It feels as if we are circling as we near our goal, closer and closer as we approach and retreat, move forward, and back pedal. We passed seven kilometers from Backi Brestowac today, but drove on, holding off the final step until tomorrow, tomorrow. This is our purpose, and we are so near. Only one more day.
Meanwhile, we are sitting and watching the final world cup game between Argentina and Germany, while my father thousands of miles away is watching the same game. We called him while we were waiting for our fish paprika; it was cooking on the fire nearby for 45 minutes as the restaurant emptied, with all the patrons leaving to watch the game. We could only order it for three persons or more, and had a choice of heads or no heads in the goulasch. My great grandfather Anton would go out in the morning to shoot game, and ask my great grandfather Eva to cook it for his breakfast goulasch. Goulasch was the preferred dish, and my father would always praise his mother's goulasch. Fish goulasch is a specialty of Apatin, not too far from Backi Brestowac, on the river where the original settlers landed when they first traveled to their new homes in the Batschka. Loni was very enthusiastic about the fish goulasch, and advised us strongly to try it at this restaurant. Karen discovered that there was a hotel at the same place, so we are staying right on the Danube, with an incredible view of the sunset to the west as the river bends from the west to the south. Loni went to boarding school here, as did my grandmother Anna. Our hotel looks out exactly where the boats landed in the 1700's. This is all incredibly meaningful to us, and prepares us for our visit to my father's home town tomorrow.
But we circled today, avoided our goal, enjoyed Novi Sad and the monasteries of Fuska Gora. We were slow to move this morning, after the excitement of the Exit Festival. We had missed the monasteries yesterday; we find ourselves behind on our schedule each day, because we get distracted, diverted, engrossed, and consequently making decisions constantly about where to direct our attention.
We were worried about the weather, because the prediction was for rain. We were so lucky it did not rain last evening at the festival, and this morning, it was sunny and warm. The streets of Novi Sad were quiet; the festival goers had been up all night and were still sleeping, the church was full of worshippers, and the cafes were just starting to open as we wandered into town. Our hotel had been advertised as being close to the centre, and even when we asked about the distance when we arrived, we were told it was a short 20 minute walk, but in fact it was much further. We took a taxi there and back yesterday. We learned from our taxi driver that the festival was far smaller than it had been at its peak, when 200,000 attended in the first few years, where it was more of a political movement against the strife in Yugoslavia. More foreigners would come as well, but today, the numbers were a fifth of what they used to be.
Our day began with strong Turkish coffee. The Serbs do not have a coffee tradition, but learned to make coffee from the Turks, and it is powerful and bitter, and is a different product than Italian or American coffee. So little of the Turkish rule survives anywhere, it appears that an effort was made to erase their presence after they were repulsed by Prince Eugen and the Austrians. But coffee and wonderful desserts survive.
Novi Sad is the capital of Vojvodina, and is the second largest city in Serbia. It is full of horrid looking Soviet era apartment buildings, but the centre is well preserved and the trick is to ignore the ugliness surrounding the centre. The city has always been a centre of learning and culture, and characteristically looks more westward for inspiration. Much of the centre looks Hapsburg in style, with some art nouveau and 'eclectic' buildings. The central square is pleasant and open, and most of the streets off the main piazza are pedestrian only. The neo Gothic Catholic cathedral on the main square was full of worshippers on Sunday morning. My father had mentioned the beauty of the church choir, and they were singing as we entered. We looked for the synagogue , but apparently it is no longer in use as a place of worship, since most of the Jewish population had migrated to Israel after the Second World War.
We spent some time in the Vojvodina museum, which was well put together and displayed a very comprehensive history of the area, from neolithic times to the Second World War. Most impressive was an entirely golden Roman helmet found nearby, as well as an amazingly rounded female cult figure of neolithic origin. The area has been occupied since 6000 BC, and people from the east and the west have been moving through the Vojvodina and settling and conquering and leaving and disappearing for thousands of years. The Scordisci, the Dacians, the Romans, the Huns, the Ostrogoths, the Langobards, the Avars, the Franks, the Moravians, the Serbs, the Ottomans, the Hapsburgs, all left their mark on the area, and the list is much longer than that. My father knows so much about the history, and I have heard so much of it from him through the years, but only recently does the story come together. It helps me understand his love and passion for history, and gives perspective to his origins. His family came from Silesia and Lorraine in the 1700's at the invitation of the Hapsburgs after the Turks fled, and stayed for 150 years or so, and then were forced out and replaced. It is amusing though, to read the tourist information about the area, touting the multiethnic character of the place and stressing the tolerance and acceptance of all ethnic groups, never mentioning the expulsion of the Donauswabian population. Peoples have come and gone through the region, and each will leave their stamp on the place and move on, as has happened to the many tribes that have come before them.
