Novo Hopovo Monastery, Fruska Gora

Novi Sad Town Square

We felt that having spent 2 days there, Belgrade had been pretty much covered and that with 2 days left we needed to see a bit more of Serbia.  The general guide book consensus was that the best place to visit after Belgrade was the town of Novi Sad, about an hour and a half to the north from Belgrade by train.  Novi Sad is recommended for two reasons – firstly as it is an interesting place in itself, with an old town square, cathedral and castle overlooking the Danube, and secondly as a stepping stone to Fruska Gora, one of Serbia’s National Parks.  In order to fit in both a brief city tour and a National Park, we got the 7.20 train from Belgrade station.  Being a central European train, it arrived late, but still was early enough for us to have a bacon and egg breakfast in the town square after a taxi ride into town.

The Clock Tower with view over Novi Sad

Novi Sad old town is very much in the central European mould, with grand old buildings surrounding the cathedral and town hall.  After a brief look in the cathedral we walked on the bridge across the Danube to the castle.  This castle, much like the one in Belgrade, was designed to watch over the river and surrounding town and therefore had great views over not only the city, but the Danube and Fruska Gora too.  The complex is a bit grander than in Belgrade, with Austrian buildings that have been converted to hotels and restaurants being the dominant feature.  We had a drink at one of these restaurants, next to a clock tower that overlooked the city.  The clock tower had an amusing story to go with it – the Austrians built it when they ruled Serbia and then proceeded to enforce a “clock tax” to any household that they deemed able to read the time from it.  As they built it at the top of a hill, it was a pretty good excuse to tax the majority of the town below.

Four Lions Statue, Sremski Karlovci

Having sampled Novi Sad and its castle, we decided to head out towards Fruska Gora.  The National Park is known throughout the country as the heart of Serbia, as it contains 16 fully functioning Orthadox monasteries.  These monasteries were used to hide the last remains of traditional Serbian art and culture when the country was a part of the Ottoman Empire and were therefore seen as the last bastion of Serbia.  The National Park isn’t spectacular in itself – it is full of pleasant rolling hills, but there aren’t any mountains or lakes around, so the main attraction were the monasteries.  Visitors to the area tend to start from the town of Sremski Karlovci, so we got a taxi there first from Novi Sad.  Sremski Karlovci was an interesting enough place in itself – it contains the Serbian School of Theology and was also the place where a famous treaty was signed between the Austrian and Ottoman empires.  A fountain adorned with four lions was built to remember this treaty and those who drink from it are meant to either return to Serbia or get married.

Velika Remeta Monastery

In order to plan our trip into Fruska Gora and around the monasteries, we headed to the Sremski Karlovci tourist office, where we were met by two very helpful women who told us that without a car, the best way to get about was by taxi.  We knew how cheap the taxis were, so chose 5 of the 16 monasteries that were in driving distance and asked the driver to take us there.  Our taxi driver was amazingly polite – opening our door at every stop and trying to make conversation in his potted English.  Our first monastery was called Velika Remeta.  The layout of the monasteries tended to be a church surrounded on all four sides by a building that housed the nuns and monks.  We arrived to find a few nuns gardening in the inner courtyard and were left to our own devices as we looked around the church.  The inside of the church was stunning – the murals on the wall were in such vivid colours that they looked as though they had come straight out of a cartoon and the chandeliers, candles and icons were covered with gold and silver.  We spent about 20 minutes in Velika Remeta and on the way out we were met by a monk who spoke to us extensively in Serbian.  It seemed mean to give him the usual “govorite li engliski?” so we just stood and nodded and at the end of his little speech he gave us a laminated card with a picture of St George on it – I assume because we were English.  We were tempted to buy some of the local made honey on offer (which we christened “Nunny Honey”), but didn’t really want to carry it around with us.

Inside Staro Hopovo

The next monasteries – Krusedol, Grgeteg and Novo Hopovo, were all fairly similar to Velika Remeta, but each one had its own little something that made it unique.  Krusedol had an impressive big red gatehouse which we had to travel through on our way to the monastery itself, Grgeteg (our taxi driver’s favourite) was built in amidst a beautiful forest and Novo Hopovo was built beside a little stream which the nuns were taking water from for the gardens.  Combined with our final monastery – Staro Hopovo, the complexes were amongst the most serene and pleasant places I have ever been.  The monks were friendly and stood watch at the entrance while the nuns bowed their heads when we passed and tended the gardens.  What with the fantastic weather – not a cloud in the sky and a perfect temperature, our afternoon journey through the Fruska Gora monasteries in our little red taxi seemed to be more like a pilgrimage.  What’s more, as they are isolated and unknown to most of the outside world, we barely saw another person who wasn’t associated with the buildings themselves and we were therefore able to see how they run on a day to day basis.

