February 3-4, 2007
We decided to take a quick drive down south to visit Belgrade, Serbia (former capital of Yugoslavia and current capital of Serbia). We left early Saturday morning driving southeast from Budapest, crossed the border into Serbia 1 1/2 hours later, and then arriving in Belgrade another 1 1/2 hours. We were a little apprehensive at first of making the 
trip, but nothing was complicated getting there. There is highway all the way to the border in Hungary, so that was easy, the border crossing was a non-event, and Belgrade turns out to be a very beautiful city. Belgrade was ruled by the Ottomon Empire for hundreds of years, and like every other city ruled by the Turks, it seems, they destroyed most everything they touched (no offense intended, just fact). It was recaptured 3 
times by the Austrians in the 17th and 18th centuries, each time captured by the Turks, and each time razed 
by them! We drove around for a little while until finding the old town where the walking district is located. 
Adjacent to this is Kalemegdan, a large park and complex which includes the Belgrade Fortress, which overlooks the Sava river (that flows into the Danube) and was an element of defense from the Turks and other invaders (didn't work very well, in my opinion, considering how many times this region changed hands!). The fortress that we saw has remnants of hundreds of years worth of destruction and rebuilding, each conquerer building or rebuilding after their own manner and 
the current military direction of the time. The fortress, however, was no match for the 1999 bombings of the city during the Kosovo war, although after 7 years, we couldn't identify anything that had not been rebuilt. It certainly is interesting to see a medievel fortress juxtaposed with relatively modern military tanks and vehicles. On the fortress grounds, we also came across this large monument recognizing france for something (can't be for any assistance for defence, so I still need to identify what the monument is for). We also saw the main government building which, guarding the front of it, had interesting statues of soldiers 
carrying their horses. I have to research the 
significance of that as well.From Belgrade we drove west and crossed into Croatia before driving south into Bosnia & Herzegovina, where we visited this little town across the border called Brcko. To cross the Croatian/Bosnian border we had to drive across the Sava river (same river that the Fortress in Belgrade overlooks), which was a little bit spooky. Crossing it made me imagine how I would feel crossing the "bridge of no return" that runs between North and South Korea in the Joint Security Area of the DMZ (except it is a 2 lane
road, not made of wood, crosses a big river, and despite relatively recent events, Bosnia is NOT North Korea...so I guess it is not really like the bridge of no return). We got through the Bosnian border pretty quickly (we were not sure what to expect) and drove around Brcko for a few minutes. Although we were only in the city for 15 minutes, we did manage to get lost for 5 of those minutes, driving on some side streets and being literally chased by a pack of dogs (ok, 3 of them, but they wouldn't let us move more than a few KM/hour and we wanted to get out of there as fast as we could). We drove back to the border station, smiled at the same border guards that welcomed us a few minutes prior as they re-checked all of our information before allowing us to cross back in Croatia. At some point we would like to go down to Sarajevo, but that will have to be another trip. The roads are not good to get there and some people argue it is not the safest trip to make. But I argue as long as we stay out of Kosovo it can't be that dangerous these days.We ended the day driving an hour North of the Bosnian/Croatian border and spending the night in Osijek, Croatia.
Osijek, Croatia is a relatively small town in Southern Croatia, about an hour south of the Hungarian border. As every other place we visit in Eastern Europe, it was once ruled by the Ottoman empire, the Hungarians, and the Habsburg empire. For me the more interesting part of the history of this town is more recent, relating to the independecne of Croatia from the former Yugoslavia. Once Croatia declared independence in 1991, the Yugoslav army, supported by Serbian paramilitaries, began an invasion of the town, subjecting them to a nine month siege. As a front line city, it was exposed to periodic shelling throughout the war. Finally, four years later, in 1995, Croats claim victory and
bring an end to the Croat-Serb conflict. It has been slowly rebuilt over the last 10 years and it is hard not to notice the "newness" of this city. The good news is that the old part of the city (Tvrdja) seemed to remain unscathed (at least from the mdoern war)and was a wonderful example of the military complexes of the 18th century. Its main central square (Holy Trinity square) contains the military command building, th3e magistrate building (a museum now) and a monument to the plague, built in 1729. The interesting part of this is that the Bubonic plague killed an estimated 50% of the population of the city in 1738, so the monument didn't do much for them (personally, I have to believe that the dates that explain this are wrong, as it seems way too ironic).We stayed across the street from the Parish Church of St. Peter and Paul, a red
brick neo-gothic cathedral. It was built in the late 19th century and finally completed in 1942, so relatively recent.We walked from our hotel, past the church, down to the old city, strolling along Europska Avenue. It is along this avenue that incredibly rich lawyers and industrialists commissioned an ensemble of Art Nouvou houses just before World War II. Overall this city provided a different point of view from the many
cities we have seen in Europe, since many of the sights relate to just the last century.A pretty quick visit of 4 countries overall, but a different experience that what we have encountered before.
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