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Published: September 13th 2007
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Saint Marko's Church
One of several, the most classically Orthodox, all of the ceiling frescoes were covered in black though. We debated to the very end whether or not it was a good idea to throw in one more day in Belgrade, but at least it gave us a day of rest and it allowed us to get some laundry done, clean up Milos' place, buy a sketch of Belgrade, and explore what would not normally be explored since Belgrade is a solid two-day type of place.
Final Tourist Spots
These were all starting to look the same at this point, but since we had a whole day ahead of us, we felt it would be much more satisfactory if we visited at least a couple more tourist hotspots. St. Mark's is quite large but ultimately it looks like most of the other Orthodox churches we have seen and the Serbian Assembly fell into that same descriptor although a bit more rigid in it's lines than especially the French influence we had seen in Bucharest.
Kafana Ruski Car
Which means "Russian Tsar Cafe" and is a local institution, for like, a very long time, okay? So of course, they have all these pictures of people that look like Tsars and Tsarinas, but the most beautiful and prominent picture is
Serbian Parliament
Haven't i seen this somewhere before? of course Russia's current Tsar, Vladimir Putin. We walked in like we owned the place and went upstairs so we had a good view of what's going on. It was basically us and a bunch of Russian mafia looking types while all the tourists were down in the cafeteria area getting treated like crap. I really think that because we were sat up there we got better service. If in Belgrade, go to the top floor, but just drink the coffee . . . the entrees were pretty good but the desserts were a severe disappointment as one would expect German/Austrian/Russian desserts to be.
Last Ditch on Knez Mihailova
We had to bring back a souvenir from here that we could hang somewhere since we had not done so well in the three previous countries. We had found an art store on the previous days but a small oil painting (real) of Belgrade cost something like $500 which we had asked Milos about but he could not comment on since he does not usually shop for such things. It was just our luck though that on a corner a little bit further down three guys were huddled together smoking
Russian Coffeehouse
A Belgrade institution located on Knez Milhailova Street. We had Montenegran and Serbian beer, decent entrees, and a couple of awful desserts here. cigarettes and hawking graphite sketches from around Belgrade. This priceless art was just laying straight on the cobbles of the street and the graphite had smudged a little from having been packed up so many times by the artist's dealer (he claimed he was not the artist himself). So we paid something like 20 bucks and felt like we came out ahead against the art store. Plus our dealer, realizing we would be travelling far, promptly rolled up our masterpiece and secured it with a high-grade elastic, commonly known as a rubber band. What service.
Saying Goodbye
For dinner, we had more pizza with Milos and Marko joined us before leaving. Not much of an affair, just a small local place, and a bit down since Milos was stressing about his new job incessantly.
The best part of the day was getting on the train, something which I have been referring to in emails to some of you. Sadly, since we are using the Executive Lounge computer, we still cannot upload photos which are key to communicating this story, so we will develop a work around for you here.
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Tama
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Come home already!
Tired of international cuisine? come on home already! Columbus misses you both terribly - and Jen Children's just isn't the same without you! Hope your journeys are safe - reading your blog has been entertaining - can't wait to hear about the trip in person. See you soon!