Beautiful Serbia: Part IV - Sports

In order to ensure that everyone doesn't think that ALL we did was eat while in Serbia, we decided to include a mini blog dedicated to all the sporting activities we participated in which limited our growth to only 10lbs each. 

First there was a bowling night in Zemun where we were introduced to the one they call "Jesus", aka S's cousin Ivan.  The best way to desribe this man's skills is to compare him to Fred Astaire with the only difference being that Fred dances and Ivan bowls.  This was a great night through and through.  No need to talk about the scores as when you are this good (not), scores don't matter.  The important thing is form and looking good when you bowl.  Keep that in mind kids.  Winning is not everything.  

Then we moved to the red clay courts of Jagodina and the surrounding villages.  Here we brushed up on our tennis skills which helped us help Nole beat Federer in the semi-final of the US Open.  A little known fact is that the only reason Nole lost to Nadal in the final is because S&M were half way across the Atlantic.  But this little known fact should stay between us ;)   The  doubles competition was stiff at the Jagodina City Open but the organizers fed us well and lent us pants and shoes to play in.  The rest will remain in the Open's history books for the local people to admire. 

Oh yeah, we also did some mountain trecking and some extreme street walking (caution: don't try this on the streets of your home town).

like we said earlier, it's all about form

this is known as the "crouhing tiger" techique...

this is the "dislocated shoulder" technique

Beautiful Serbia: Part III - Moja Sumadija

One week of our trip to Serbia was spent in an area in central Serbia called Sumadija were both S&M's families are from.   The countryside is absolutely gorgeous and a wonderful place to relax .  We split our time between a small vacation town called Kosjeric and the village of Misevic up in the hills.  We visited family, ate lots of food (just can't seem to, nor want to, get away from it), made wine, visited a monastery and went to the wax museum in Jagodina city (saw Divac, Milosevic and Tito ... WHAT!!), went for walks and played some tennis.  Life is tough :)  We'll let pictures do the talking now. Here are a few and follow the link for more (password: relax):  http://photobucket.com/moja_sumadija.

First on making wine:



First you buy the grapes

Then you go to two guys with an electric machine to crush them and separate the stems (while you eat some grapes and watch from the sidelines)



Then you put the grapes into a big barrel to transport them home



Then you transfer them from the big barrel into these smaller barrels, add the yeast and sugar and let it sit for at least 10 days.  We hope it's good!!

 And here are some scenery shots:

Kosjeric - one of the few pics we got due to the rain

 

Misevic



The house in Misevic



Sunset in Misevic

  

Vlade doing some heavy thinking

Beautiful Serbia: Part II - Just outside of Belgrade

 We did two short day trips while in Belgrade; one was to a town called Topola an the other was to the hill of Avala.  Topola is located about 85 km from Belgrade on the slopes of the Oplenac hill.   It is a well-known historical locaton assoicated with Karadjordje, a Serbian revolutionary chosen as the leader of the first Serbian uprising against the Ottoman Empire in 1804.  The beautiful white marbled five dome church that sits on top of the Oplenac hill is the burial place of the Karedjordjevac Dynasty.  The interior is quite something to see with its walls and ceilings decorated with a mosaic depicting Serbian Orthodox frescoes.  The mosaic consists of 60 million tiles!!  There is also this fantastic chandelier made from melted enemy weapons from WWI.  Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed inside so we don't have our own pictures. 

The hill of Avala is another great day-trip.  It is only 15 km's from downtown Belgrade and has a large recreational park, a monument to the unknown soldier (in honour of those who died in WWI) and the newly re-built Avala TV tower (the first one was destroyed in the NATO bombings in 1999).  The monument of the unknown soldier is an impressive marble structure housing eight female sculptures representing the mother of a soldier from each of the different nationalities forming Yugoslavia at that time. 

And suprise suprise, we ate an excellent rostilj at the Hotel Avala restaurant at the very top of the hill (several pictures of table spread were posted on our earlier food post J ).  Tip: If you do ever eat at this restaurant, don't have the muckalica, as the waiter put it, "they don't know how to make it well here".  Of course, a few words on the Avala TV Tower: its reconstruction was just recently refinished (April 2010) and it is currently the tallest structure in Serbia at 204m high (though its got nothing on our CN Tower). 



Inside the church on Oplenac (Courtesy of Flickr, Stanoslav Simic)



Avala Monument





A crater from the 1999 bombing on the Avala Monument



Beautiful Serbia: Part I - Belgrade (Beograd)

Our train ride to Belgrade from Budapest was filled with card-playing, beautiful scenery and a comical border crossing into Serbia. Our first passport check in Hungary was quite thorough with each immigration officer carrying a wireless passport scanner. Our second passport check on the Serbian side consisted of “good day and thank you” with barely a glance at your passport.  M has not been back to Serbia in 10 years due to mandatory military service, yet if he had known how easy it was to pass the Serbian passport control by train he would have been back a long time ago.

So now, M is finally home after 10 long years. S was there last year so it was so same old for her .. Kidding J . Of our 19 days in Serbia, 10 were spent in the capital, Belgrade. And would you believe it that in those 10 days, we spent a total of 6 hours walking around the city … if that much.. I know, crazy. The rest of our time was spent …. Come on guess … EATING and drinking coffee. So, while we can’t show you too many pictures of this beautiful city, we can tell you, that we had a wonderful time with our family and friends, and wouldn’t trade it in for the world.  

