End of Belgrade and Beginning of Nis

Last Day in Belgrade, Better Make it Count

In keeping up with our love of the free walking tours that various cities have, Em and I met up with Mary and Ann for a walking tour of a portion of Belgrade. The tour met on Republic Square as close to the statue of Prince Michael as you can get (it’s currently in the center of the renovation area). Republic square is located in the Stari Grad neighborhood and has the Nation Museum (it has been open again for just two months after fifteen years of being closed for renovations) on one side and the National Theater on the adjacent side.  

Our tour walked us again through Skadarliji - the Bohemian quarter - where we learned a bit about Djura Jakšić. Jakšić was a much loved Serbian painter and poet that lived in a small house in Skadarliji. He was poor and used to build up large tabs in the local kafanas (coffeehouses/taverns) and then pay his tabs off by creating a piece of art or poem on the spot and then give it to the proprietor as payment. Apparently this was normal way for many of the area’s denizens to pay their tabs.

From the Bohemian quarter, our group walked along the neighborhood streets back towards Kalemegdan Park and the Belgrade Fortress. Along the way we passed the Bajrakli Mosque. This mosque was built in 1575 and is the only remaining mosque in the whole of Belgrade (there were 273 at the time of the Ottoman Empire). 

We also stopped briefly in front of the oldest house in the city. A small unassuming white house on a quite street in the neighborhood of Dorcol. The house was built by a Swiss Imperial general and engineer named Nicolas Doxat de Morezguide. Besides building the oldest house in the city, Doxat de Morezguide built a series of tunnels/roads beneath the house. No one knows for sure just where the tunnels went, but it is believed that for sure some of them accessed the Fortress and some went towards the city. Rumor has it that Doxat de Morezguide was tortured and killed by the Austrian Imperial forces to keep the tunnels a secret and also that the Germans believed that there was treasures buried in the tunnels. Now in days the tunnels are too damaged to explore and closed off. 

When we arrived at Kalemegdan Park, our guide told us a little bit more about the history of the park and various elements within it. Of note were the following:

There is the statue Pobednik. Pobednik is a bronze statue that was made by one of the most famous Croatian sculptors and architects of the 20th century – Ivan Meštrović. The statue represents the symbol of the Serbs victory over the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Pobednik is a naked male who represents a warrior. In his right hand is a sword pointed down, which suggests that he is currently at ease, but ready to fight if need be. In his left hand, he holds a falcon, a symbol of peace. The statue stands atop of a 46ft tall pedestal and looks about over New Belgrade (which used to be part of the Austria-Hungary Empire). 

When this statue was first created, it was supposed to be put at ground level in Terazije Square, but it was decided that it was too scandalous for Serbian women of means and would affect their sense of propriety. There was some discussion of putting it in water so that the bottom half was covered, but eventually it was just decided that it should be put up on a giant pedestal in the park where it would be less obvious that the man was naked and it would be further out of the way from the young impressionable women of the time.

Also of note in Kalemegdan Park is a staircase built in 1903 by Serbia’s first female architect, Jelisaveta Načić.

In the afternoon, Em and I met up with most of our tour group and some other random tourists to take the city Underground Tour. This was a paid tour that took you to four different underground locations within the city; two that people can normally visit, and two that they can’t.

Our first stopped was the Roman Well back at the Belgrade Fortress. The thing that everyone is quick to point out about the well is that it is (a) neither Roman nor, (b) a well. The Roman part of the name comes from the fact that the “well” was built in the 18th century by the Austrians, who believed themselves to be the inheritors of the great Roman Empire and thus thought along the lines of “if you call it so, then so shall it be.” The “Well” portion of the name derives from the fact that the well was originally built to be a well, but that the hole remained dry and would not produce water. Ironically, now there is water at the bottle of the well which is believed to originate as run off from the surface. 

Since the Roman Well could not be used for the purpose of water, the Austrian soldiers turned it into a dungeon. It’s believed that it was used as an  “oubliette,” or “forgotten place,” a hole where prisoners were thrown in and forgotten about.

Our second location was also located at the Belgrade Fortress and turned out to be a series of hidden underground bunkers. The bunkers date from just after the end of WWII and were commissioned by President Tito in preparation of another outbreak of war. Since they were a state secret when they were created, it wasn’t until 2008 that the general public learned that they were there.

Our third location was an old 17th century Austrian gunpowder storage warehouse. Sometime after that, Roman tombs and headstones started to be kept there (I don’t know why, but many of them still line the walls). In modern times, someone looked at the space where these ammunitions had been kept and decided, “This will make a great location for a fashion runway show”. So for a few years that occurred in the underground vaults. Then the fashion shows stopped and a club moved in (keep in mind, the tombs have remained in the space the whole time). The place has amazing acoustics and therefore was super popular with DJs and electronica music. 