Last night we had wandered all over the Petrovaradin Fortress, which is MASSIVE. We could not enter it today, since it was the site of the festival, and was quiet for now in preparation for tonight's festivities. It is mostly an 18th century structure, built as a barrier to Turkish attack, but by the time it was built, the Turks were no longer a threat, and essentially the fortress was redundant. The town around the fortress is delightful, and merits another visit.
Fruska Gora is a hilly region to the south of Novi Sad. Grapes are grown in the mountainous terrain, and there are dozens of wineries to visit. We focused on the monasteries, which were built between the sixteenth and eighteenth century, when the Turks invaded from the south and the Serbian Orthodox communities sought out safer places to worship, keep their relics and maintain their independence and freedom from the invaders. There are much older monasteries in the centre and south of Serbia, but we were happy to see three of them in the region; Novo Hopovo, Krusedol and Ravanica. The churches are full of frescoes and icons, and there were plenty of worshippers today. There is a particular relationship between the spiritual and the physical in the Orthodox religion; people pray visibly, kiss icons, make the sign of the cross multiple times, are fervent in their communication with their saint or their God. Each monastery had a fountain nearby with water that was special or blessed. I was moved in each place we visited, and the physical surroundings were a perfect setting for each place. They were in the valleys, between the heavily wooded hills, often richly coloured on the outside, and covered with colour on the inside. Our guidebook warned us of 'monastery fatigue', but I could have seen more of them.
The skies opened up on our way to Bac, the oldest town in the Vojvodina. We tried to take the shortest route from the Fruska Gora to Bac,, but it happened to cross into Croatia, and we were worried about begin held up in border crossings, so we turned back to Novi Sad to cross the Danube to the northern side. When we arrived in Bac, it made no sense to get wet, so we drove by the poorly preserved Franciscan church and monastery, the much better preserved Orthodox one, and stopped at the Turkish fortress ruin for a few photos, and drove on through the plains to Apatin. We consciously chose not to turn right to Backi Brestovac, which is on our agenda for tomorrow, and arrived on the Danube just as the sun was setting, turning the sky red and gold.
Watching the skies and the river and reflecting on our journey thus far and reaching the beginning and the end tomorrow kept us preoccupied for the evening. We have seen so much these last fifteen days.
Meanwhile, we are sitting and watching the final world cup game between Argentina and Germany, while my father thousands of miles away is watching the same game. We called him while we were waiting for our fish paprika; it was cooking on the fire nearby for 45 minutes as the restaurant emptied, with all the patrons leaving to watch the game. We could only order it for three persons or more, and had a choice of heads or no heads in the goulasch. My great grandfather Anton would go out in the morning to shoot game, and ask my great grandfather Eva to cook it for his breakfast goulasch. Goulasch was the preferred dish, and my father would always praise his mother's goulasch. Fish goulasch is a specialty of Apatin, not too far from Backi Brestowac, on the river where the original settlers landed when they first traveled to their new homes in the Batschka. Loni was very enthusiastic about the fish goulasch, and advised us strongly to try it at this restaurant. Karen discovered that there was a hotel at the same place, so we are staying right on the Danube, with an incredible view of the sunset to the west as the river bends from the west to the south. Loni went to boarding school here, as did my grandmother Anna. Our hotel looks out exactly where the boats landed in the 1700's. This is all incredibly meaningful to us, and prepares us for our visit to my father's home town tomorrow.
But we circled today, avoided our goal, enjoyed Novi Sad and the monasteries of Fuska Gora. We were slow to move this morning, after the excitement of the Exit Festival. We had missed the monasteries yesterday; we find ourselves behind on our schedule each day, because we get distracted, diverted, engrossed, and consequently making decisions constantly about where to direct our attention.
We were worried about the weather, because the prediction was for rain. We were so lucky it did not rain last evening at the festival, and this morning, it was sunny and warm. The streets of Novi Sad were quiet; the festival goers had been up all night and were still sleeping, the church was full of worshippers, and the cafes were just starting to open as we wandered into town. Our hotel had been advertised as being close to the centre, and even when we asked about the distance when we arrived, we were told it was a short 20 minute walk, but in fact it was much further. We took a taxi there and back yesterday. We learned from our taxi driver that the festival was far smaller than it had been at its peak, when 200,000 attended in the first few years, where it was more of a political movement against the strife in Yugoslavia. More foreigners would come as well, but today, the numbers were a fifth of what they used to be.
