Dean Christakos« Visit in Vienna | Main | Reflections on July 4th »
July 12, 2006
Down into the Balkans: Belgrade
At the moment I am in Belgrade, having caught an all-night train from Vienna into the city. I haven't uploaded my pictures, yet, but I am having a good time. You can tell that this city used to be quite nice before it adopted a concrete-jungle-style architecture, though the pedestrian shopping area downtown by the fortress still retains its old character.
It's a modern city, and I managed to get inexpensive accomodation at a local boarding school which opens up its rooms for travellers over the summer.
Unforunately, the permanent exhibits in the National Museum are closed for reconstruction for the next 2 years, but the Ethnographical Museum was open and had a great collection of traditional clothing and folk items. The city fortress holds the Military Museum which, in addition to tracing the military history of various Balkan groups and the history of the country's liberation from the Ottoman Empire and the World Wars, also has a prominent display showing the various items that the Serbian military captured from American soldiers and Albanian insurgents.
Another highlight-- the Tito Grave and memorial museum, which is on an large landscaped park on the outskirts of Belgrade. However, had Tito been that great of a leader, I think he would have invested some money in building a better public transit system for Belgrade to make it easier to get to his memorial site.
As I said, I am having a hard time finding someplace from which I can upload my photos, but I will likely find a spot somewhere over the next couple of days. My next stop is Nis in southern Serbia.
Posted by Dean at July 12, 2006 2:15 PM
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