Four days with Lisa’s Aunt, Uncle and Grandfather. Very Special! Time has a completely different pace in Karlovac (50km from Belgrade). Karlovac is the town where Lisa’s mum grew up. It has a population of 5000 and it’s the sort of place where people grow their own food and water is drawn from the ground via crank pump. 

You won’t be surprised to know that Lisa and I don’t speak Serbian but this was hardly a limit to our communication. We relied on Serbian/English dictionaries, Google Translate and lots of hand gestures.

Aunty Milena toured us around the town and fed us Serbian feasts featuring produce from her extensive vegge patch. Dada (Grandpa) kept us hydrated with water from his own bore. At eighty two years, he would also ride his bike into town to buy fresh bread, milk and sour cream. Uncle Jovan shared his love of Belgrade. We saw the city, old and new and still bearing the scars of war.

Very Special!

Ever since I was little, I have wanted to go to the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia. I saw some slides of my family there in the Eighties, and didn’t believe they were true. I’m just going to shut up and show you pictures of the lakes and also Dubrovnic. Something you should also know is that they have the coolest coins here. 

It all started at the border. You’re there waiting your turn. A little bit worried because you know that once you cross the border, your GPS won’t work. Why did we decide to stay here again? We roll closer. Car to the left is all banged up, pot holes the size of a melon ahead and a rusty wagon to the right. 

It’s not that bad I guess, but it’s getting dark. Please God let there be some road signs in English. We’re stopped. I hand over the usual documents. No stamp again! Great. No proof of any exciting travel destinations thanks to non-smiling booth man. He asks for an insurance document. I don’t have it. It’s not like I cart my filing cabinet around with me (ok, I do have some small travel version of the cabinet for emergencies such as these). He wants the document. I explain that I have insurance. He’s not having it, he only wants this special Green Card (I threw it out months ago when it came with the insurance packet. I thought it was a useless bit of paper).

Fifteen Euros poorer, we head off. We did finally make it to our accommodation. We try to cross the border the next day and there was a line two kilometres long. We decide to randomly drive, hoping to find a different crossing. We saw this:

Pretty huh? We eventually did find the crossing and were waved on like it didn’t matter, though not before being stopped by the police and being robbed of more euros (fines for doing nothing wrong), a steady form of income for the corrupt so-called protectors of the people.

As legend has it, John Nepomucky was a priest who served during the reign of King Václav IV in the last half of the fourteenth century. He heard the confessions of many of the townspeople, including Václav’s wife, Queen Sofia.

Václav was a peace-loving king, but also a very jealous man, and he suspected Sofia of straying from her marriage vows. Upon returning from a trip abroad, the king cornered Jan Nepomucky and asked what the queen had revealed during confession. The priest refused to tell, saying it was confidential. The angry Václav had Jan hauled into a dungeon and tortured. Finally the priest died from his wounds, and at night was thrown from the Charles Bridge into the river.

Soon after Jan’s murder, there was a great drought and the Vltava nearly dried up. About 500 meters downstream from the place the priest was tortured, five sparkling points of light appeared over the water. People began digging there, and unearthed the body of the priest. Read on, this will all make sense.

Town Square

Making wishes on the Charles Bridge. You place your fingers on each of the five stars. I have it on good authority from a Polish woman that your wishes will come true, but everyone apparently has a limit.

We stayed in a castle in the middle of a vineyard and ate dinner in a wine cellar three levels underground. Very romantic.

We ate cake. That was really the main reason for visiting. Opera House closed for performances during this month, so we took advantage of their sweets and goodies instead.