Greg and Mandy's Travels

From the useless list of ‘did you knows’ – Did you know that every girls name in Serbia ends with an ‘A’? What do you mean you’ve never thought about it. Ivana and Dragana were our two guides today. Then there’s Ana Ivanovic, Jelena Dokic, and Weird Al Jankovic (well, Weird Al maybe a guy I guess, it’s hard to tell).

Now our guide tells us that this is important in Slavic languages such as Serbian, as there are six different declensions that you have to apply to females, and you have to have a name that ends with ‘a’ to make it possible. Declensions. You remember them. If only because you think it makes English hard to learn. But just try Serbian! Well, declensions in English are few, but you use them often. They are different forms for words that effectively mean the same thing. A common one is ‘I’ or ‘we’. They are two different words we use for the same concept, depending on whether its singular or plural. 

Or take a more complex one:

So that’s declensions. If your name end with ‘a’, you have to declenate 6 different ways, otherwise you don’t. Scared witless, Amanda decided to stick with Mandy for the tour.

As revenge, she told me I had to write about renovations today.

It seems the whole of Serbia is wrapped up, and being renovated. The building next to our apartment is wrapped for renovation, as is the National Theatre, and the main train station is wrapped to facilitate rotting, as the new one opened last month. The National Museum was unwrapped last month, and the main Revolution Square next door was closed and wrapped up last night. Caused chaos for tours and guides as they usually meet in the middle of the square, and nobody could find anybody. We were the only two for our morning walking tour because of the chaos, and Dragana had just finished telling us that she couldn’t arrange a free tour for two (which is code for ‘it’s not worth my while’), when two more lost souls arrived. ‘Oh well’, she said without much enthusiasm. A few minutes later another couple caught up to us, and her mood brightened.

Its not only the buildings that are renovated. On our tour we visited a district known as Silicon Valley. In the 90s, at the start of capitalism, the newly rich mobsters used to hang out and flaunt their new wealth there, accompanied by their blond handbags who had also been personally renovated with silicon implants, and hence the name.

We wandered around the city, enjoying the sights and stories, ending up at the fort on the hill overlooking the Danube (thought I’d forgotten about the Danube, hadn’t you, but it’s followed us). The fort was built originally by the Romans, then renovated by every conquering power up until the Communist era. It was the usual story – whoever controlled the fort, controlled the river. Whoever controlled the river, controlled the city.

After some lunch and some organising, we joined the afternoon Underground Tour with the yellow umbrellas instead of red ones. Ivana took us to see three underground sites from three different eras. The first was the ‘Roman Well’ though we were assured that it was neither roman nor a well. Certainly a huge water storage for the fort, some 60m deep (that’s a long way down), but it’s uncertain who actually built it. Most likely it was started by the Romans, and expanded by successive conquerors.

The second underground stop was a recently discovered military bunker built by Tito to defend the city from the Soviets if push came to shove. It never did, but raised an interesting point. I always thought that Yugoslavia with Tito were part of the the Soviet communist bloc, but no, they were communist but staunchly independent of Moscow, which made for some interesting times during the cold war.

The third stop was the underground storage for gunpowder and ammunition built by the Turks after they gained the city by accidentally blowing up the fort held by the Austrians, when a round found the Austrian’s badly stored gunpowder. It is where the National Museum stores it’s collection of Roman antiquities like headstones and coffins. During the 90s it was used for rave parties, with the headstones and coffins still there. Maybe that’s where Boris and the Crypt-Kickers got their name from.

Last stop was an underground cave, now turned into a bar for a bit of a relax.

Tea was in a nice restaurant in the centre of town. All the shops are open till 9:00, and the place really comes alive when the sun goes down. Lot’s of buskers, street artists and outdoor cafes.

Dragana

Bohemia

Bohemia

The Fort

The Fort

The Danube From The Fort

Victor

Our Apartment

Ivana and the National Museum

Underground Cave

Roman Well (60m deep)