Sunday, 25 September, Belgrade, Serbia (Best Thereof)

Written 23 October 2022

We arrived in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia during breakfast. Belgrade is on a high point overlooking the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers, as well as a large wooded island at the confluence, where the Sava divides before flowing into the Danube. That position allows it to control traffic on both rivers, so the city has been of strategic importance to every empire builder in history. We arrived by the Danube, but our mooring was actually on the Sava.

We had three options for a morning excursion: "Panoramic Belgrade" (groups A, B, and C), "Historic Belgrade on Foot" (group D), and the one we chose, "Best of Belgrade" (group E). We therefore spent the morning following a guide carrying a Viking lollipop reading "31E," coding for both our ship and our tour option. The allocation of group letters reveals that Viking expected three busloads of people to sign up for the first option, but only groups manageable by a single guide for the second and third. Groups A through D were scheduled to return to the ship for lunch, whereas our tour was longer and included lunch. We were a smallish group, so we got a smaller, ca. 20-passenger bus for the ride to the center of town.

Things our guide told us on the way:

• Belgrade is one of the oldest cities in Europe, going back at least 7000 years and even to prehistory.
• The Celts came and conquered it in the 3rd century BC; they named it Singidun
• The Romans conquered it in the 1st century AD; 15 Roman emperors were born in Belgrade
• The slavs arrived in the 7th century AD
• In fact, Belgrade has been in the path of every conquering army in history—celts, slavs, huns, Turks, Ottomans, Hungarians. Belgrade has been in 115 wars. The guide said, "We built our house in the middle of the road, between two religions, two countries."
• It's not considered a beautiful city in the classical way—it's been destroyed 44 times and is nicknamed the phoenix, because it's always rising from the ashes. Most of the current buildings are from the 19th century.
• "Bel-" means white; "-grade" means city.
• It was the capital of Tito's Jugoslavia, then a series of replublics: Jugoslavia, confederation of Serbia and Montenegro (which from 2006 was just called Serbia), etc.
• It's currenetly the economic, cultural, and educational center of the whole region.
• The inhabitants are 30% pure slav and 13% pure celtic

The bus dropped us off at the entrance to Belgrade's best-known landmark, Kalemegdan Park. Kalemegdan means "fortress battlefield," and with reason—all those battles for the city, in those 115 wars, were fought here. The city pretty much had its own municipal battlefield—the mostly flat area at the top of the promontory overlooking the confluence. The guide said that over the centuries, 6 million people have died here.

The area is enclosed in a couple of layers of wall. According to the guide, before gunpowder, it was all about tall walls; after gunpowder, thick walls.

The first thing we came to, as we entered, was this ornate manhole cover, which features the Belgrade skyline at the top and a representation of tunnels underneath, a long word in Cyrillic, and the dates 1905 through 2005. Behind us, as we stood in the entrance gate, was Prince Michael Street, one of Belgrades best pedestrian shopping streets, which the guide pointed out in case we wanted to come back in the afternoon to explore it. We passed an equestrian statue of Prince Michael somewhere along the way, but I don't think I got a photo of it.

As we walked into the park, we passed through a small area where food and souvenir carts were lined up on both sides, but it was still early, and most were closed. Popcorn seemed to be a popular snack. In the distance, down a long straight vista, we could see the huge military museum, which we had no time to visit, and silhouetted against it, a monument of gratitude to France.

Here's the monument, shown from the side. The woman represents France, who launched herself to Serbia's rescue in World War I.

People were everywhere, out for Sunday morning strolls, and the park was full of dogs, all running free and apparently having a lovely time. Dogs are not leased in Belgrade because the authorities have determined that they are less agressive if allowed their freedom. In Roumania, cats were everywhere, and you seldom saw a dog; in Serbia, dogs are everywhere, and I haven't seen a cat.

In a part of the dry moat was this children's playground, featuring life-size dinosaurs intended for climbing and riding. They apparently roar when climbed on. In an area to the left of them are benches for accompanying adults and an assortment of smaller dinosaur species for toddlers.

The tree in the left foreground is an American tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), and behind it is a truly desperate horsechestnut. It's foliage was so badly burned by acid rain and the heat of summer that the recent rains had caused it to sprout fresh young leaves and to burst into bloom—in September!

Here, we're approaching the second gate. According to the guide, the stonework dates from the Ottomans, the brickwork from the Turks.

The stout doors, shown at the right, are copperclad wood and are the originals.

