I snapped this photo of Ocean yesterday while we were having lunch at Usce. The light was perfect and she was looking so adorable. What an absolute angel! We got a lot of things done around the house and played quite a bit with the kids.
A highlight of the weekend was visiting Supermarket, a concept store here in Belgrade. A very hip place. It is a restaurant, spa, store, art gallery, etc. We went on a Sunday evening and the place was full. We want to check out their Sunday Jazz brunch which one of the attendants says is well attended by families. They had great gifts there and Nadia bought an agenda. I highly recommend a visit. It is located in Dorcol, #10 Višnjičeva street.
Dinner at Whatever @ The Corner - Belgrade, Serbia
Ocean is shown looking up at the tower of Beg’s Mosque in the old part of Sarajevo. It is located in the center Bascarsija market and while we were shopping, we stopped to take a look at a fine example of Ottoman architecture. The towers of mosques can be seen throughout the city and in villages in Bosnia.
Beg’s mosque was financed by Gasi-Husrev Beg in 1531. He was the Bosnian governor for Sarajevo when the Ottomans ruled most of the Balkan peninsula. The Ottomans were here for over 500 years and it is in Sarajevo their influence can be felt the most in the ex-Yugoslavia. They also converted many of the Serbs and Croats to Islam, hence the Bosniaks of today. The mosques add a touch of the exotic to Sarajevo. The mosque was destroyed several times throughout its history, most recently during the siege on Sarajevo from 1992-1995. The Saudis financed rebuilding of the mosque. We even heard the call to prayer, the first time I ever heard it live. Very cool.
The family in the market
The market was great! Nadia enjoyed looking at all the shops. We bought a tea set, scarf, etc. and I even bought a fez. The people in the market loved the kids and they got free candy where ever we went. It was low tourist season and horrible weather, so there were no crowds and we got to meet many of the vendors. I also got a nice shave. The kids also enjoyed using umbrellas for the first time. We had to buy three of them of course and they walked around with them every day. Ocean dragged hers through puddles.
Ollie and Ocean are pictured above preparing snowballs to throw at our car. We were excited to see lots of snow on our trip to Sarajevo. We are on fall break and are exploring Serbia’s neighboring country.
We got off to a slow start yesterday with many errands to do around the house. I cleaned the car, fixed the rearview mirror, and helped Nadia pack. We made a delicious pancake breakfast as well as downloaded stories to listen to while driving. After exchanging some boots for Nadia, we were on our way.
Serbia has many single family farms still
We had a slight change in plans even before we got started. We had originally planned to stay near Visegrad, a town just across the Serbian border. The town was made famous by Nobel Prize laurate, Ivo Andric, a famous Yugolsavian author. He wrote “Bridge On the Drina”, a historical fictional account of the town. I blogged about the book here. We did not stay there because the best place in the area according to the guidebooks, was used in the 1990’s as a rape camp by paramilitary forces in the Yugoslavian civil war. The Bradt Guide to Bosnia didn’t mention this. Young and beautiful Bosniak women from the Visegrad area were kept there. Nadia felt queasy about staying the night in a such a place, 16 years after. I didn’t realize how much of the war happened in Visegrad. Many Bosniaks fled the area and what used to be a mixed area, is not predominately Serbian. That is consistent with the history of the place. Much violence happened there over the centuries, from the Ottoman Turks taking Serbian boys away from their families to be raised as Ottomans, to the Austro Hungarians subduing the Ottomans.
The Drina Bridge At Night
Perhaps it was a rainy, cold night, but the town felt a bit depressed. We stopped and I took some pictures of the bridge and walked out to the capia. There is no car traffic on the bridge. It is quite an impressive architectural feat, considering how wide the river is and how long ago the sultan ordered the bridge to be built. I used Serbian RSD to buy gas in the city.
The highlight of the day was the beautiful snow in the mountains. On the Serbian side in Zlatibor, there was lots of snow. We stopped at the Hotel Mecanik for a late dinner, just outside the village of Mokra Gora. We wanted to spend the night, as Ocean vomitted and the kids and I were tired. There was no rooms available, so we decided to go on to Sarajevo. It snowed the whole way and I was a bit disappointed not to be able to see the beautiful canyons and mountain views as we were approaching Sarajevo. Being from northern Michigan, USA, the snow brought back memories of my youth.
