Tapp's Travels

Basically the answer to that is “Not a lot!”  We have been having dreadful trouble with lack of wifi and no mobile data – so things have (as usual, but for a different reason) got a long way behind.

We had been to Pécs and I think that’s where we had got to in part one …

On Wednesday we woke to a lovely day. Blue skies and 28 degrees forecast in Belgrade. … and it’s going to peak at just 6 degrees in Budapest today – so we just snuck out in time!

Some random facts:

●  Seven million people live in Serbia. 700k of them in Belgrade.

●  There are four capitals on this river. Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade.

●  Whether Kosovo is really part of Serbia or Albania is a matter of dispute.

●  Belgrade and, specifically Kalemegdan Park, are located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube Rivers

●  Since 2016 Montenegran is regarded as an official language – but only two words are different from Serbian!

●  5 Euros = 600 dinar.

●  Crossing themselves in Orthodox churches, supplicants use three fingers (held together) of the left hand while Catholics use five fingers of the right hand.

I hadn’t really thought about it, but a river is measured from it’s mouth. And this is a long river – certainly by European standards. Our trip on board the MV Robert Burns will take us 1600 kms to the Black Sea delta – and 1600 kms back.

Some 580 kms into the trip we arrive at Belgrade. This is a city located at the confluence of the Rivers Sava and Danube.

This photo was taken from Old Belgrade on the “hilly” Eastern side looking at New Belgrade on the plains opposite. The city is madly bustling and notorious for it’s terrible traffic. Today the main problem was that the taxi drivers were on strike and blockading several roads and bridges. Luckily our coach driver seemed to have inside information about road closures and, in fact, kept us moving on our city tour.

There appear to be three particular highlights in this city. The first of these is the Church of Saint Sava.

At 230 ft tall, this is the largest Serbian Orthodox church. Indeed, one of the largest churches in the world. It has a estomated volume of 170,000 cubic metres with a capacity of 7000 souls. That’s well over 20 cubic metres per person, although I guess each person’s space allocation may contain a bit of pillar or wall.

Construction commenced in 1935 and it’s still not finished today. However, it does have a rather magnificent crypt which has recently been decorated with murals (and whatever the ceiling equivalents are called).  Lots of gold leaf everywhere – but no relief. The Orthodox religion specifies no third dimension to any decoration. Just paintings.  Oh and no seating.  Customers have to stand during services which can last two or three hours!

Driving round the city, we saw lots of evidence of war damage.  The war ministry and other buildings with military significance had been very selectively taken out while adjacent historical buildings had been left untouched.  These ruined buildings are, after all this time, being sold and restored or demolished and replaced.

The second highlight is Kalemegdan Park.  The site of the old town fortifications.  The fort overlooks the point where the Sava and Danube rivers meet.  There are some very old defences…

… and some slightly newer armaments…

I hope they remembered to remove the firing pins (or whatever is used to launch these fellows) because there was nobody supervising the launchers!  We had got a bit overwhelmed by Lilly’s continuous monotone commentary.  So we broke away and walked home via the outer walls of the fort, the park, the pedestrian street and the steps to the port area.

… and I’ve forgotten what the third item of interest in Belgrade was!  It was so long ago!

That evening a local dance group came on board to give us a display of local Serbian and Gypsy dancing.

… and very friendly they were too!

I think that’s as good a place as any to end this episode.  Tomorrow we sail through the Iron Gorge – one of the highlights of the trip.