First nights in Belgrade
Hey guys, I want to start with the best news – my music rig is back in action! I met a guy at the hostel in Nis who wanted to catch a ride with me to Belgrade, so we stopped off at a music store first thing when we arrived in the city and they had me up and running in about 10 minutes. Apparently something had come loose on the pickup inside the guitar and it was so easy to fix that the guy refused to take any money for it. So that was a big relief!
Since the guitar situation took much less time than we anticipated, Jeff and I decided to hit a couple of the things we both wanted to do that were on the way to our hostel since we already had the car out and were nearby. We started with the House of Flowers, which is the location of the national museum of Yugoslavia and the final resting place of Marshall Josip Broz Tito, who was the leader of Yugoslavia for many years and is revered as a God like figure by almost everyone I’ve met in the former Yugoslavia. The museum was basically half a shrine to Tito, displaying his personal effects, and half a shrine to the old communist way of life. Here are some scenes from the museum and from Tito’s grave.
After the House of Flowers, we stopped by the huge Orthodox cathedral called St. Sava. Unfortunately, it is under renovation, so the only part we could see inside was the crypt. But it was an interesting stop.
After seeing St. Sava, Jeff and I were ready to get there hostel. We found it pretty easy and got checked in. Shortly after, we met some American guys that wanted to join us for some dinner and a stroll around town. We walked down the main pedestrian street (of course, I was looking for good places to do some busking on this street) and then walked up to the fortress and watched the sun go down on the city.
During the day today, I made my way back the fortress area which is all park of a huge park called Kalemegdan. My first stop was the museum of military history. Here are some scenes from the museum:
There was a special exhibit at the museum with a bunch of medieval torture devices and some of them were pretty brutal!
After the museums, I walked all around Kalemegdan and got some nice views of the city and of the ancient fortifications:
After all that walking around in the sun, I went back to the hostel and rested up for a couple hours. I then went down to Kneza Mihalia with the rig to do some busking. I was worried because when we walked down the street yesterday, I saw the cops make 3 separate musicians quit playing on the street. But I also noticed that they only told them to move along and didn’t give them a ticket, so I figured I’d take my chances today. Sure enough, I played for about 2 hours and had at least 10 cops walk by and not say a word to me. Maybe they liked the music better 😂. Anyhow, I made about 25 Euros worth of Serbian Dinar ( in a place where the average shop worker makes 350 a month) and met some nice people on the street, so I’ll call it a successful outing!
That’s about all the news I have for today. I’m resting up for some more touring during the day tomorrow, music in the evening, and partying on a Friday night in Belgrade – which has supposedly some of the best night life in the world.
Talk to you guys again soon!
Linda South
So glad to hear that you got your equipment up and running again and that it was an easy fix! Love all the photos,the museums are certainly very interesting. I love all the scenery and all the places you are seeing. I’d say your busking experience there was certainly a success! Take good care!
Bill schwab
It looks like luck is on your side with your travels. I enjoy reading your blogs.
Zeb
Thanks Bill!
Tom Needham
Keep up the good work Zeb!
Zacatecas Red
Life is short, gotta play the odds
Zeb
They say you’ll have that on a big job