It's dry moat serves as an open-air military museum. The guns at the left here (looking to our left from the bridge over the moat) are from WWI, except for the modern rocket launcher in the foreground.

The short green piece shown at the right is Big Bertha, the first electronic gun.

The clock tower beyond the gates was built by the Austrians (who took Belgrade back from some other conqueror) in the 18th century. The guide also remarked "given the choice of being conquered by Austrians or being conquered by Turks, always go with the Austrians."

The view across the rivers and the island from the edge of the fortress is sweeping. The island is a bird sanctuary and a world birding destination. The guide assured us that we were standing on the last peak of the Balkans. In front of us, everything was flat.

Beyond the rivers, on the north side of the Danube, is "new Belgrade. Tito developed it, originally as a bedroom suburb, but now it has skyscrapers and a thriving business community. Our guide said that the architecture and everything else over there are completely different, because the Danube marks the northern boundary of the Ottoman conquests. The area across the way was never occupied by them. Belgrade held the Ottomans off for 300 years, but eventually, they got as far as Vienna.

She also said that in the 1990s (I think) the area across the way was notoriously occupied by gangsters, who did very well for themselves financially but were nevertheless famously stupid. She told the story of the shepherd who encountered a group of them in their big shiny car on a country road. They wouldn't let him pass unless he could guess their profession; if he couldn't, they would take one of his sheep. First, because of their fine clothes and fancy wheels, he guessed they were businessmen. No. Then he concluded they must be lawyers. No. Okay, they could take one of his sheep. They conferred, chose their animal, and waved him on his way. "Now I know who you are!" he said. "You're gangsters from across the river!" How could he tell? "From my entire flock of prize-winning sheep, you took the dog!"

Also overlooking the river from the park is this statue on a tall pedestle, here framed by two much more distant skyscrapers. It's title is "The Victor," and it commemorates the victory in WWI. It was originally intended to stand in the center of town, but as you can see in the telephoto view at the right, the figure is, ahem, unclothed.

Many felt that the sight would be too much for the ladies of the city if placed in such a prominent location, so it was placed here instead, facing north. Our guide told us that he is looking to Vienna and mooning Istanbul.

The suspension bridge with just one pillar shown (in telephoto) at the left here leads to a second island in the river that is where all the summer amusements are—swimming pools, ball fields, etc. The bride has become the new symbol of the city. All the cables were hand made, on the bridge itself.

The hexagonal structure in the right-hand photo is the grave of Ottoman grand vizier Damad Ali-Pasha Turbeh. He was a good ruler and allowed churches to be built in the city, so he is still honored here.

As we strolled from place to place, our guide gave us more information:

• A vast network of tunnels under the city dates originally from Roman times, but the Turks expanded it to its current size. Most of the tunnels have been long disused, and only about 40% have been explored in modern times. They are currently being restored for safety and may eventually be opened to the public.
• Serbians consider themselves to be like Italians: boistrous, loud, close families, calling your mother twice a day.
• We're very hospitable, she said, but (with a wince) we did sort of start the first world war.
• Apparently, Serbia was issued a series of increasingly onerous ultimatums by Austria-Hungary, and they refused the last one. They went to war with Austria-Hungary at odds of 10-1; Serbia lost a third of its population and most of its men.
• Yugoslavia, meaning land of south slavs, was actually formed before Tito, as a untion of bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.
• Croatia and Slovenia turned their backs and joined the Nazis, building a huge concentration camp for gypsies, Jews, and Serbs.
• Tito was a third faction. He fought the king because he wanted socialism to prevail.
• Churchill sent his son to choose which side he should back. He and the other allies chose Tito
• In the early morning of 6 April 1941, the Germans bombed Belgrade without warning
• Then, for a couple of months at some point, the allies bombed Belgrade, ostensibly trying to keep the Germans out, though the reasons are still controversial.
• Serbia was later reunited with the Croatians and Slovenians by force and really resented it because of their treatment at Croatian and Slovenian hands during the war
• The sparrow became the symbol of Belgrade after the battle of 1456 (defeating the Turks); a sparrow was found with three arrows through it.
• In response to my question, the guide replied that the birds I'd been taking for scruffy and dirty magpies are actually gray crows (similar if not identical to "hooded crows"), and they're not especially dirty—they're always that color. The are apparently very clever and have even learned how to open cans of tuna!
• One good relic of Ottoman times is Turkish baths
• Among the bad things was the exercise of "droit de seigeur" if a family could not pay its taxes—new brides had to spend their wedding nights with the local official. As a result, all marriages came to be done in secret. At that point, the Ottomans starting taking 3-year-old boys from families who couldn't pay and raising them as muslims and Ottoman soldiers.
• But Austro-Hungarian empress Maria Theresa made a law that all women had to go to school, even domestic servants.
• A propos of walking by a set of tennis courts and some basketball courts, the guide reminded us that Serbia is great in sports. They produce tennis stars, always have a great basketball team, and are the kings of water polo. Monica Seles really made tennis popular. Novak Djokovic brought it back after Monica Seles was stabbed and dropped out of competition for a while.
• In school, children are taught to read in Cyrillic, then learn Roman, then start English, then a couple of years later have to choose a second foreign language to study.

