Ahhhh! How lovely it is to explore without sweating. Sunday night there was a weather change. Thunder, lightning, rain, and now the weather is a comfortable 24 C (79F). This is the most comfortable weather we've experienced in the Balkan Peninsula in months. Monday clouds painted a dramatic sunset.
The weekend was a different story. Despite the over 40 degree centigrade (104F) temperatures, Dan and I tramped all over Belgrade. We went to museums. The Museum of Applied Arts had an exhibition of 18th-20th century furniture and nothing else. We went to the Ethnographic Museum to see the Pirot kilims, but only a handful were on display. Most of the museums seem to be mired in a very long process of renovations that never end. The highlight and an extremely interesting stop was at the Nikola Tesla Museum.
We took a bus to Zemun and not finding much to keep us there, we walked the several kilometers back to Belgrade. Along the way, I made Dan pose for yet another portrait in nice light.
I submitted this portrait for my online photography class and while the instructor liked the portrait, he wondered if Dan ever smiled. The shiny spots are the beads of sweat that kept oozing out of his face.
We visited some notorious landmarks such as the Hotel Jugoslavija where celebrities such as Tina Turner, Richard Nixon, and Queen Elizabeth II have stayed. In 1999, it became collateral damage as a result of a NATO bomb strike on the adjacent building. All the windows in the hotel were broken and it has been vacant since.
We walked through parks. Sadly, the Botanical Garden is also involved in a long renovation project so most the garden was not very serene. Near Tashmajdan Park we visited churches and other memorials from the 1999 NATO mission reminding us that children are the innocent victims of war.
It was so hot that afternoon that even ownerless dogs found their way to the shade of the park and kids swam in the fountains.
We've been using our Bradt guide and a Belgrade Restaurant magazine to determine where we will eat. The magazine critiques restaurants; some are good and some are bad. One "bad" critique was for a floating restaurant called Dijalog. The other night when we were taking photos, we discovered Dijalog. A bad review really sinks the boat in Belgrade.
Mostly, we'e really enjoyed the restaurant selection in Belgrade. Our only miss was a "Mexican" restaurant called Zapata--the food was okay, but not anywhere close to real Mexican cuisine. The magazine reviewer liked the food. Obviously, the reviewer has never tried real Mexican food.
Our time in Belgrade is coming to an end. Tomorrow the three of us will go to the village of Ecka located about 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Belgrade. Dan is conducting a "train the trainers" class there for Serbian lawyers.
Comments
Post a Comment