Aug. 31: Rolling down (and some up) along the Danube

[EK]:
We left Golubac and headed down the river, following the 2-lane road. We were passed by occasional rumbling trucks, old eastern bloc cars (Yugo, Lada Niva) and new euro cars (Opel, Renault, Citroen). Many were driven by tourists, especially Eastern European tourists. We went through tunnel after tunnel, each with a sign at the start indicating its length. For the longer tunnels (over 200 m), I would shift to a higher gear and pedal as hard as I could, then realize at the tunnel exit that I had hardly breathed the whole time.

We lived on drinkable yogurt after a few days of too much meat. Our poor systems were upset with us.

Roadside memorials abounded in Serbia. On telephone poles, apartment buildings, and wherever else you could post a flyer.

Along the way, we stopped at a museum called Lepenski Vir, an absolute gem. Accompanied by bus loads of Russian tourists and a few stray dogs, we walked along a path to the modern building on the edge of the hillside. It was an archaeological museum housing the relics of an unearthed Stone Age civilization that had lived lower on the slope below. When Yugoslavia proposed to dam the Danube in 1965, Dragslav Srejovic, a famous Yugoslavian archaeologist, went to document part of what was being destroyed. A Yugoslavian film crew apparently filmed the task in real time, and the footage was shown on a loop at the museum. The film crew was there for over a year, capturing not only the dig, but the day-to-day lives of the workers, mostly students from University of Belgrade. It was a window into one past and then into a far more distant one, for Dr. Srejovic’s team uncovered a Mesolithic civilization (8000 years bp). We got to see sculptures, necklaces, fish hooks, and sewing needles, all of which would have been lost under the rising waters behind the dam.

The looped film at the museum, an interesting a look into 1960s Yugoslavia as well as documenting a Mesolithic finding.

Leaving Lepenski Vir, we ran into a family of Serbians we’d seen the day before on the ferry. Two young brothers in their 20s who spoke English, and their parents, traveling from northeastern Serbia. One of the brothers, translating for his mom, said, “we forgot to ask you yesterday. Why Serbia?” We talked for a bit then parted, both Emily and I wondering aloud yet again at the friendliness of the Serbs. I guess that’s partly “why Serbia.”

We approached our home for the night, a small compound called Etno Complex, up a windy 1-mile-long ascent. The place was on the hillside, built by a man whose village was drowned by the dam waters. It was quiet and had friendly dogs and slightly unfriendly people. We got yelled at by the matriarch for putting our bikes in our room, but we enjoyed our time lounging about the place and eating traditional Serbian dishes at its open air restaurant.

Tito!

The food at the Etno Complex was the best we had in Serbia.

I don't know who this guy is, but Serbians seemed to have a well-developed sense of irony.