On our way to our next stop, the guide pointed out several important buildings, which I did my best to get photos of from the moving bus. The one at the left here, so close to the bus that all I could get was part of the quadruple doorway was described as the administrative center for the university. It used to be a wealthy trader's house, she said, now called the Mission Palace. Only when I transcribed my notes and sat down to write this blog did I realize—not "Mission" Palace, Mišin Palace. It's Captain Mišin's house! One of the two he gave to the people, which we had learned about at our stop on the way to Lepinski Vir the day before!

Another, which I didn't get a good shot of, is a famous hotel where Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein sayed.

At the right here is a rather distant view of part of the old royal palace, from the second dynasty. According to our guide, the third dynasty not only pushed out the third but literally pushed them from the balcony above the columns (though I understand from other sources that they killed them first). Now the only people who get to stand on that balcony and wave to the crowd are Olympic medalists. The country still has royalty, but they play no government role.

At the left here a rather blurry shot of the parliament building.

Our guide told us about the 2000 overthrow of Slobodan Milošević (one of the six guys Tito designated to share rule over Yugoslavia, and by general concensus the worst of the lot). At some point 6000 police were guarding the palace (the new one, I think), but a million people were gathered in front of it. One policeman put down his riot shield and walked away, and pretty quickly all the others followed suit.

She also mentioned a NATO intervesion in 1999, when Tomahawk helicopters attacked becuase of Yugoslavia's ethnic cleansing of Albanians. And that Kosovo is still a problem, because they want to be their own country, in the middle of Serbia.

I really cannot keep straight the history of this country or of those around it, and when I try to look at other sources to clarify my sometimes sketchy notes, I only get more confused. To get any kind of coherent idea, I'm pretty sure I'd have to set aside two or three months just to read books and articles from all sides of the many conflicts.

Also on the way to our next destination, the guide pointed out Belgrade's largest and scariest traffic rotary. Seven streets converge on it, she said, and there are no rules.

We also learned that AC window units have become common in the last 10 years because they have so much more summer heat than they used to—global warming again.

Our next stop was the new Saint Sava Church, which is truly magnificent.

Saint Sava (1169–1236) was the youngest son of Serbian Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja (founder of the Nemanjić dynasty) and became an Orthodox monk, the first Archbishop of the autocephalous Serbian Church (in 1219), the founder of Serbian law, and a diplomat. He founded schools and wrote the first textbooks for them, dedicating his life to education.

To say he's highly revered in Serbia is an understatement. A hundred years after his death, Serbians carried Saint Sava flags into war against the Ottomans. Later, when the Ottomans wanted to stamp out his cult, they went and dug up his bones where he was buried in Kosovo and burned them here on the site of the church. The Serbian Orthodox church set out to build a church big enough to cover every spot where his ashes touched, so it's big. The new church will accommodate 11,000 people! When the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was changed back to a mosque in 2020, the Saint Sava was offered as a kind of subsitute for it, since many features of the architecture were modeled on it.

The photo at the right is just of one small side chapel. All that colorful artwork is mosaic.

At the left is an attempt to capture the full extent of the central space. It's pretty dark, but the dark-colored band across the bottom of the photo, with the ragged top edge, is the crowd of people facing the altar screen. A service was in progress while we were there, and the music (an a capella male chorus; orthodox church music is always a capella) was beautiful. In addition to the main space and all the smaller side chapels, the complex includes a wedding chapel and a baptism chapel. While the building was under construction, the congregation used another church nearby.

At the right is the view up into the central dome. The dome alone weighs 4000 metric tons. It was built on the ground, outside the building, then hoisted, over a period of 40 days, into place. Building the whole edifice took 120 years, not because construction was slow (although it was, because they had to pause to raise money a few times) but because it kept getting interrupted, first by a couple of world wars, then by the communist era. Now it's finished, and in use, but the planned grand opening got cancelled by the COVID pandemic and is still hanging fire. The whole thing was built with contributions; because Serbia is a secular country, the government could not help pay for it.

