Travel Day
Budapest – Belgrade
Up bright, bushy tailed and early this morning. Breakfast at 07:00. Luggage to the bus 07:45. Bus departs at 08:00. Amazing as it may sound everyone was feed and on the bus at 08:00 and we were on our way to Serbia.
It is 174 km, just over 100 miles, to the border crossing in Horgǒs, Serbia. Should be a piece of cake. Except for the traffic in Budapest. Ugh. It took us over two hours to get to the border, however in all fairness we did stop for a fifteen minute potty break. The border crossing itself took nearly an hour got get through the border. Much longer on the Hungarian side than on the Serbian side.
Hungary is a Schengen country and Serbia is not. Hungary is part of the EU and Serbia is not. They stopped the bus, unloaded everyone, lined us for passport check, made us wait until everyone had cleared the passport control, then check the bus for people, then put us back on the bus. Drove across no-man’s land, stopped the bus, made us all get off and line up for passport control, once everyone was cleared at passport control they checked the bus for strays, then let us back on the bus.
Once back on the bus we were off to Novi Sad, Serbia, about 119 km, again just over seventy miles. They bus stopped near St. George’s Cathedral in a pedestrian zone in the section of town known as Stari Grad. Stari Grad is an urban neighborhood and the city center of Novi Sad. In the Serbian language, the name "Stari Grad" means "Old Town". We were dropped off just before 14:00 and had to be back on the bus at 15:15.
We were hungry. We headed out towards the restaurants and bars, knowing when 35 people show up in a relatively small area it can overwhelm then and getting served can take longer than we have. There was a small group of us. We stopped at several places but were having trouble finding somewhere to get lunch. Finally one of the guys at a bar spoke enough English to direct us down the street and around the corner.
There we found the Pepper Pizza Bar. It bills itself as a Café, pizza, bar & more. Clearly a near buy school, probably high school, had also gotten out about the same time. Fun fact, they had a sign indicating they were serving Costa Coffee. Mary got lasagna and a salad. Cathy got a club sandwich, which was huge and fries, served with pizza sauce on the side for the fries. I got risotto with chicken and vegetables. All the food was excellent.
After lunch we walked slowly back to the bus. There is a beautiful church there called “Name of Mary Church”. They were in the middle of setting up for a concert of some type this weekend so the church was difficult to view. Apparently, the water is somewhat suspect here as there was a water truck from which people were filling bottles and drinking from.
The Name of Mary Church is a Roman Catholic parish church dedicated to the feast of the Holy Name of Mary. It is the largest church in Novi Sad, and is located in the city centre on the Trg Slobode(Liberty Square), which is just around the corner from Freedom Square. Locals refer to it as the "cathedral", even though Novi Sad belongs to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Subotica, whose cathedral is located in Subotica.
The church is a three-nave building, with neo-gothic arches. There are twenty stained glasses depicting saints and church fathers. The church has mechanical pipe organ with 24 registers.
The church has four altars. The main one in the apse is made of the carved wood from Tyrol, the windows with stained glass from Budapest and the roof tiles were made of Zsolnay ceramics. The church has four confessionals and a marble baptistry. It is the third tallest church in Bačka region after the Church of Saint Virgin Mary in Bačka Topola and Church of Saint Stephan in Sombor.
There were a couple other interesting looking buildings, unfortunately there wasn’t sufficient time to find out what they were. There maybe enough things to warranty a second visit to Novi Sad. Right now it is time to get on the bus and keep moving on the Belgrade.
Judit (Shannon-Bajnoczi Judit) announced it is about 50 miles or an hour to Belgrade. Once we get to Belgrade our local tour guide will take over and take us on a walking tour of the city. The truth is that due to traffic close to 17:00 before we were to alight from the bus in Students Square.
What has been learned from just driving into Belgrade? We can see a number of communist era apartment “blocks”. There are brutally ugly eight to ten story cement buildings. Among them are now newer much better looking buildings which even makes them look worse. Some of them are clearly empty – that is the whole building is empty, like they are getting ready to tear it down.
