Wow..... Belgrade was a series of surprises and delights. I recommend it highly... I'd never been here and honestly didn't know what to expect. I am sorry we're leaving tomorrow, for I think there's a lot more to explore.
Today was incredibly long....14 hours of exploration, about a million miles walked, two extremely fragrant and packed bus rides, and luckily the end was a taxi ride back to the hotel.
Start with breakfast.. no olives, but a whole lot more.. eggs, both boiled and in fragments of omelets....breads, cheeses, meats, fruit, cole slaw?? french fries with catsup and mustard, unsalted bacon, no tang, but possibly real orange juice, coffee.... milk, cereal.... but you know, it was wonderful but I did miss the olives. The breakfast room is on the 18th floor and tomorrow I will take the camera to breakfast to share the view.
Then out on the street, shoehorned into a big city bus. With half of Belgrade's 2 million population. Never got a seat, but there was no fear of falling since there was no place to fall on that someone wasn't standing on. Did I mention we brought the heat wave with us? It was Phoenix hot at 8 a.m. and humid besides.
We rode to the center of old Belgrade (as opposed to New Beograd built in the last years of the communist regime across the river. But it's okay, we went there too. Twice.) The center of "old" Belgrade is very modern... very young, very trendy. Walking streets, the latest western fashions, much art displayed. We walked thru and ended up in Kalemegdan Park, whose centerpiece is the remnants of a fortress built over the centuries. Belgrade sits at the confluence of the Sava and Danube Rivers and was for centuries at the northern border of the Ottoman Empire. There is occasional evidence of the Ottomans, but not a lot....the Ottomans devastated the city in 1521 and they clearly hold a grudge. They have done interesting things... took parts of the moats around the fortress and filled them with clay tennis courts and basketball courts. There is no suggestion that the past is sacred, but this is a vital, bouncy city.
One funny thing.. toward the end of the 19th century, a famous sculptor whose name has too many consonants to put here was commissioned to create a statue as a centerpiece of the park. His muse led him to create a beautiful male nude.... the city fathers apparently thought it was a little much to put in the center of the park. but didn't want to waste a great art work, so they had a 17 meter tall pedestal made for it and put it overlooking the River confluence.... with its back view to the city. Modestly prevails. But so does the statue!
After we explored the park and found the only cat I saw all day, we walked another million miles and caught a tourist bus... climbed up on the roof seats and had an hour and a half tour of the cities, old and new... the recorded guide said a few unkind things about the Ottomans (referred scornfully to their "block pavements" -- much better than the current cobblestones, I might suggest! We also toured New Beograd and it was very much similar to East Berlin in shape.. big blocky concrete buildings, but much overlaid by modern art, etc. Both parts of the city are filled with art works and interesting architecture.
Then we walked another million miles and had a lunch that was enough for forty people... one of this, two of those, all very good. It's a little more difficult for our vegetarians here.... though the salads were very good. No one was hungry.
Then we walked a million miles, saw the Ethnographic Museum, walked a million more, caught a bus and went back to New Beograd to visit a school. A friend of Lisa Adeli's arranged for us to visit.. this is where it got surreal and sort of spectacular! School is out here, just like at home, but the headmaster and 6 or 7 teachers were there to greet us. It started slow... we had water and juice, asked and answered questions. It is a public K-8 school and has won all sorts of recognition for excellence. The staff was very proud of it, and glad to show it off.
Then we got the tour.. upstairs, downstairs, classrooms, the music room, the dentist's office (really), the shop, the gymnastics studio, the disco.
Yeah.. the disco. It is the teacher lounge... and when we got there, music was blaring, the bar was WELLLLL stocked with wine, beer, cognac, several other liquors.... also juice, water, goodies to eat. The disco ball was lighted and the lights were flashing.... the headmaster took over as bar tender and the dancing began. My knees were hurting (those millions of miles ) and I'm not real up on Serbian folk dances, but there were many out there stomping and so on... We were there about two more hours and then they invited us to go back for breakfast in the morning, after declaring that we were officially Serbs now... we can't do breakfast, but it was a lovely offer. I cannot imagine how we would repay that type of hospitality in kind if they visited the US...but they seemed to have high morale!
Then we walked two million more miles, rode another packed bus, walked more, had dinner at a delightful restaurant, eating out under the starts (I don't know if people do eat inside here, but it is okay.) We were serenaded by a music combo ... an accordian, a guitar, a clarinet, a base, and a violin.. they played a lot of American standards (Spanish Eyes, Somewhere Over the Rainbow). We tipped them, apparently well, since they came back later, surrounded our table and sang Serbian standards while they played for another hour.
It was a strange and wonderful day.
Overall impression is that Belgrade is a bit like Prague, a bit like Milan, a bit like Hamburg.... very modern with an underlay of history People were splendidly friendly, and there was not a minaret in sight (we were told there is only one small mosque). The city is filled with art works.. I'll post some ... there are busts of everyone who ever did anything here.. musicians, politicians, artists, scientists (they are so proud of Tesla that the main street downtown is named after him). There is also a lot of modern terra cotta type art strewn around the downtown walking area... you'll see one of those too.
There is also a lot of graffiti, some of it very artistic, some of it is politically edgy, and much is the result of several universities here. I will post my favorite stencil seen throughout the city.
As soon as pictures are up, I'm going to bed... tomorrow is a bus day.... off to Visnigrad, then Sarajevo....
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