Our wonderful taxi driver then drove us all the way (about 40km) back to Novi Sad station where we caught a train back to Belgrade.  The taxi driver, who had probably driven about 75km in total for most of the afternoon along heavily potholed winding country roads, and had been a model of politeness – opening the door for us, slowing down when we wanted a picture, etc, only wanted to charge us about £35, so we gave him a tip and made it £45.  This may seem a lot, but split between three it was the perfect way to see the monasteries.  The train back was late, but this gave me a good chance to write my blog up and look through all the photos.

Little Bay Restaurant, Belgrade

Having eaten at “?” last night, we wanted to go to the other highly recommended restaurant in Belgrade.  This was the “Little Bay” which is a restaurant that has been laid out like a small opera house - where everybody has their own box or “little bay” from which they can watch the live music on offer.  The restaurant is popular enough for reservations to be required.  Wednesday night was jazz night.  The prices were amazing - main meals started at £4 and we felt able to have a starter as well.  The service was so good that we had a bell pull in our box to get the attention of the waiter.  The evening, consisting of a starter, a main, two beers, a private box and a jazz band, cost us about £12 each - an absolute bargain.  All in all it had been one of those days of travelling where everything seemed to fit into place and where we would have been hard pushed to fit any-more in.  We got back to the hostel fairly late and thoroughly satisfied.

I have now acquired a ghost writer for my blog.  Hollie tells me that people won’t read my blog if I don’t start it off with a bang, and nothing packs more of a punch than a Winston Churchill quote.  So here goes.  The great man once said that “the Balkans produce more history than they consume” and I have to agree with him.  For a region with a relatively small population, it has had a disproportionate influence on world history, and perhaps no place more than Belgrade.  Had I been born a few years earlier, I would have been brought up regularly hearing reports on the news about the city, but as it stands the Balkan conflict is consigned to the limbo between history and the present – too young to be taught in schools, but too old to be talked about regularly.  This limbo has impacted on Belgrade, one of the world’s most famous cities, but one that very few people would consider visiting.  However the arrival of Wizz Air at Luton Airport has opened up the Balkans and Eastern Europe to us Western Europeans, giving an unprecedented chance to visit a place that our country was bombing ten years ago.  But don’t think that it’s all about the war.  The city is keen to re-invent itself.

Leaving on a Sunday afternoon, team Serbia (consisting of me, Alex Rule and Hollie Hales) departed for Nikolai Tesla Airport in Belgrade.  And now Hollie wants to take it from here…

Currently drinking a few delicious authentic Serbian beers, Yakovicsh (or alex in his Russian hat), Ruley and I are settling in wonderfully. I must say, I had reservations about how I would adapt to the culture, but it’s a few hours in to our adventure  and I have not taken an instant dislike (there is a Zara across the road from our apartment.) I am very much looking forward to the modern art gallery, the tea and cake at the Russian tsar. I hope I can survive these two for five days. Ellie help me!

…and now back to me.  We got the airport to book us a taxi to the hostel after landing – Serbian taxi drivers are notorious for massively overcharging tourists, and we arrived in the city centre at about 7pm.  Our hostel for our five day stay was the hostel 360, but we were spending our first night in an apartment nearby as there wasn’t enough room at the inn on the Sunday we arrived.  The apartment was…interesting.  It was nice and spacious, but the kitchen drawers were stuffed with plastic bags and a hammer and the bedside drawer was stuffed with fashion magazines, tissues, baby wipes and the remains of a pot of moisturiser.  I guess its more exciting than a Gideon’s Bible.  Giggidy.  That night we went out into the rainy Serbian night to find somewhere to eat.  It was fairly quiet, being a wet Sunday night, so we had our pizza restaurant to ourselves.  On the way back from dinner we bought some cheap beers (60p a pint) and went back to the apartment to watch Serbian tv.

It seems that Serbian beer and food is packed with sugar, because all of us were literally unable to sleep.  We woke up thoroughly cranky and unrefreshed as we packed up and moved across the road into the main hostel, where we would be staying for the rest of the week.  After dropping our bags off, we headed out for an explore.  The dominating feature of Belgrade is the citadel (Kalemegdan), which overlooks not only the old and new towns, but also the confluence of the rivers Sava and Danube and as a result is one of the most strategically important points in the Balkans.  It is located in a park and the turrents and sprawling walls were vast enough for us to spend most of our day there.

