28/6 local tour of Belgrade, looking at the fortress, lunch by the river

We met downstairs at 9.15 after an excellent breakfast.  Ivan walked us to the centre of town , where we met with Bojala, our local guide for Belgrade. Bojala showed us around the city and into the main park and fortress area, where we looked down on the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers and heard the lovely tale of their romance (They agreed to keep on meeting at this location into the future to keep their romance alive) .

Our local tour guide.

entry to the fortress

the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers (what a romance)

Bojala was much more reluctant to talk about the war and her life than our previous local guide  She would be in her  70s and has seen a fair bit of life in Belgrade. She remembers dancing rock and roll in the fortress walls in the early days, and the NATO bombings.  But she remembers other wars as well.  She told us that there are five  seasons in Belgrade.  Summer, Winter, Spring, Autumn and War.  And that we are very lucky to have no neighboring countries.

The lovely Bojela- what a character!
This is the local money - The 1000 Dinar bill has a picture of Weifert's beer brewery
The 100 Dinar bill has a picture of Tesla
The joke is that you use the 100 to pay for the beer and the 1000 to pay for the power. (reversed to the pictures on them) 

Belgrade lies on the central point in Europe and trade routes from North to South and East to West and has a great position overlooking two rivers on fertile plains.  No wonder everyone wanted to own it.

The fortress area has been restyled somewhat and now has basketball courts between the walls, a dinosaur exhibition and also a military museum housed in there.  Apparently rock concerts also happen in this area.

many military machines were on display

After a bit of morning tea (and quite a bit of quibbling over yet another shared bill, which had to be split between all of us and paid out of our differing and unfamiliar banknotes) , we went exploring the old fortress area for hours, finally finding a Serbian geocache (micro on some military equipment) , but also venturing through some staircases in the walls less travelled (and rather spooky) , onto old areas overlooking the crumbling walls, and overlooking yet more ruins.

what is inside this tiny doorway??

Oh! A narrow staircase!  Where does it go to?

somewhere that people do not usually go

panorama of the extra ruins we hadn't seen on our tour. (the Danube in the distance) 

We wandered down to the Ruzica church, which was the church of the troops, and which has chandeliers made of old weapons (swords, bullet casings and old parts of cannons etc) which were created by Serb soliders on the frontlines.    The church is nestled right in the walls of the Kalamegdon fortress and has been occupied by Serbs, Turks, Austrians and Hungarians at different times. The Turks used this area for a gunpowder magazine for over 100 years!

 Just down  the hill a short way on is the Svete Petke church which is totally decorated in mosaic.  Of all the churches I saw on our travels this is probably the one I would recommend that people go to see, and yet no-one mentioned it to us.  I'm just sorry that I couldn't take photos inside as it was amazing.  I did take some of the mosaics outside to give some idea.   I think that it was not only the beautiful artistic effect, but also the reverence and a sense of "other worldness" that got my attention.  Pungent haze of incense smoke, genuinely reflective people, and a priest going about his practical daily tasks all went into the experience.  I could have happily sat and observed in here for much longer, recording it in my mind's eye. Apparently the mosaics were only put in place in the 1980s by artist Duro Radulovic

There was another area close to where this church is , where people were sitting and resting - at the time we didn't realise why, but I read later that there is a spring of holy water near the church - I assume that this other structure where the people were is where the spring is.  The water is said to be particularly beneficial to women (St Petka being the patron saint of women)  and to help with sight problems.

When this church was built in 1937, the constructions uncovered a mass grave site of Serbian soldiers from WW1.  The bones were moved to a special Ossuary site.  We found the Ossuary, set into a corner of the fort wall, just after we left the church, but didn't understand from the signs that the bones had been found on the chapel site.

We gradually worked our way down through the old fortress (past the archeology workshops in the old Roman kitchens and the ancient Charles gate which is still standing,. The old baths had been turned into an observatory.

Charles gate

Archaeology  workshop inside the old Roman kitchens

Further down we reached the river Sava and walked along the river path (also part of a bike route that extends 1100km including  from Ljubljana in Slovenia to Belgrade in Serbia.

We saw all sorts of craft along the river - botched together shacks on floats, barges working hard to move along, fancy cruise boats, lots of nightclub boats on the waters edge.

Eventually we came to a string of nice looking restaurants.  Since it was warm and we needed both a drink and a toilet we decided to pick one at random and stop for lunch and satisfy all our needs.





We had a really delightful lunch looking out at the river and watching life pass on by, before eventually deciding that we had a bit more walking to do to get home, and we had better get on with it.

We strolled home through the major works along the riverbank developing a whole area into swanky new apartments and gardens near where the old railway station used to be, and then through some of the streets not so touristy, and back in to the main shopping area, where we unsuccessfully looked for souvenirs/gifts to take home.  Finding nice stuff that is also small and we really want to buy seems to be tricky, so we brought home photos and memories.

After the shopping stop we headed for our hotel (still a couple of km away) for a bit of a rest and freshen up (it is still very hot) before we headed out with the group for tea again.

Walking to tea we went past the statue of Gavrilo Princip (the man who shot Franz Ferdinand and consequently triggered the start of the 1st world war.)   Here he is a hero! Franz Ferdinand was from the Imperial Hapsburg dynasty. When he was shot Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, thus bringing into place the supporters also (Russia was strong supporter of Serbia).