Friday, September 15, 2017
Today was another long travel day, but that is the only way to see lots of different places. We left at 8 am and drove into the mountains. Our route today took us over the Dinaric Mountain range, which is considered the backbone of the Balkan Peninsula. We were treated to idyllic farm scenes and wooded landscapes. As we climbed in elevation, we saw forests with at least a half dozen different kinds of pines, and at lower levels, most of the varieties from home like sycamore and maple. This was once the bread basket of Yugoslavia, which was self sufficient with food. However, like everyone else, the countries import food now. Draught and severe weather patterns have taken their toll on farming.
I love these little haystacks that we saw all along the highway.
We stopped for 2 morning breaks on the way. The second was much longer and we watched a man roasting a lamb. 
We passed through Zvornik in the Republic of Srpska where we saw this beautiful Eastern Orthodox church. (Note: I am not omitting vowels. These are spelled correctly.)
Shortly before lunch we crossed over into Serbia. Here is a sign I never thought I'd see.
Our lunch stop did not occur until 2 pm, but it was at a beautiful Turkish style restaurant called Charduk in Majur near the town of Sabac, where we had soup, homemade bread and plum filled pastry for dessert.
After lunch we began our descent from the Dinaric Mountains. The scenery continued to be beautiful.
Then on to Belgrade. We arrived at 5, checked in and, once again, I have a great room. Then we attended a 2-hour lecture on Serbia by Ljubomir Panić. He noted that there are currently 7 million people in a country the size of Nebraska. It has a 7,000 year history of being inhabited, but the focus of the lecture was more on present day.
Serbia was "Christianized" in the 800's and was a medieval dynasty in the 12-14th centuries. Then it was conquered by the Turks in 1389 and was part of the Ottoman Empire for 500 years. However, many people maintained their Eastern Orthodox Christian religion in spite of being ruled by Muslims. A Serb uprising in 1804 led to its independence from the Turks in 1878. However, Serbia was annexed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1908. A Serb nationalist assassinated the heir to the A-H throne and that started WW I. Our speaker showed us a telegram that the king of A-H sent to Serbia declaring War. What a way to do it. Serbia became part of the Allies in that war, but lost 1/3 of its population.
Following WW I, Serbia, with 5 other states became part of a federation of Central European states known as Yugoslavia. Then in WW II, it was on the side of the Allies again and expelled the Germans. Following the war, Josef Tito became dictator and led the socialist federation until his death in 1980. Things were iffy after his death, and by 1991, some of the states decided to declare their independence. This is where our speaker's points became sketchy. He gave us a timeline of the 1990's, but referred to the Balkan War as a civil war in Croatia and Bosnia and did not reference Serbia's role. Then he talked about the 78-day bombing of Belgrade by NATO in 1999, but didn't point out the reason. It was because Serbia was bombing Kosovo. When we asked him about this, he said that Kosovo is a "province" of Serbia and it is where Orthodox churches are located that go back 500 years and thus a part of Serbia. However, Serbians moved out when the Ottomans took it over and Albanians moved in, now occupying 90% of Kosovo. But Serbia still thinks it should be part of its territory because of the history. (Albanians, by the way, are Muslims and we know how Serbians feel about them.)
Much more to discuss but I'm sure we will get more tomorrow on our tour of Belgrade. We had a late dinner and then off to bed.
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