and my blow dryer; one an impulse buy and the other I didn’t need.

With little sleep, we head to the airport at 4 AM.  I make the fifty pound baggage weight…just a little over…and the foursome settle down to wait.  One last chance to spend several hundred dinars, Serbia’s currency, for water and drinks.

Thank you for joining me as GJ traveled through the Balkans for the past month.  It’s been fun and educational!  Going through customs, no one asked me about bringing fruits and vegetables into the country.  I could have brought my persimmon with me!

Now, as a final note, this United napkin asks a good question!