The last location on the tour was a little ways from the Fortress, closer towards the waters edge. This was a old wine cellar that dated from when the Serbians were liberated from the Turks. It was also turned into an underground bar for a bit. For the end of the tour, the bar was temporarily reopened so that everyone could have a chance to try the local wine. This white wine, like many of the others I have tried in Serbia, was terrible. I know I don’t have much of a pallet for wine or know the difference between good wine and boxed wine, but this stuff is awful.

After our underground tour, Em and I retired to the hotel for a bit of recouping before venturing out for dinner and a palacinke. Palacinke is the Serbian word for pancake; by which they mean crepe. There was a dessert shop that Em and I had stumbled across a few times and decided to finally try on our last night in the city. The shop was called Al Pachinka as a play on both Palacinke and Al Pacino. It served delicious waffles that were rolled into a cone shape and adorned with whatever sugary goodness you wanted. We opted for Nutella, caramel, ice cream, and Oreo cookies. It was fabulous.

First Day in Niš - A Little History, Some Sad and Dark, Some Less So

This morning, the group said goodbye to Belgrade, climbed into our minibus, and headed for the city of Niš. Niš is the third largest city in Serbia, one of the oldest cities in the Balkans and Europe as a whole, and the gateway between the East and the West (you can quite literally drive straight down the main road out of town and end up two days later in Istanbul). The city was formed in 276 BC after the Scordisci invaded the Balkans and it has been going strong ever since (regardless of the changing country and political lines over the millennia).

On our way to Niš, we stopped briefly at Ravanica, a Serbian Orthodox monastery located in the Kučaj mountains, near Ćuprija in Central Serbia. It was built between 1375–1377 as an endowment of prince Lazar of Serbia, who was later buried there. The church in the center of the monastery started the “Morava” architecture movement, being the first church to combine the Mount Athos and the cross-in-square five-domed models. This style became standard during the time of King Milutin.

We had just a brief stop at the monastery where we were all allowed to go inside to see the beautiful walls and altars, but not to take any photographs unfortunately. The funny thing for us was that they didn’t care if our heads were covered or if we were wearing long sleeves, but if a girl came in in a pair of pants, they gave her a skirt to put on top of it; like you weren’t female if you had on trousers. I thought that was so weird and Louise and Zejko both said the monastery hadn’t ever done that in the past.

After the monastery, we piled back into the minibus for the second part of our journey to Niš. Right inside the city limits, we detoured to the Red Cross Concentration Camp (also called the 12th of February Camp). This was not something we were expecting to see or even knew was in the area, but it was interesting and moving to visit. The site was small, but filled with a terrible history. The current administration had done of a good job of creating informative exhibits in the old building where detainees had lived. 

The camp got its main name from the Red Cross facility that was located nearby and its unofficial name from the date of one of the largest and only successful camp breaks outs in the history of WWII. On February 12 of 1942, 147 prisoners attempted to escape and 105 made it.

Although the mood had turned a little more somber from our “Camp” visit, it turned around when we finally arrived at our hotel for the next few nights. Our tour was originally scheduled to stay in an apartment, but something happened and we got switched to a super modern and chic hotel in the heart of the city. It was swanky and amazing. 

Not wanting to waste what was left of the afternoon, we set out to see the city sites. Em and I headed to the city’s archaeology museum since we couldn’t actually visit the site of Mediana (Emperor Constantine the Great’s birthplace), which was located just outside of town, but still under renovation (they’ve been attempting to make it pretty and attractive for tourist for a decade or so). The museum was small but had a nice exhibit on Mediana and some of the other Roman artifacts found around the area.

From the museum, we headed along the pedestrian street (seems to be a common element in all of the cities in the Balkans) towards the Niš Fortress. The current fortifications were built by the Turks in the 18th century, but they are built upon the ruins of many previous fortifications of other civilizations. This Fortress is probably one and a half times the size of the Fortress in Belgrade, but with less inside. The inside of the fort was primarily a large public part with a some minor ruins scattered about, one empty mosque (of ten that used to be there) and a really weird Jazz museum (literally a weird maze like building with giant stickers posted on all the walls that showed Serbian jazz artists and scenes from the local jazz concert they hold in the Fortress). We wandered around the inner park of the Fortress for a bit taking photographs and trying to see whether the rolling thunder we could hear was going to be accompanied by either lightening or actual rain...neither came to pass.