One reason the church can hold so many people is that, aside from the bishop's chair and a few chairs for the olderly, no seating is provided in orthodox churches. Everyone stands (women on the left, men on the right) through the whole service. No particular day is set aside for attending religious servies. Two services are conducted every day, sometimes three, and worshipers are free to attend any of them. We were also free to walk in and look around during the service.

The mosaics that line nearly the entire interior are the largest expanse of mosaic in the world. The guide quoted the astronomical number of individual tesserae that make them up, and the number of shades of blue that are included, but I didn't catch the figuress. In addition, the trim, pillars, floors, and other sections are made up of many colors of marble, contributed by Iran, Africa, Italy, India, Brazil, and other countries around the world. The guide pointed out a few important features of the artwork, including an unusual protrayal of the trinity in one, as an old man.

We happened to be there on the day of St. Nicholas (summer)—apparently there's also a St. Nicholas (winter)—so attendance was high. Serbians get the day off on the day of the saint they are named for, and Nicholas is a very popular name. On your saint's day, you go to church in the morning, then hold open house for your friends all day. You light a special candle that then stays lit until the last guest leaves.

Remembering a major historical controversy within the Orthodox church that we learned about during our Viking cruise in Russia, I asked our guide whether she crossed herself with two fingers or with three. Three was the firm and immediate answer. She held her first two finger and her thumb together to demonstrate, pointing out that they represent the trinity—three in one.

Orthodox Christmas is celebrated on 7 January, because the church uses the Julian calendar, whereas Roman Catholics (and presumably most protestants) use the Gregorian. Rather than "Merry Christmas," the greeting on Christmas day is "Jesus Christ is born"; the reply is "Truly he is born."

Reminiscent of Louisana king cakes, Families prepare a large round bread. Everyone puts their hands on it, and everyone breaks off his piece simultaneously. A small prize is hidden inside, usually a silver or gold coin, that confers good luck for the year on whoever finds it.

Then Serbian New Years falls on 13 January.

Easter generally falls later than for catholics—this year only a week later, but sometimes more. Serbians dye eggs, boiled ones, around breafast time. Then you go round with a basket of eggs all day, and whenever you meet someone, you knock one of your eggs against one of his. If your egg cracks, you have to eat it, so you wind up eating about 30 boiled eggs in the course of the day.

One egg has to be plain unornamented red and is set aside. You build a little paper or cardboard house for it and keep it until the following easter.

As we were leaving, I got this somewhat nearer shot of the crowd in front of the altar screen. They are probably too small to see here, but the three priests and about 9 singers had just filed out from behind the screen (where they had been throughout the service) and were standing facing the crowd.

Outside the church stands this statue of Nikola Tesla, who was from Belgrade, the son of an Orthodox priest (which was okay, since Orthodox clergy are not celibate). The Patriarch of the Serbian church died two years ago, and his remains are the first to be buried in the crypt of the new church. Tesla's will be the second, when they have been transferred from his current resting place.

Nearby an older couple were sitting on a park bench, accompanied by two of the largest black-and-tan standard dachsunds I've ever seen. Handsome dogs.

On the walk back to the bus, our guide told us about Serbian weddings and the Serbian educational system. She started by saying that you don't so much attend a Serbian wedding as survive it. The bride and membrs of the female wedding party get up in the morning and do their hair and makeup. Then the bride is locked in a bedroom, and the best man has to go an negotiate with her family to buy her freedom. During the negotiations, there are dancing, trumpet players, and rakia (a fierce local brandy).

One the bride is free, everyone goes to the church and stands through the church wedding, typically about 45 minutes long. More rakia. But you can't eat yet; first, there's the civil wedding. An appropriate official meets the wedding party and guests at a restaurant and carries out that ceremony. Then the real party starts and goes on until 6 am or so.

In fact, she said, Belgrade's residents are known for their night life; they party till 6 am any day of the week, and then go to work. They know from long experience that they could wake up in the morning any day not just without a job or without a car but without a country, so they make hay while the sun shines.