We started off by walking down Knez Mihailova, the main pedestrianised shopping street that our hostel is located on, in the direction of Kalemegdan.  The street is like any other European city, with a mixture of local shops and international chains.  The main difference is that there is a mixture of Roman and Cyrillic alphabets, and a mixture of repulsive concrete and attractive sculpted buildings.  The citadel is located at the end of Knez Mihailova, about 5 minutes walk away.  The first monument that we reached in the castle grounds was the memorial to the French troops who died defending Belgrade in WW1 - I didn’t even know France had sent troops here.  From there we walked around the walls.  Alex had a photo inside every single turret. I think he sees this trip as a photo shoot.  Highlights of this wall walk included the Victory Monument, Despot’s Gate, and just general castle stuff.

The Citadel Restaurant

Lunch, as recommended by lonely planet, was at a restaurant in the castle walls overlooking the Danube.  There was, of course, a view tax but the prices were actually fairly reasonable and it was silver spoon service - for under a tenner.  We had planned to eat a snack, but it ended up being a bit of a carnivore’s paradise.  Alex ate an entire farm.  Our salad was a bit of a minefield, as the chef had hidden burning hot chillis in amongst the cucumber and tomato.  Me and Alex now have first degree throat burns, but aside from that it was pretty good.  Once outside we found the restaurant was next to a zoo.  It turned out that the walls weren’t very high, so being students we took photos through the bars. It was quite an odd zoo - beside the standard zebras and giraffes were things like a petting zoo which included friendly animals like rabbits, chickens, pigeons and a peacock.  Needless to say we left this in the “may return later” category.

Our plan was to then go to the military history museum - what with Belgrade being such a wartime city.  Unfortunately, having strolled through the grounds and taken some hilarious pictures with cannons and torpedoes, it turned out that it was shut.  Our lonely planet based tour had been de-railed and with no alternative plan, we went back to the hostel for a 10 minute lie down.  Unfortunately we all forgot to set an alarm and we ended up sleeping until the early evening.  With the day nearly gone and not really much to show for it, we decided to go back to the castle to see it at night - which was pretty, before going out for an evening coffee and tea.

Before (check out the super cheese frappe)

After(ish)

After such a big lunch, we didn’t feel capable of eating another meal, and thought we would just have a delayed dessert at the “Russian Tsar” coffee house - which is famous across Serbia.  We didn’t know quite what to order - there were four pages of cakes to chose from and two pages of coffee.  After much deliberating, I settled on the “Russian Tsar” coffee, with white chocolate profiteroles, Alex went for the Trio Chocolat cake with a frappe on the side, and Hollie chose a Kinder Cake and a hot chocolate.  When it arrived, we found out just why it was famous.  My coffee was loaded with liqueur, Alex’s frappe arrived in like, a fish bowl and was mainly marscapone cheese, and Hollie’s hot chocolate was essentially a bar of chocolate that had been melted down.  That’s not to mention the cakes.  My profiteroles were swimming in a pint of white chocolate, Alex had slab of chocolate and Hollie just about got away with hers.  It wouldn’t be an overestimate to say that there were about 10,000 calories on the table.  Our eyes lit up, and the first bites were glorious.  Unfortunately we realised that there were thousands more gloopy sugary bites where that came from.  To quote the famous Serbian phrase: “too much of a good thing clogs your arteries”.  Hollie finished first and watched in horror as me and Alex ploughed through calorie after calories, each one more repulsive than the last.  By the time we finished, we were in agony, my coffee was cold and Alex’s marscapone had curdled.  But we had conquered the Russian Tsar.  On our way back to the hostel we had to stop at the supermarket to get some juice.  Anything to cleanse our palates and provide vitamins.  While we had only had one meal today, it felt like we had had ten.  We rolled back into the hostel and collapsed on the balcony which is where you find us now.  With ten stone food babies all around and an off the scale cholesterol level.  HAHAHAHAHA believe it or not, Hollie just broke the chair she was sitting on.  Fabulous timing.  See you tomorrow

Tuesday 22nd March - Part Two: Sveti Sava’s, the House of Flowers and Zemun

The view of Belgrade from Zemun

Sveti Sava Cathedral

The House of Flowers

Gardoš, Zemun

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