As we rights through the city you see things that are beautiful, and things that are brutally ugly. Buildings falling down on their own, next to a structure being built. Communism fell in 1989. It is 2024, it has only been 34 years. On one hand it seems they are making lots of progress in a very short time. On the other hand, some of the progress may not be considered such – i.e. McDonalds, Burger King, KFC. It is a contrast for sure.
The local guide is very difficult to understand. We leave the bus and walk down Uzun Mirkova. In front of the Ethnographic Museum he points out a statue of Karl Malden. Karl Malden (born Mladen George Sekulovich; March 22, 1912 – July 1, 2009) was an American stage, movie and television actor, which us old folk will remember. It turns out his father was father Petar Sekulović, a Serbian! His mother, Minnie (née Sebera) Sekulovich was a Czech seamstress and actress. The Sekulovich family's roots trace back to Podosoje near Bileća, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Malden spoke only Serbian until he was in kindergarten; he apparently, remained fluent in the language until his death. The statue is taken form a scene in the Streets of San Francisco (1972 – 1977) a TV series.
We continued down the street to the Belgrade Fortress (Београдска тврђава). The fortress consists of the old citadel and Kalemegdan Park and sits on a hill overlooking the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers. The fortress constitutes the specific historical core of the city. As one of the most important representatives of Belgrade's cultural heritage, it was originally protected right after World War II, among the first officially declared cultural monuments in Serbia. The fortress was declared a Monument of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1979, and is protected by the Republic of Serbia. It is the most visited tourist attraction in Belgrade.
Unfortunately, as I said before the guide today is particularly difficult to understand. What we were able to get out of all of it is that the Balkans were the “front” between Western European’s and the Ottoman Empire. That a whole lot of fighting went on here for the last couple thousand years. Fighting between different ethnic tribes in the area and between Christian ideals and Muslim ideals. Big fort, now a big park. Just as we were leaving the park we did get a beautiful sunset over the Sava River from the park.
Afterwards returned to the bus and where off to the hotel. Along the way the guide pointed out the Hotel Moscow which is just a quarter mile uphill from the Hotel Prag. It is near the Hotel Moscow that the main pedestrian street, shopping and restaurants are. There is a light drizzle just beginning to come down as we arrive at the hotel.
Now the Hotel Prag is listed nearly everywhere as a 4 Star hotel. However, it also has a price on nearly every site of around $125 - $150 a night. There was a lot of confusion around checking-in. Judit took all our passports and went ahead of us while we gathered our baggage. We all finally got into the lobby, and she was still trying to work things out with the front desk. Finally, they decided to process EU citizens first, apparently, we are easier to check in than those that aren’t.
Giovanni was first, then us. We got our bags and headed to the room. This place may have been a four-star communist era hotel, but I am not sue it would rate more than 2 stars in todays world. We hurried, as it was nearly 19:00, and we knew we weren’t hiking back up the hill to where all the restaurants were, to the hotel restaurant.
There was no maître de at the restaurant. There was one waiter who was literally running back and forth. We interrupted one of his trips and asked where to sit for dinner. He waived his hands around the room and took off. We sat at a table for two and fifteen minutes later he brought us menus – in English. Fifteen minutes later he took our order. At 19:30 we had our meal, just as all the others from the tour began to arrive. Mary had a nice chicken soup and I chose the Wienerschnitzel. The portions were reasonable large and tasted good. But there was still only one waiter who was in a big hurry.
Finally, we decided to head to the room, and I signaled him we wanted to pay. I walked towards him and the terminal he was using to figure the bill. He said if we were guests, yes room 612. He yelled over to the front desk through the bar to ask about us. I offered to pay in cash. He seemed pleased, although how one might determine that I don’t know. I did pay in cash 2,100 dinar, that is $20.
We returned to the room and the cement, not really but it did feel like it, bed. It’s only for one night.
07:45 again tomorrow morning. Off to Sofia, Bulgaria.
Buonanotte e ciao, Enrico e Maria
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