On the way back to the bus, we asked about the Serbian educational system. First, the guide told us, paid maternity leave has done wonders for the country's birth rate, which was too low. Children start school at 6 or 7 and go through eight years of elementary school. There are multiple tracks through high school, ranging from vocational through college prep, but apparently students are not locked early on into particular tracks. Admssion to universities is by grades and entrance examination, and you have to take a difference entrance exam for every universityu you apply to—she says that can get expensive. On the other hand, all actual education—elementary school all the way through university and grad school— is free. Those "who want to pay and don't want to study" can go to private universities, but professionals go to free state universities, sometimes all the way through med school. And then, she says, they leave; brain drain is a serious problem. But people actually come to Belgrade from other countries for surgeries and dentistry.

Our next stop was Tito's mausoleum. At the left is our guide next to the "authorized" statue of Tito, the one he liked best, partway up the long hill we had to climb to reach his tomb.

At the right is the central room of the building housing his grave. That rectangular marble box at the far end is the tomb itself.

The building itself started out as Tito's winter garden, but he liked it to much he made it his office. He house was behind it, farther up the hill, but it was destroyed by bombing during the wars that followed his death, so we couldn't visit that.

At the left here is a closer view of his actual tomb, bearing his actual name and dates, as well as the nickname "Tito."

At the right is his office furniture. The little gray square on the desk is not an electrical outlet or an internet drop but a graphic indicating "do not touch."

Tito had three wives, Russian, Croatian, and Serbian, in that order. His funeral was among the largest ever; 120 countries sent delegations. Despite humble origins—he was a village blacksmith/locksmith—he had led world diplomacy for many years. Many disputes were settled through negotiations held in Belgrade.

He was a relatively lenient dictator, so long as you toed his line. The first McDonalds in central europe was in Belgrade (in a communist country! the guide emphasized). But you were not allowed to have a separate religion, couldn't secretly celebrade saint's days, couldn't speak agaisnt Tito. He imposed draconian punishments for either crime or dissent.

His last wife died in 2013, and everyone eagerly anticipated her memoirs, which were to be pubished posthumously, but someone broke in and stole them while she was in the hospital dying and they have never been found.

Many rooms in the building house diplomatic gifts he received over the years of his rule, like these from Japan (left) and India (right).

Larger works of sculpture were displayed outside.

After Tito's death, chaos reigned 20 million people of Yugoslavia fractured into factions, countries, political parties, and oppositing armies. Our guide said that, in the 1990s, inflation was 300% per day!. On paydays, people grabbed their money and ran to buy groceries they might not be able to afford by morning. The government printed 100 billion dinar notes.

She also told us the widely accepted stereotypes: Slovenians have no character; when they're sober, they're Austrians; when they're drunk, they're Serbs. Macedonians are cheap. Montenegrans are lazy. Bosnians are the stupid ones.

And finally, our last stop of the excursion—lunch in a wine cellar. At the left is the sign outside the door, welcoming us to the Panajotović winery.

And at the right is what greeted us inside, as our hostess, carrying a candle, guided us in single file to lunch—pitch darkness, lit only by candles. Here, a candle is glued by its drippings to each step of a stone staircase leading down.

Then it was a series of corridors, some with candles on the floor, along the bases of the walls, others with candles in little wall brackets at head height. They were all those plain white "utility" candles I used to buy for use during power failures (before LED lanterns got so good), and there were scores (hundreds!) of them. I asked our hostess whether they employed somebody full time just to deploy and light candles. Her reply was "That's would be me," and to emphasize the point, she raised the object in her left hand, which when she pulled a trigger, shot out a fat, blue, three-inch blow-torch flame!

She commented that the tunnels are very humid now but that in the winter they're very dry.

After our long candle-lit trek, we emerged into this room, or rather, this wide spot in the tunnel, lit rather more brightly by multiple candles. We were invited to take seats at the tables. Each table, set for four, had a large chafing dish in the center, with three compartments.

Once we were safely seated, and she didn't have to worry about distracting us and causes trips and falls on the uneven floors, our hostess repeated what we had already been told—that the Romans built tunnels under the city, that the Ottomans expanded the network, and that less than half of the system has been explored in modern times. We were in some of those tunnels now. We were told that, back when more of the tunnels were in use as wine caves, someone actually constructed an 18-mile pipeline to carry wine from one location to another!

As you can see from the photos that follow, when it is not fooled by flaring candles, my camera takes a darn good photo in the dark. Our hostess emphasized that they have no electricity or gas lines in the tunnels—candles are always the only light.

The photo at the right is a plate of cold savory cheese pastries (always referred to as "pies" in Serbia) for David and me to share; the hostess specified that they would go best with the red wines.

At the left here is half an apple, face down on a saucer, studded with toothpicks each of which holds a square of the Serbian version of Turkish delight and half a orange segment—that was for dessert later.

