Today started in Osijek and ended in Novisad.
We were sorry to leave our little home at Maksimilian, and it was a hard day in some respects.
Vukovar was our first stop and was a bit hard to see really. Vukovar was decimated in the War of independence which commenced in 1991. It is very close to Serbia and in a great position, so was an obvious place to attack.
Here the hospital also contains a museum.. The museum shows how the hospital survived being bombed and shelled and how they, as best they could, looked after so many casualties. In the last days there was nowhere to send the injured to, so they just kept getting fuller and fuller.
They worked their guts out, moved their families in and camped in crowded conditions with limited water and food, always in danger ... and then finally they were invaded, and many of them (both staff and patients) were loaded on transport, taken into the countryside, executed and left in mass graves. Many years later the one man who escaped came forward to help identify the location of the graves, which enabled DNA identification of the executed people. Still some families refuse to accept that this terrible atrocity happened to their loved ones, and prefer to consider them missing.
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| This cross is the symbol of the museum - the hospital was bombed despite a prominent red cross on the roof and in the courtyard. |
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| devastation in the town. The footage of tanks rolling through the town and systematically destroying anything they found was stomach turning. |
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| the hospital corridor is tiled. One column of tiles for each day of the siege. On the tiles are listed what happened in the hospital on that day -how many were brought in, how many died etc. |
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| the tiles go a long way. Most of the news is not good. An occasional baby was born. |
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| At the end is a section of darkly framed tiles. The black ones show those dead - one for each dead. The grey ones are for those missing. (presumed also dead) . Sometimes there is a star next to the name - indicating that the family do not recognise that this person is dead. |
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| these are for the staff dead. Some of the identity badges are displayed above on the wall. |
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| map of the ward - N means unusable. There were stretchers improvised down the corridors, and people three abreast on beds, and improvised bunks wherever possible. |
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| I had to ask what these meant. Bed Makeshift Bed Two storey makeshift bed Assembly two sided bed (6 people squahsed onto two beds pushed together) place of unexploded shells Destroyed and unable to be used. There were two unexploded shells which fell on the hospital. It is suspected that maybe the pilots disabled the shells before dropping them. (thus obeying orders to drop them, but avoiding overwhelming damage to a hospital site) . One man had a shell land between his legs and not explode!!
Our walk to the town centre from the hospital was also sad. Almost 30 years later, we heard they still have segregated schools here (Serb and Croat) , separate pubs and They don't seem to have moved on much. Because there was so much damage , there are still many empty spaces and damaged buildings. A huge hotel right on the river is standing gaping.
Both of these signs are covered over by stickers so you don;t know what is in the building. The Croats would not allow the Serb language sign, but to be fair their own sign was covered as well.
 
Hotel by the river
The old water tower was damaged in the fighting, but not completely destroyed. It has been taken as a sign of survival and is now being repaired to be used as a museum.
We stopped for a brief while in town to buy and eat some food from the bakery - it was going to be late before we had another chance. Luckily one of the ladies could speak some English "chicken pie" turned out to be rolls of filo pastry with some chicken like substance rolled in the middle of them.
We stopped next at the Ilok winery. The original 100m lomg cellar was built by Nickola of Ilok under his castle (built on Roman ruins) in the 15th century. It has been extended since then and a privately run winery now operate and use the cellar area. The Serbs who invaded , emptied all the huge ancient wine barrels (made from local wood) and left them to dry out. They also took the bottles and distilled the wine into grappa or rajika as these were more drinkable and saleable. One winemaker risked his life to build a fake wall and save the best bottles of the cellar for posterity. (It worked) . They can't get such huge barrels now though as no-one knows how to make them.
We had a wine tasting here which meant they also gave us some food which was a bit like a salty savoury donut translated the name means "ripped underpants" - I'm sure it was not healthy food, but it was really delicious.
 Stained glass window in the winery. 
The old saved botttles
the cellar (rails are no longer used)
    
Winery entrance.
After the winery visit we headed onward to Novisad, driving alongside the Danube at times and crossing into Serbia at the crossing without hitches (phew!) We came into Novisad past the impressive fortress  Our local walk was fairly brief, as we passed through the gate beside our hotel into the main street/mall of the city and visited the local orthodox church.. WE id see the tennis court where Monica Seles used to practice.   
also some terrific painted scenes on wall and ceiling
I always love stained glass windows and there were some beauties here.
 
School had just finished for the year. They have a tradition here of putting the graduation photos up in the shop windows. Then the parents can brag about their kids to their friends when they meet them in town. I think this is a lovely idea. They had kids graduating from kindy to school, school to high school and from high school in different shop windows.
I made the mistake of choosing mixed grill at our dinner this night. The meals were huge and I couldn't eat it all. (along with many in our group)
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