Thursday 7 July: Today we arrived in Belgrade, capital of Serbia, the opponents of Croatia in the civil war following the break-up of Yugoslavia.
We had a guided tour by Ivanka of the castle, the Cathedral of Saint Sava and walk through the pedestrian mall.
The castle dates to Roman times as Belgrade is located on the confluence of of two major rivers, the Danube and the Sava. The grounds as well as being a historic tourist attraction is used for sport and even has a dinosaur park – Clive Palmer eat your heart out.
A feature of the castle park is a statue of a naked warrior, that so offended the ladies of Belgrade, that conditions for its location include that its private parts must not be visible from the city. Hence it has been installed on the hill of the castle, facing across the river.Belgrade’s landscape is similar to Budapest, in that settlement first occurred on the hilly side, and the low-lying opposite shore was essentially uninhabited until recent times.
The Cathedral of Saint Sava is an incomplete Byzantine style cathedral that has been under construction for over 80 years, interrupted by various events.The exterior is almost complete and work has commenced on the interior. It is used for services during the construction. It also had the obligatory modern building opposite which reflected the cathedral in its windows.
The walk through the city centre was interesting in that although there were many classically styled buildings, the overall impression was on of decay and neglect. Many of the building had a grey cement exteriors, and looked in need of maintenance.
There was quite a contradiction in the overall dilapidated appearance of a building on the upper floors, and the often stylishly modern shop at street level. There are things that you notice when entering a different city.
The temperatures in Belgrade range from the high 30s in Summer to snow in the winter. Today was approaching 30C and quite humid. In Belgrade I noticed the air conditioners. Almost every building has a bevy of air conditioners attached to the exterior, regardless of the type of building.
I have more photos to post of Belgrade, but it’s fairly late and the ship is about to leave port. We are having problems with internet access, so future posts may be intermittent. Meanwhile, here are some photos of food in Belgrade.
* Selection of Balkan foods
* The first Greek (instead of Turkish) souvlaki restaurant
* The ultimate stuffed crust pizza
* The first Chinese restaurant NOT run by Chinese people
Following on from the previous post on Belgrade, there are some beautiful buildings. One of the best is the Hotel Moskva (Hotel Moscow).It was designed by Belgrade-based architect Jovan Ilkić, but completed by a Russian architects and employed tiles on the exterior to provide colour and protection.
Along one side is a heavily patronised café-restaurant.
Another nicely designed building was the Zepter Musej (Zepter Museum) of modern art.
One building had a quite strange design. It had very few windows, and appeared to have large panels of sandstone as part of the façade. Especially strange as the predominant local stone is limestone.
Later I walked to see part of the damage caused during the Kosovo War in 1999.
A military headquarters was targeted with a missile by NATO and partially destroyed.It has essentially been left in that state since as a reminder of the war, although it is substantially obscured by a gigantic billboard - I didn't quite understand the message
Finding the site was fairly difficult as the map from the ship had street names in English, whereas the actual street names were either in the Cyrillic or Serbian alphabet - when I could find one!
The photo shows the street sign for Kraljice Natalije Street.I also found a wall mural but unfortunately couldn't really understand the message, although I think it's ant-war.
Overall, my impression is of a country struggling with recovery from conflict, rebuilding but also getting on with life. It appears whatever devastation or tragedy has happened in the past, the current population gets on with life. This is probably true in Vukovar as well.
When I asked our guide Ivanka about Serbian relations with Croatia now, she said the general population have reconciled much quicker than the politicians – but still some way to go. She said that Serbia itself is comprised of many nationalities that have lived in the region for hundreds of years and see it as their homeland.Also, because of the low economic climate in the Balkan countries, many young people travel to Western Europe in search of work. For example, our German ship is essentially staffed by Bulgarians, Romanians, Hungarians and other Balkans.
Belgrade is full of people trying to earn a living, promoting tourism, and young people out to enjoy life. Kids are playing in the fountains, young people are enjoying coffee, ice-cream and each others’ company – something not missed by the marketing departments of multinational companies.
Farewell from Belgrade. I thought you might like the photo of the police car – the larger the police, the smaller the car?
