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Published: June 18th 2009
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'Why would you want to go there?' Delivered in a flat, cold tone by a woman who had been scrupulously fair and reasonable in our discussions when we mentioned that we intended to travel through Serbia. She was Slovenian though and that may have been part of the reason.
Signs on the motorway from Zagreb only started to indicate that we were on our way to Belgrade after we were well on the way. Croatians just don't mention the place.
In Montenegro there is a much greater acceptance and friendliness towards Serbia and, of course, the two seem to have been allies lately.
In Bosnia-Hercegovina the situation is mixed. Clearly, the Republic of Srpska within Bosnia-Hercegovina is closely related to Serbia. Just as clearly, the remainder of the country is not keen at all on the Serbians.
We thought about it. We had no particular quarrel with Serbia and none with the people of Serbia so we decided to travel through Serbia anyway. Time is starting to get tight for Trish and Tony and there have been competing demands so we hadn't allocated any real time to the country. We figured though that we should at least
Good Graffiti
A lot of graffiti about. This was some of the better stuff take the opportunity to drive through.
Even our new Tomtom had a thing about Serbia. Maps that only took us to major towns and nothing within those. A nuisance.
The landscape of Serbia that we travelled through, coming in close to the motorway and then on to the motorway into Belgrade from Zagreb, is much the same as the bit of Croatia that we just left. Basically, rolling plains covered in crops - wheat, corn, potatoes with plots of capsicums, tomatoes and cucumbers. Houses didn't show the evidence of shelling and bullet holes that we had seen over the border but they were, nevetheless, less well kept. There has to be a lot less money in this country than in the neighbours or, perhaps, it isn't available for expenditure on housing.
Belgrade impresses as a pretty lively place. There were certainly plenty of people and cars about when we hit the place but it was a bugger to park. Do these people ever actually go to work and sit in offices? They seem to be on the streets, in the bars and cafes all of the time. We ended up just looking at a few of the
Canal
leading to the Danube. Or perhaps just a regulated river key places and heading out. Found a Maccas - yet again because they can be relied on to have toilets and normally have parking - and headed north-ish to Novi Sad on a motorway that was sometimes a motorway, and sometimes not.
This is where we had our first view of the Danube. Not blue of course but we didn't really expect that. Would have been nice. Stayed in the Jetset Hotel - not as bad as it sounds. The bloke in charge was very helpful and we had clean rooms that were small but OK. A little off putting that the latch on the door was not working until the lock was on its second turn. Drank more than was good for some of us trying to sample some of these new drinks that they make around here.
As with much of the country that we have been through, there was a lot of construction going on here but there is a lot less evidence of the major aid money that there is in the other Balkan countries.
Drove out the next day on the way to Hungary. The country on the trip north is much
Productive Country
With production like this they should never starve the same as that we had driven through the day before. Highly productive agricultural land in the main and all being farmed. Factories in the towns that look to be working. Certainly seemed to be pumping out their share of smoke. This looks like a country that has been prosperous in the past and will be again.
The few people that we spoke to were friendly and helpful, just as they have been throughout the Balkans. The language seems to be similar with the 'hellos', 'thank yous' and such all being recognised. The server in the Maccas in Belgrade with good English had a Darwin Facebook friend.
Wiki tells us that the Balkans have had more than 20 separate border changes during the 20th century and into the current one. Belgrade itslef has been destroyed and rebuilt many, many times. With such a history I guess it is inevitable that everyone will get a turn in the barrel as the pariah at some stage.
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pallmall
non-member comment
blah
just a few remarks from my side. Serbia is actually a country of a high mountains. you crossed via province of Vojvodina, that takes about 20% of Serbia and is almost totally flat, as you could see. Therefore, if you think you had seen Serbia in that way, that makes no sense. Also, there are no shelled houses and properties as Serbia hasn't been involved in a civil wars of Yugoslavia in 90ties. But there are bombed out evidences on governmental buildings, hospitals, kindergardens, schools, public buildings, bridges, residential areas, marketplaces, roads, etc, all made by NATO in 1999. Yet, almost 99% of these are now repaired by Serbia. However Serbia looked for you from the road (as you seems to have pretty much reserves, given all the spit-on-your=neighbor info from the rest of exYu) it is certainly more developed than that Bosnia, Montenegro and good part of Croatia. You just didn't go for it to see for yourself. Also, similar heys, hellos, good-byes, are actually the SAME ones, as the SAME language is spoken in Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro. Call that language as you like. It is simply the same language, just like your wife speaks with you. Belgrade is developing in a ultra speed mode, and it is recently regarded from the EU as the most prosperous city in south-eastern Europe area (you got info online about it). Novi Sad is actually Budapest-like place, but definitely smaller. The motorway you mention is right now under construction as panEuropean Corridor no.10 (out of 10 total across the Europe), financed by the EU funds.