Monday 09SEP
Overnight, we left Hungary and arrived in Serbia. The first stop in Serbia was Novi Sad, but the tour of the town left at 8:00 and we decided to stay on the boat.
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| My only picture of Novi Sad |
We then headed on to Belgrade for an afternoon tour. Our first stop was the Belgrade Fortress at the confluence (I love that word) of the Sava and Danube rivers.
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| The dock at Belgrade, below Belgrade Fortress. |
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| Part of Belgrade Old Town, from the boart |
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| American tourist in Belgrade |
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| In the park, just outside Belgrade Fortress |
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| One of the fortress gates |
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| Collected armor along the fortress wall |
While we were at the fortress, it started to rain, the first bad weather since the trip started. It didn't rain hard, but it made Belgrade look even grayer and drearier that it is.
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| View over Belgrade, from the fortress |
From the fortress, we boarded a bus to see the other "highlights" of Belgrade.
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| A street in the center of the city |
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| Another street in the center |
In 1994, NATO bombed several buildings in the Serbian war, and they have (intentionally, apparently) left several of the damaged buildings as-is.
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| Building bombed in 1994 |
In general, the condition of the buildings in Belgrade (even the ones that weren't bombed) was a level worse than in Hungary.
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| Some typical housing in Belgrade |
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| Marshall Tito's house and grave |
Eventually, we arrived at the
Cathedral of St. Sava, which is the largest Orthodox cathedral in the world. Construction on the cathedral began in 1935, and it is still not finished.
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| Exterior of St. Sava Cathedral |
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| Unfinished interior of the cathedral |
From the cathedral, we continued to drive around the center of the city and eventually arrived at one of the main squares and a pedestrian street.
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| Street scene in Belgrade |
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| Republic Square (I think) |
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| Republic Square (I still think) |
Tuesday, 10 SEP
The next morning we arrived at the town of Donji Milonovac, and immediately got on a bus to
Lepinski Vir, an archaeological site, with building foundations and artifacts from about 7000 BC. The original site was flooded when a dam was built on the Danube in the 1970's, so the entire site was moved to higher grounds and enclosed in a building.
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| Typical Serbian country houses at Lepinski Vir |
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| Lepinski Vir museum, covering the archaeological site |
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| Remains of the site at Lepinski Vir |
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| Some artifacts from the site |
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| One of several skeletons unearthed at the site. |
From Lepinski Vir, we returned to Donji Milonovac. The town was moved to its current location when the original town site was flooded by the construction of the dam in the 1970's.
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| The market at Donji Milonovac |
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| Some housing in Donji Milonovac |
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| An apartment building in Donji Milonovac |
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| Waterside park in Donji Milonovac |
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| Serbian countryside |
We boarded the boat in Donji Milonovac, and continued down the Danube to the
Iron Gates, which is a gorge between Serbia and Romania.
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| Entering the Iron Gates--Romania on the left and Serbia on the right |
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| A church on the Romanian shore |
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| Rock Carving (from 1994) of the Dacian Chief Decebalus |
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| A Roman memorial plaque ("Tabula Traiana"), for a Trajan's bridge over the Danube, built in 105 AD |
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| Entering a set of locks on the Danube |
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| In one of the locks |
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| One of the locks opening |
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| Remains of another Roman bridge |
Next:
Bulgaria