Our day began with strong Turkish coffee. The Serbs do not have a coffee tradition, but learned to make coffee from the Turks, and it is powerful and bitter, and is a different product than Italian or American coffee. So little of the Turkish rule survives anywhere, it appears that an effort was made to erase their presence after they were repulsed by Prince Eugen and the Austrians. But coffee and wonderful desserts survive.
Novi Sad is the capital of Vojvodina, and is the second largest city in Serbia. It is full of horrid looking Soviet era apartment buildings, but the centre is well preserved and the trick is to ignore the ugliness surrounding the centre. The city has always been a centre of learning and culture, and characteristically looks more westward for inspiration. Much of the centre looks Hapsburg in style, with some art nouveau and 'eclectic' buildings. The central square is pleasant and open, and most of the streets off the main piazza are pedestrian only. The neo Gothic Catholic cathedral on the main square was full of worshippers on Sunday morning. My father had mentioned the beauty of the church choir, and they were singing as we entered. We looked for the synagogue , but apparently it is no longer in use as a place of worship, since most of the Jewish population had migrated to Israel after the Second World War.
We spent some time in the Vojvodina museum, which was well put together and displayed a very comprehensive history of the area, from neolithic times to the Second World War. Most impressive was an entirely golden Roman helmet found nearby, as well as an amazingly rounded female cult figure of neolithic origin. The area has been occupied since 6000 BC, and people from the east and the west have been moving through the Vojvodina and settling and conquering and leaving and disappearing for thousands of years. The Scordisci, the Dacians, the Romans, the Huns, the Ostrogoths, the Langobards, the Avars, the Franks, the Moravians, the Serbs, the Ottomans, the Hapsburgs, all left their mark on the area, and the list is much longer than that. My father knows so much about the history, and I have heard so much of it from him through the years, but only recently does the story come together. It helps me understand his love and passion for history, and gives perspective to his origins. His family came from Silesia and Lorraine in the 1700's at the invitation of the Hapsburgs after the Turks fled, and stayed for 150 years or so, and then were forced out and replaced. It is amusing though, to read the tourist information about the area, touting the multiethnic character of the place and stressing the tolerance and acceptance of all ethnic groups, never mentioning the expulsion of the Donauswabian population. Peoples have come and gone through the region, and each will leave their stamp on the place and move on, as has happened to the many tribes that have come before them.
Last night we had wandered all over the Petrovaradin Fortress, which is MASSIVE. We could not enter it today, since it was the site of the festival, and was quiet for now in preparation for tonight's festivities. It is mostly an 18th century structure, built as a barrier to Turkish attack, but by the time it was built, the Turks were no longer a threat, and essentially the fortress was redundant. The town around the fortress is delightful, and merits another visit.
Fruska Gora is a hilly region to the south of Novi Sad. Grapes are grown in the mountainous terrain, and there are dozens of wineries to visit. We focused on the monasteries, which were built between the sixteenth and eighteenth century, when the Turks invaded from the south and the Serbian Orthodox communities sought out safer places to worship, keep their relics and maintain their independence and freedom from the invaders. There are much older monasteries in the centre and south of Serbia, but we were happy to see three of them in the region; Novo Hopovo, Krusedol and Ravanica. The churches are full of frescoes and icons, and there were plenty of worshippers today. There is a particular relationship between the spiritual and the physical in the Orthodox religion; people pray visibly, kiss icons, make the sign of the cross multiple times, are fervent in their communication with their saint or their God. Each monastery had a fountain nearby with water that was special or blessed. I was moved in each place we visited, and the physical surroundings were a perfect setting for each place. They were in the valleys, between the heavily wooded hills, often richly coloured on the outside, and covered with colour on the inside. Our guidebook warned us of 'monastery fatigue', but I could have seen more of them.
The skies opened up on our way to Bac, the oldest town in the Vojvodina. We tried to take the shortest route from the Fruska Gora to Bac,, but it happened to cross into Croatia, and we were worried about begin held up in border crossings, so we turned back to Novi Sad to cross the Danube to the northern side. When we arrived in Bac, it made no sense to get wet, so we drove by the poorly preserved Franciscan church and monastery, the much better preserved Orthodox one, and stopped at the Turkish fortress ruin for a few photos, and drove on through the plains to Apatin. We consciously chose not to turn right to Backi Brestovac, which is on our agenda for tomorrow, and arrived on the Danube just as the sun was setting, turning the sky red and gold.
Watching the skies and the river and reflecting on our journey thus far and reaching the beginning and the end tomorrow kept us preoccupied for the evening. We have seen so much these last fifteen days.
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