Now we did see some things, though we wish we had taken a few more pictures for this post but, we’ll work with what we have. Belgrade has gone through a lot in its history. It has been torn down and rebuilt countless times, starting from the Romans, to the Ottoman Empire, two world wars (during WWII it was bombed by both the Allies and the Nazis) and let’s not forget 10 years of civil war and the 1999 NATO bombing. All of this had an effect on the city either physically or financially. However, through all this hardship, Belgrade is re-emerging, and rebuilding itself back to the world class city that it was in the ‘80’s.

sunset looking down from Kalemegdan's Pobednik (The Victor)

The Danube and the Sava river flow through Belgrade, dividing the city in two: old and new Belgrade. At the confluence of the Sava river into the Danube sits the Kalemegdan fortress, which is the oldest section of urban Belgrade and dates back to the 3^rd century BC (when Serbs were eating with forks and knives and the rest of you savages were eating with your hands J ). No seriously, it is a beautiful place to walk around and one we made sure to visit. The grounds consist of cafes and restaurants, tennis courts (where the moats used to be - quite cool), basketball courts, an old church and plenty of green space. They also have art exhibits on the boardwalk overlooking the water and the best sunsets in Belgrade. When you exit Kalemegdan you end up at the beginning of Belgrade’s pedestrian shopping street, Knez Mihailova Street. 

Hram Svetog Save (Cathedral of Saint Sava)

Belgrade also has the largest Orthodox cathedral in the world: Hram Svetog Save (Cathedral of Saint Sava - who was the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church). The Hram sits on the Vracar Plateau on the location where Saint Sava’s remains were burned in 1595 by the Ottoman Empire. From this location the Hram can be seen from almost anywhere in Belgrade and is a great orientation point. The construction of the Cathedral began in 1935 and it’s interior is still under construction (the constructoin of the church is being financed solely by donations) while the exterior and surrounding park is 95% complete.  

Last but not least is Belgrade’s night life, and what a life it is. Serbs really know how to celebrate and party.

Belgrade is said to be the party capital of Europe and we certainly understand (and felt) why. To experience its night life you have many options to choose from: bars, restaurants, nightclubs, kafana’s (typical Serbian restaurant playing live Serbian music until the wee hours of the morning which we had the pleasure … and pain the next day … of experiencing) and splavovi (barges on the Sava and the Danube). One definitely must go out to either a kafana or a splav (though we’d recommend both) when visiting Belgrade. They should be considered one of the top 100 things you do before you die. It’s impossible to describe the amazing atmosphere and depth of celebration/energy at a Serbian kafana … everyone is singing and dancing around with the Serbian band and trubaci (brass band). Just amazing. But watch out for the rakija (moonshine made of fruit such as plums, pears, apple and our chosen one was quince) - while delicious this brandy can be deadly.  



Splavovi (typical Belgrade barges)



Kafana Galeb in Zemun (Belgrade)

  confluance of the river Sava into the Denube

Pobednik ("The Victor" overlooking the two rivers)

Kalemegdan

 Kalemegdan

St. Sava Cathedral (Hram Svetog Save)



A Hop, Skip and a Jump Through Budapest

So we spent a total of 36 hours in Budapest on our way to Serbia. In no way do we consider ourselves experts of this city as is the case in our previous entries J . While we didn’t get to visit the usual tourist sites: baths, communist graveyard (this one M regrets deeply but S will show him pictures from her previous visit) and really 9/10 of the city, we did walk a lot seeing some of Buda and some of Pest. Overall this eastern European city left a decent impression on us. It’s a grand city compared to cities we visited up to this point. You can really see the wealth that was accumulated during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as the communist influences that followed.

The Buda castle has magnificent views of Pest from across the Danube river as it sits atop the foothills of the Alps. This view includes a great view of the beautiful and impressive neo-Gothic parliament building which is the biggest on the continent.  

The section of Buda around the castle has a very Austrian feel with narrow coble stone roads and certain architectural features that remind us of Vienna. Also this is where we found the 700 year old Matthias Church which has a great mixture of Baroque, neo-Gothic and modern elements, such as it’s Zsolnay tiled roof. Pest on the other hand, has the grand avenues and buildings that we mentioned before. Like every European city nowadays Budapest also has a large pedestrian street which offers shopping, squares and overpriced cafes.

As mentioned in our food post we enjoyed most of the meals we had. One thing that needs to be mentioned is that the locals that do speak English are not very enthused about doing so. A few of them were quite annoyed by it including our Best Western hotel staff. Go figure.

Not really much else to say so we will leave you with a few shots of what we did see.

The motherland is next….

Parliament: a neo-Gothic building that stretches 300 yards (274 m) along the danube, has a main dome that rises 315 feet (96 m) and contains 700 rooms, 10 courts, 29 staircases, 12.5 miles (20 km) of corridors

 

Buda on the left, Pest on the right and the Danube in between.

 

Matthias Church on the Buda Castle grounds