July 8 - Thassos Island

I found a mermaid on the island of Thassos!

Anyway, we made it to Greece after an aborted cruise that nonetheless turned out fine for us.  Between June 24, our last post, and now, we visited several cities and villages by bus since the ship was unable to pass under a bridge.  Landing in Bucharest we stayed for three nights before taking the train to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.  After a hot nine hour train ride (we won't go into the details of the WC, other passengers, cleanliness, etc.) we arrived in Sofia at about 10:00 pm not knowing where our hotel was or how to get there.  Fortunately for us, we made a friend on the train.  Eva is a young woman who works for Sony and Microsoft as a contractor responsible for business development in Bulgaria and Serbia.  She told us what to expect regarding taxi cheaters and helped us negotiate a cab.  Got to the hotel uneventfully and then went out for a bite to eat.

Our hotel was right downtown so we were able to walk everywhere to take in the sights.  Since Sofia is the capital there was a lot to see.  Here is the government palace where every hour they have two guards that march around with rifles.

Between Budapest and Sofia we went to Kalocsa, Vukovar, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Sremski Karlovski, the Iron Gate on the Danube, and Bucharest.  While in Bucharest I rented a car and with another couple from the ship (Bob and Ethel Story from Seattle) and drove to Sinaia which is up in the mountains.  It was a beautiful village that is a ski resort in the winter.  We visited a monastery and the castle of King Carlos I before eating some of the best local food and beer.  We had a GPS to help us find our way, but on the way it quit and we had to navigate with maps and windage.  Not knowing exactly where we were when returning to the city (Bucharest), we stopped for a beer and asked for directions.  The waiter said to go to the end of the street, turn right and go 30 meters and we would be at the hotel!  What a pleasant surprise!!  Here is something from the castle in Sinaia. 

There was a stained glass skylight that was retractable and a hunting armory with weapons dating back several hundred years.  The opulence was over the top, but beautiful.  The original plan was to drive on from Sinaia to Bram and Brasov where we could have seen the "famous" castle of Dracula, but without the GPS we decided "seen one castle, seen them all".  We had a great day with our friends but were glad to get safely back to the hotel.

After all the excitement of driving over 250 km in a foreign country the next day was spent saying goodbye to new friends and moving to a new hotel for one night.  This one was booked on the Lonely Planet website and proved to be a good choice, inexpensive, breakfast and free wireless internet included.

In Kalocsa we saw traditional horsemen perform, drank their local distilled plum schnapps and enjoyed ourselves.  These horsemen are the Romanian equivalent of the cowboys of the western USA and were very accomplished.  Of course, it was a show for tourists, but the authenticity of the equipment and dress was impressive, as was their good humor.

So, from Kalocsa we went to Vukovar, which was bombed to smithereens by the UN "Peace-Keeping" forces during the war with Serbia.  The town is in the process of rebuilding itself and they are understandably obsessed with their plight and the rebuilding process.  We were given a tour of the new town hall and the town church, along with speeches by the "mayor" about the troubles they've had and the city pride.  Some of the pictures I took were of bombed out buildings and incomplete reconstruction projects.  It was heartbreaking to see what had been done to this town; the effort they are making to rebuild the town is immense and inspiring, but there is still a lot of negative propaganda concerning the Serbians.  The bullet-ridden wall above reminds one of how fortunate we are, but the flowers someone has planted in an abandoned building show the spirit of renewal.

Now we are off to Belgrade, the capital of Serbia.  The contrast between here and Vukovar iwas  striking, but of course Vukovar is a small village and Belgrade is a large city.  Exerpt from Wikipedia:  Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia.  It lies at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans.  With a 2007 estimated population of 1,630,000 Belgrade is the third largest city in Southeastern Europe, after Istanbul and Athens. Its name in Serbian translates to White City.  

Belgrade's wider city area was the birthplace of the largest prehistoric culture of Europe, the Vinča culture, as early as the 6th millennium BC.  In antiquity, the area of Belgrade was inhabited by the Thraco-Dacian tribe of Singi who would give the name to the city after a fortress was founded in the 3rd century BC by the Celts, who named it Singidun (dun, fortress). It was awarded city rights by the Romans before it was permanently settled by Serbs from the 7th century onwards. As a strategic location, the city was battled over in 115 wars and razed to the ground 44 times since the ancient period by countless armies of the East and West.  In medieval times, it was in the possession of Byzantine, Frankish, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Serbian rulers.  In 1521 Belgrade was conquered by the Ottomans and became the seat of the Pashaluk of Belgrade, as the principal city of Ottoman Europe and among the largest European cities. Frequently passing from Ottoman to Austrian rule which saw destruction of most of the city, the status of Serbian capital would be regained only in 1841, after the Serbian revolution.  Northern Belgrade, though, remained a Habsburg outpost until the breakup of Austria-Hungary in 1918.  The united city then became the capital of several incarnations of Yugoslavia, up to 2006, when Serbia became an independent state again.

We experienced Belgrade and Serbia as tourists, but the major impressions were of a country responding to new freedoms after the fall of Yugoslavia and Tito.  In all the Balkans we found that most people missed the stability that Tito provided.  After nearly 50 years of communist rule under him people now have more freedoms, but agree that life is not only different, but harder is many ways.