We finally arrived in Sarajevo around 10:00 PM. Distances are deceptive in Serbia and Bosnia as the narrow, twisting mountain roads make progress slow. It took about 200 hours to travel the roughly 100 kilometers. The hotel we booked was full so we found another nearby. Initial impressions are a lively, beautiful city. I can’t wait to explore it.
The Pleasures of Family Travel - Cleaning Vomit off a Car Seat
We are having a bit of car trouble. The temperature gauge is cold even though we drove through the mountains all day. I think it is a thermostat problem, we’ll have to get it checked out today or tomorrow before we leave on Tuesday.
Alejandra at lunch with Nadia and our friend Vesna
It was a sad week as Nadia’s sister Alejandra and our nephew Sebey left us. Their school in Bahrain closed because of H1N1 flu fears. All schools on the island closed and so they took advantage of the unexpected October holiday and stayed with us for almost 2 weeks. It is only a few hours flight away and only one time zone difference.
It was great to see them again. Sebey is growing up very fast. He spent a lot of time “roughhousing” (an USA upper midwest term) with his cousins. Nadia and her sister are quite close.
It felt like someone turned on the winter switch as the cold, wet weather came in a hurry this week. Up until Monday, the weather has been absolutely beautiful with warm temps and sunny skies. This week temps were near freezing, although yesterday it finally warmed up a bit and the skies cleared. It has got us all in the autumn mood and as you can see by the photos in this post, we’re doing all of the fall activities.
Nadia receives help from kids in sorting through the winter clothes
It is a nice change of pace after so many years in the tropics. This week we took the winter clothes out of storage. We also carved the Romanian pumpkins that we stole from a peasant farm a couple of weeks ago. I also finally figured out my blackberry and uploaded all of the photos to my flickr.com site. The phone takes excellent photos.
I listened to Owen’s presentation on Bolivia. The first grade class in celebration of International Week in the Lower School, had all of the students give presentations on a country of their choice. Most students chose either nations of their families or where they spent most of their lives. At an international school, there is always a lot of mixed families. Owen chose to do Bolivia because there are not many South Americans in Serbia. He was also born there and is a Bolivian citizen. We spent several holidays there and he also had an extended stay when Ocean was born.
Owen had many photos and stories to share with the parents and people at the presentations. He also finally got a haircut last night. This is the shortest he has had his hair in a long time. He looks very different! I didn’t recognize him when I first walked in today.
He did an excellent job and we are proud of him. Way to go Owen!!!!
Yesterday we visited Kovačević Wine Cellar located in the village of Irig, which is about 70 kilometers north of Belgrade. The village lies in the Fruška Gora National Park. Fruška Gora means “Frankish Mountain” in English. It is a region of hills that are in the middle of the flat plains of Vojvodina. The hills were a natural frontier of the Frankish Empire back in the 400s. I prefer the Roman name for the area, Fertile Mountain because it is a great region for growing grapes. The Franks have not been around in a long time. Besides wine, Fruska Gora has some hiking and 12 Serbian Orthodox monasteries, and we will come back again for those.
We found the address of Kovačević in a guide to the wines of Serbia and it was recommended to us by friends. It is not the vineyards and elegant tasting experience of the wineries we went to in Australia, but a nice experience nonetheless. There is no sign in front and so we went around the side of the building. The workers were busy with crushing the grapes and the kids got to see the process of fermentation and storage.
The Kids Save the Grapes from Being Crushed
I was most excited to try the Bermet, which is a type of wine only produced by the Fruska Gora wineries. It is a strong dessert wine, that is infused with herbs and spices. It used to be very popular with the Austro-Hungarian royalty and it was on the wine list of the Titanic. Today, it is not known outside of Serbia. We liked both the white and red versions of the Bermet. We bought two bottles of the red. We also liked the Aurelius, a mix of Cab Sav and Merlot, aged in the barrels below. Nadia also bought a Rajninski Reisling and Chardonnay. I also liked the Reisling, which had tones of green apples. We will be visiting the region again! After the winery, we had dinner in Novi Sad and walked around the beautiful old part of town.
The highlight of the day however was not the sightseeing, but just spending time with the kids. Below they are eating another of my delicious breakfast entrees. It is good also to have my nephew Sebey visiting us.