Our first course was this glass filled with cold diced roasted vegetables, chicken, and fresh pineapple. It was served with a white wine. I didn't take careful note of the wines we were served, because the hostess said right up front that the winery makes no more than 60,000 bottles a year. They sell directly only—not in shops or supermarkets, even locally, because they don't have the quantity—so there's no way we would ever find their wines in the U.S.

Wine makers have had their ups and downs here. The Ottomans burned all the vineyards to the ground when they took over. They were replanted later, under the Hapsburgs, but after the second world war, the communists seized everything, displaced the the wine makers, and raised production into the millions of bottles, none of them any good. After restitution, the original wine makers came back. Production is small again and quality high; the owner supplements his income working as a consulting oenologist for other winemakers.

At the left here are the contents of the chafing dishes, heated from below with Sterno.

At the right, a view of the "rafters" over our heads, lined with old wine bottles

Our next course came from the left-hand compartment of the chafing dish. It's chicken rolled around feta cheese, wrapped in bacon, and baked. Accompanied by roasted potato wedges.

The wine served with it was pale pink. It's 100% cabernet sauvignon, but it's left on the skins for only three hours, so it picks up very little color. This winery doesn't put rosés or whites in barrels because pheynyl from the wood would replace the natural flavors.

The next course was croquettes, from the plate of cold pastries, containing three kinds of cheese and sausage. With those, we were served a merlot. The hostess recommended a movie called Bottle Shock. She disrecommends Sideways because it almost killed merlot. Fairly recently, through genetic techniques someone has demonstrated that hybridization of Magdeleine Noire des Charentes (a decorative variety discovered in Brittainy) and cabernet franc yielded merlot.

The fourth wine was a red cabernet sauvignon, tasting, I'm told of sour cherries. It had spent two years in stainless steel, never in contact with wood. With it we were served little beef-and-pork sausages (cevapi or cevapcici, I think), very characteristic of Serbian cuisine. The chafing dish (the one on in the middle) was lined with bread, the grilled sausages were layered on top, and the whole thing doused with "kajmak," a special cooked and aged cream (similar to clotted cream) and baked. Yummy, though I was a little sad that, along with the traditional sausage and traditional cream, the used bread that looked like something I'd find in a plastic bag at Publix.

Next was a 50-50 blend of cabernet and merlot from 2012, aged separately in barriques (small wooden barrels made of Franconian, not French, oak) then blended in the bottle. With it, we ate the contents of the right-hand chaffing dish—boneless chicken thighs topped with gorgonzola sauce.

Finally, with the Turkish delight and orange segments, which we were instructed to each together, in one bite, we were served a late-harvest blend of sauvignon blanc and traminer tasting (I'll take their word for it) of elderberry flowers, roses, and dried fruit.

On the short ride back to the ship (after taking a somewhat shorter but still entire candle-lit route back to the outer door), we learned a few more stray facts: Serbia did not have plums until the Ottomans brought them from Turkey. The average income in Belgrade is 650 euros (per year? per month?). And the long yellow building we passed on the way is the old train station, now becoming a museum. It was a stop on the Orient Express, and Agatha Christie was there (back in the day, not as we drove past).

Here, at the left, is David, posing with the prow of our ship. At the right is a vessel that floated past during the afternoon. It's a rental boat for local tours and parties, but the tires strung along its sides as fenders make it look like a water-going double-decker bus! (It may actually be the same one visible on the river in the long view of new Belgrade, above!)

We got back too late to catch either of the afternoon's excursions—a visit to an art colony and a bicycle tour of the city. Viking offered shuttle-bus service back to the downtown, in case we wanted to go shopping or out to supper, but we were happy enough just to stay aboard for the afternoon, napping, watching the passing boats, and sitting in the lounge working on this diary.

I did get the desserts, though. I had walnut caramel cake with malt ice cream, shown at the right.

David chose the Serbian chocolate coconut cake.

And the day still wasn't over. In the evening, a guest lecturer came aboard to give an enrichment talk at 9 pm. His talk was billed as "Serbia Today," but his opening slide (shown at the right) said, "Serbia Explained." I didn't attend, but I put it on the lounge cam and heard it from my cabin. The screen showed his slides, and his voice came over the speakers. He was very good—he talked a mile a minute, starting with prehistory and working his way to the present, ending on the stroke of 10 pm, as promised. I wish I could get a recording of that talk, because I'd need to study the slides and listen to the whole thing several times to digest the huge amount of information he covered.