It's after midnight and I just got home after ending the trip to Belgrade in style at a pretty good underground (literally) jazz club with a great live funk band. I left my two colleagues at the bar and headed home to get some sleep before a 7 hour train ride to Zagreb, Croatia tomorrow.
Today was a day off, which I decided to make the most of. I spent the morning wandering around the Kalemegdan Citadel, a fort at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers that was originally built by the Celts over 2000 years ago (before the arrival of the Romans), but has been rebuilt an estimated 40 times since then. Most of what is there today was built in the 18th century by the Austro-Hungarians, and that brief history gives an idea of how complicated the lineage of this region really is. The citadel today is a community park that was filled with old and young out strolling, jogging and just hanging out.
In the afternoon I walked through the throbbing metropolis of Belgrade to the Sveti Marko church, a historical landmark. On the walk back to the hotel I walked passed the Parliament building and noticed the TV camera crews getting ready out front reporting on the lead-up to the elections tomorrow. This is the same Parliament building where anti-Milosevic rallies were broadcast around the globe in 2000. Who knows what the situation will be here one week from now. With so many politicians riling their supporters with claims that they will never give up Kosovo anything could happen (especially give that anyone who knows anything expects that the UN will mandate independence for Kosovo this year!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment