Saturday, June 6, 2015

Balkan Road Trip June 4-6 Serbia

In Sofia, I decided to skip a side trip to Skopje (Macedonia) as I would have had to return to Bulgaria to get back to Serbia, and head for Montenegro via Serbia.  I have to avoid Kosovo with the rental car as it is on the list of no-go countries.   

June 4, Sofia, Bulgaria to Nis, Serbia

Leaving Sofia was very easy.  However, the Garmin is out-of-date and there are many one-way streets and roundabouts not in the maps.  The roads were good and the scenery marvellous.

The border crossing was easy, except that the border guard kept letting her buddies go ahead of me.  What a b….!  There was a fight to shove in ahead of others.  What is going on? There are only about 5 cars/trucks and we have to fight to be first?  

No vignette is required for Serbia, the crossing was smooth I changed a few Euros at the border from a selection of exchange kiosks.  

I planned an easy drive the first day, and reserved a hotel in Nis.   What a pleasant surprise.   

Before heading into the centre, I visited the Roman imperial villa (Emperor Constantine's villa) of Mediana before I went into the city of Nis.  It was "closed" for renovations but there was a guy from the museum explaining things with help of very good "tables" (a sheaf of very large posters with high quality diagrams.  Unfortunately, the mosaics are not open and they are rebuilding walls in a dreadful way.  It is a huge and interesting site, so hopefully, they can make it great one day.   

I arrived in Nis centre, but couldn't find the hotel using either phone app or Garmin (hotel too new), but eventually using the phone as a telephone for once, I got there.  Hotel staff tried to come and meet me --- very nice.   

The Hotel Eter is extremely modern designer boutique style.  Staff are really accommodating and changed room from attic style (those high windows are too claustrophobic for me) to window style on request, parked my car, carried my luggage, provided a map, directions, etc.

I took a short walk and visited the museum a block away.  It has a small exhibit of what was found in Mediana (the coolest thing is a metal gate that closed in one section of the villa.  There are also photographs and replicas of the 2000-year-old barrel vaulted painted tombs destroyed by construction of the Benetton factory.   They reminded me of the Etruscan tombs in Tarquinia.  It's not enough that the ages, and wars have destroyed so much, now the global manufacturing economy has to plunk a factory right there --- no wonder people give up worrying about these things --- it's so futile and painful.

The town of Nis has a very lively cafe life.  There was a great bar and restaurant second down from hotel.  Great waiter -- he gave me back my tip!   I had a plate of cheese (like Ukrainian cottage cheese) with paprika (peppers) and herbs --- excellent.  And a meat dish which I have forgotten.  Good beer in the afternoon and very good wine with dinner.  Very cheap too.

There are beggars and the restaurants all just put their garbage in the beautiful park, which is then torn apart by dogs, then sorted in and removed at 4 am, first manually, then by garbage truck.   

June 5, 2015, Nis to Cacak, Serbia

Cacak was a half way stop to Sarajevo.  I didn't want a border crossing at the end of the day.   The town was not unpleasant but nothing special.   The Hotel Tema Nova was pretty good, a little smoky.   My dinner was terrible -- wine gone off and fried breaded meat.  There was football and tennis on so waiters were glued to the TV.  Left for BosniaHerzegovina next morning.

I stopped for gas (no OMV's along this route), and filled up.  I spied a cevak shop nearby and stopped for coffee and lunch.   It was very good and cheap.  




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