THE MAIN FEATURE – SERBIA – KRALJEVO (Day 47-48 covering 238km to 5,531km)

This post sees us drive from Uzice to Kraljevo in Serbia via Potpeće Cave, Golijska Moravica, Monastery Preobraženje, Ovcarsko-Kablarska Klisura, Monastery Vavedenje, Cacak.

 

Potpeće Cave is unique in that it is not underground but cut into a mountain and you walk around it on an elevated scaffold. Sadly for us the scaffold was closed so we climbed to the entrances and took our photos from there. The scaffold penetrates 555m into the mountain and plummets to 9C no matter what the temperature outside. It was opened in 1983.

 

Golijska Moravica is a famous winding river that is surrounded by lush green pine forests covering mostly gentle hills. The river snakes around two hills known as the Ovcarsko-Kablarska Klisura, one hill containing 3 Monasteries and therefore translated as the Holy Hill. We visited 2 of the monasteries: Preobraženje and Vavedenje. One is male (9 Monks) and the other female (5 Nuns). Both were founded by a Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović who is now a Saint.

 

Cacak (Pop 73,331, Elev 242m, Founded 1409) was at one stage a Roman base and now an agricultural centre with some light manufacturing and cement mining. The city is not well laid out and any classic buildings have now been swamped by unkept Yugo buildings and incomplete constructions, which appears to be a signature feature of Eastern Europe.

 

Kraljevo (Pop 68,749, Elev 192m, Founded 11^th Century) is at the crossroads of many historical battles and occupations, which are too numerous to describe here. Its centre is far more classical than all the cities we have seen so far.

 

Serbia in this area (south and east) is emerging as a mixed maze of old and new. You can see traces of a classical past mixed with many remnants of the former Yugoslavia and all the intrusions of the latest concrete constructions and ugly industrial, many left unfinished.

Enjoy our trip from Uzice to Kraljevo in Serbia…

 

 

Day 48 was a day trip from Kraljevo to Kragujevac but not before major drama hit – as I refuelled our car I noticed some dimples in the roof and bonnet as the morning sun shone on them creating a mirror effect through the layers of dust and spots from not having washed our car since Leo arrived. Upon further inspection I notice that these “dimples” were in fact hail damage because they were all over the car but very spread out (not many per square metre) and very slight depression. Immediately we all went into conference and concluded that this slight hail damage was caused sometime in the 18 days our car was parked outdoors and uncovered at the Europcar compound in Podgorica whilst we were touring Albania, North Macedonia and Kosovo in Europcar’s Skodia Fabia. How unlucky can we get. Our plan will be to report this to both Peugot and to my travel insurance in Australia just in case Peugot decides to claim on our car insurance and I have to cover the excess with a claim on my travel insurance.

 

This upset is nothing compared to the sad day we encountered today. Our day trip to the city of Kragujevac was to the Šumarice Memorial Park (also known as Kragujevac Memorial Park or Memorial Park October just outside Kragujeva. A very sad place indeed commemorating the 2,854 innocent men, women and children of Kragujevac who were executed here in 7 hours by the Nazis from 7am on 21 October 1941 in unjustified retaliation of Yugoslavian partisan forces killing 10 German soldiers and wounding another 26. The park covers a large area to encompass the 12 killing spots and mass graves that contained the remains of the civilians that were murdered. Each grave also features a sculpture that commemorates the suffering of the Slavic peoples during WWII. This is indeed an austere place and underpins the pointless violence of humans killing each other.

 

Kragujevac (Pop 150,835, Elev 173m, Founded 1476) is half industrial and half farming. Its centre is not well organised and once again contains some classical buildings drowning in a sea of unkept older Yugo ugliness and newer concrete craziness that does not fit.

 

The evening saw us enjoy the grill-houses of Serbia in much the same vein as those in Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina – the Slavs love their meat…