Springtime in Serbia - Nis and Belgrade

Nis, Serbia

Since deciding to book into Serbia rather than Romania, Don and I have to admit that we’ve discovered that the Serbians like to tuck it in in a big way—they like their meat, and they like it served big!!! Don is a happy camper.

A Serbian Orthodox Church that has been converted into an art gallery. The art would have to have been a little better to compete with the building that housed it.

Another day, another fortress - this one had been turned into a public park which offered teens a place to make out after school.... Ahhhh, spring!

Don and the dudes in the Nis town square - Don is the one in the middle....

We got on the super highway from Bulgaria and headed into Nis, the second largest city in Serbia. We checked out the fortress along the river, but mainly we noticed that like most European cities, it’s so important that there is a space to kick back and enjoy nature. This translates into public parks. Nis was a lovely city, full of large rolling public parks, and we explored it by walking the streets and walking through the park where a lot of young people were necking all over—I guess this is where they go for privacy—but no matter the city, it needs to have a park for people to enjoy nature—and all of them do.

The other thing about Eastern Europe that we’ve noticed is the distressing amount of graffiti everywhere. In our country graffiti generally signals that you are entering a bad neighborhood, but over here that is far from the case. The graffiti is everywhere, even in nice neighborhoods.

This building was in a very nice neighborhood near our apartment.

We are told by residents that, while it is seen as a problem, the penalty is a 50 Euro fine, too small a penalty for police even to pursue the spray-can toting artists. There are other, more serious issues for the police to focus on, such as harassing good-looking American drivers with 4-cylander Citrons that can barely do 50 miles an hour.

Our quarters in Nis were lovely, and this is the first apartment that greeted us with a lace-covered tray with coffee cups and Nescafe for us to enjoy. 

I find that it’s hard to drink water or soda when it costs as much for water as it does for a beer! Ordering water seems like such a waste  - luckily I am traveling with a man who agrees with me on this point…

I’m going to sidetrack and tell you that we have been trying to rent one-bedroom apartments rather than hotel rooms, so we can make coffee and tea and prepare our own breakfast. When you are on the road as long as we are, you need to take these economies J. We also find apartments roomier and with more personality than hotels or pensions. Although the location appears relatively straightforward on booking.com, when we book these places Don inevitably gets an email giving him directions on meeting someone somewhere who will direct us to the site. (“Go to the pizza place down the street from the Holiday inn and ask for Mr. Valdo.…”) The usual scenario is that we get into the town, and then Don (or me) gets out of the car, locates  someone who gets in the car and directs us to the “secured parking place” that is promised in the booking. They are always nice people, but let’s just say, that it’s not like pulling into the Holiday Inn and parking your car in the lot. This adds to the adventure and one gets the sense of the entrepreneurial spirit that inhabits this part of Europe, but it does cause drama every now and then—but Don is persistent, and we persevere….

Serbia is lovely. When we decided to come here, we were a bit worried—especially after going to Dubrovnik and viewing the exhibit about the Serbian attacks on Dubrovnik during the war, but we have found the people here to be very welcoming and open.

Belgrade, Serbia

We are staying in Zemun which is a suburb about 6 kilometers outside of Belgrade.

The amazing "Blue Danube." That's Belgrade downstream.

Tonight we had dinner at a nice fish restaurant on the Danube, and the owner introduced herself and said that she worked in the US when she was a college student. She wanted to make sure we had a nice dinner and enjoyed our stay. It turns out this place has music every night, so I think Don and I are going to go there tomorrow night after touring Belgrade—we had a really nice dinner and enjoyed looking out at the river—it was almost like being on the Delaware (shout out to Mom and Dad!!)

A view from our apartment into this residential neighborhood here in Zemun

It’s really springtime here, and the fruit trees are blooming everywhere. It was actually HOT today-- good time to be near the water even if it is only the treacherous Danube. We plan to explore Serbia for a few more days, and then head into Hungary and Slovakia before we take the flight to Malta.

Genny made it to Korea and seems to be settling in. We expect to hear more from her after she gets over the jet lag and settles into her apartment.

A picture of Genny when she was about 16 - guess who will kill us when she sees this.... but this is how we think she feels.

We hope Joe and Eileen are enjoying their Italy trip (Ciao, Baby!) and look forward to hearing from them.

Don and I have been listening to Jon Stewart on line—and we don’t feel so far away! Hope all is well with everyone who is following our travels.

Pat’s Travel Tips:

1)    If you like Sweet and Low and have run out of what you’ve packed, head to the nearest Starbucks and hock some; you can tell yourself (as I did), that you have certainly supported Starbucks enough to take a few packets of Sweet and Low…the barista in Sofia told us how much he missed California.

2)    Keep those portable shower caps that they give you in some hotels—I have used them to store food or wet small cloths (see Tip #3)

3)    If you haven’t traveled in Europe, then you don’t know that for some inexplicable reason, they don’t use washrags—you’ll get towels, but you won’t see washrags in most places—so pack your own—and when they are wet—wrap them in the disposable shower caps (see Tip #2)

That’s all for now folks!