Last Friday evening we were driving downtown near Ulica Njegosova to pick up Oliver’s vaccines from a pharmacy. He got his 4 year old booster shot and the local clinic the expats used, asked us to order and buy the vaccine ourselves. Anyway, we were cruising down the street near a construction zone and we heard a thud on the back tire. Immediately we then heard a loud escape of air and the bumping of a flat tire. Apparently I hit a something that tore an inch long rip in a tire. We were on a narrow street and couldn’t find a spot to pull over. We eventually found a gate open on a driveway. The security guard of the area, a perfect stranger, Bosko, pictured above came over and helped me change the tire, doing most of the work . Since it was such a narrow driveway and street to get out of, he even drove the car out so we could be on our way. Then when we asked where we could get a tire repaired, another perfect stranger walking down the street overhead us and offered to take us to a tire shop a few blocks away. Very kind indeed.
It is quite appropriate to post about the country of Romania as tomorrow, Serbia plays against its neighbor in an important World Cup qualifying soccer match. My first impression of the country was the same as when I visited neighboring Bulgaria – “These guys are in the EU and Serbia is not?” It was most evident in the border crossing. Coming back into Serbia, the Romanian border post was run down and the guards very inefficient. Crossing into Serbia, the installations for immigration were better maintained. The roads were in better condition, less garbage along side the roads, and the villages and towns on the Serbian side were also nicer and better maintained. I know Serbia is not part of the EU because of politics and not economics or standard of living, but when compared to Bulgaria and Romania, they are EU-quality.
The Romanians were very friendly and we enjoyed the visit. The Romans had a larger effect on them than the Serbs. I wonder why? The Romans were also here in Belgrade. I also learned of the Dacians, one of the early groups in Romania. I would like to learn more about them as well as the Vlachs. I did notice a significant gypsy population, even in villages, which one does not find in Serbia where they are mostly located in the larger cities.
Gypsy Wedding Dance in a village we drove through
The Carpathian mountains were beautiful as well as the rolling hills of southern Romania. Very similar to the Serbian countryside, although we saw more pumpkins in Romania. We had to stop at a pumpkin patch and get some photos. It reminded me of the old Peanuts cartoon when Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin to come.
The boys climbed some of the Carpathians! We didn’t see any vampires, which is always strongly associated with Romania. We did see a girl at breakfast in the hotel rubbing garlic on her toast however. We will probably be back again.
This weekend we visited southern Romania. Above is the view of from our window of the Carpathian mountains in the town of Baile Herculane. Romania borders Serbia and we were invited to see the sights by our Romanian friends living here in Belgrade.
We stayed at a bed and breakfast in the resort town of Baile Herculane. It means Hercule’s Bath in English. The area has geothermal water springs and since Roman times, people have thought that the water has medicinal properties. The setting of the town is beautiful. The Carpathian mountains are a long mountain chain that goes through Romania and into northern Serbia. They are not the peaks of the Alps, but as you can see, they are scenic in their own way. We drove through much of them and stopped in several places to hike and take photographs.
The town is very strange. When this part of Romania was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the town was discovered by Emperor Franz Joseph. He built several large hotels, a casino, and several formal bathing palaces near the turn of the century. Back in the days before antibiotics and modern medicine, geothermal waters and mountain air were more popular medical treatments. I read of Franz’s wife or sister, I can’t remember which, visited the town and had an affair with a Romanian officer in the Austro-Hungarian army. She visited the place frequently and she had a villa. It sounds like the town was once the Monaco of the Empire. I can’t get over the amount of money it must of cost to build these palaces. It is crazy that one many, Franz Joseph could have so much power. It is also unbelievable that the two countries, Austria and Hungary, dominated European affairs. Today they are two smaller nations, that are well off, but by no means lead Europe.
The buildings are still in Baile Herculane today, but they are in very poor condition, many of them abandoned. It was eerie to walk around the town and see all of these magnificent palatial buildings in such a state of disrepair. The fog and gloomy weather combined to make it all the stranger experience. Late Saturday afternoon, we walked with the kids down to the city center and saw up close all of these buildings. The kids loved the park and buying honey in the comb pieces from a street vendor. We were loving the architecture and mountain scenery. The place could really be a five-star destination with about 100 million dollar investment in the buildings, roads, etc.
The Kids Enjoyed the Park
The environmental consciousness of the Romanians is not quite up to EU or American standards. We saw lots of garbage in the village and throughout this part of Romania. The river going through the town was also quite polluted and I saw several open pipes running into the water. The geothermal springs are hot, but the water does have a definite sulfur smell and one could identify walking through the town.
Everyone was very friendly at the hotel and we ate well. Claudiu and Vesna were great as our Romanian tour guides. We really enjoyed ourselves! I’ll be blogging more this week on some of our experiences.
Bill's Blog 