Novi Sad to Belgrade

I had a fabulous sleep last night but Caro did not ( she is coming down with a cold and we have visited pharmacies to get her medicines). 

After our hotel supplied breakfast we headed out to walk as much of the streets as we could. 

The synagogue was very important before WW2 and while we couldn’t see inside, the information boards outside were very descriptive ( and sad).

We had to check out at 11AM and our mini-bus didn’t leave until 1PM so we all just left our luggage at the hotel and Caro and I continued walking until returning to the street nearby where we had another pizza and some lemonades. 

The highway speed is 130 Km/hr here ( but not for minibuses unfortunately LOL)!

The highway was really good. I was surprised to see so much corn being grown! I also noticed many more sightings of small towns and industrial development as we got closer to Belgrade.

We got into Belgrade in the early afternoon and after a short break we met up with the group and had a guided tour of the down town where we talked about the city’s history and all the wars that have happened here. I was wondering why the recent civil war is NEVER discussed by any of the guides and then we saw this; (note the writing on the store side has not been removed so must have some kind of permission)

“The only genocide in the Balkans was against the Serbs” written in English and a fallacy IF you believe the International Court in The Hague (which names a few Serbs in that terrible war about 25 years ago).

Obviously a real sore point for the people here.

We made our way on the tour to the fortress. This city was the border between the Ottoman Turks- (Muslim) and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire (Christian/Jew).The view is outstanding of the Danube and a tributary which joins the Danube right below the fort

The streets of the old city were nice to walk and not too crowded

We went out as a group to a nearby restaurant. While the group sat together Caro wanted the two of us to eat separately as her cold really hit her and she doesn’t want to pass it along (and as I finish off this blog post at 9 PM she is fast asleep already.

The meal (authentic Serbian cuisine) was really wonderful. We split an appetizer and a main course,with Caro also having a salad and me having a rum (I wanted Serbian rum but apparently it is not made here). Total cost with tip was around $70 .

We stopped at a kiosk on our street and I bought some home made (what turned out to be) brandy. It is quite tasty and the lady selling it really wanted me to know that “there was no sugar added” and that her family made it

Tomorrow is an off day as far as anything planned with the group so we are going to do as much as we can to get Caro feeling better.