DAY 1. Introduction

Once again, we set off on the road. This time, somewhat unexpectedly, to Serbia and Kosovo. Unexpectedly because I originally wanted to go to Georgia. But my companions did not like the idea, and I didn’t want to go there alone after hearing unfavourable things about Georgia’s roads. Then suddenly they loved this new direction, so, as a result, I’m traveling with my own auto mechanic and an excellent driver.

I had briefly visited Serbia a couple of times before — once from Bulgaria to see the Đavolja Varoš nature reserve with its capped stone pillars. The name comes from Hungarian (their empire once reached this area) and translates as “Devil’s Town.” Another time was during a private group tour to Slovenia and Croatia, flying via Belgrade as a cheaper way to get there.

I assumed that Serbia, as the politically leading country of Yugoslavia, would at least be no less developed than the others parts of the country. But that turned out to be wrong. Terrible roads, especially in the eastern part of the country, and a disappoitedly unremarkable capital. But this time I decided to take Serbia seriously because I had heard a lot about its beautiful nature and the Art Nouveau city of Subotica (again because it was once a Hungarian town). And, generally, I like to explore countries thoroughly when I travel.

We’re flying Arkia, our first experience with them. We didn’t expect much. An aerial bus that gets you there, for 472 euros. They got us there just fine.

I also want to tell the story of renting cars (cars, plural, because you cannot take entering a Serbian car into Kosovo, so we had to go by bus and lose a day). Аccommodation were easy то book, and they were ridiculously cheap (our average cost per person was 13.4 euros), but renting cars turned out to be a long and complicated affair — and not a cheap one.

I have already written about the mafia-like situation in this business, about many new companies that cheat customers: not returning deposits, telling tourists that “there are no cars left,” sometimes providing old and/or dirty vehicles, and offering poor service. But their prices are significantly lower. That doesn’t mean they cheat everyone — they’re not stupid, so many customers are satisfied (a lot depends also on local staff), but renting from such a company and wondering during the whole journeye into which category of customers you’ll fall into is hardly enjoyable.

Until now, I have never rented from such companies (I always read online reviews on unfamiliar companies), preferring to pay 200–300 euros more. In Belgrade, the situation turned out to be even more complicated than elsewhere. Either relatively cheap (500–600 euros for 11 days for a large car) with dubious companies, or around 1,200 euros with more reputable ones. After a long search, I found a company called Magnum Drive (not to be confused with Magnus — there is one with that name too). They didn’t even have a website, but had positive reviews. I closed the deal with them via WhatsApp; they had found a car for us and even agreed to pick us up at the airport — all for 750 euros and a 300-euro deposit.

Ther same stands for Kosovo. Eventually, I found a car there for 190 euros for two days. At the bus station in Pristina there are several rent-a-car company offices, which is very convenient. I’m writing all this in such detail so readers understand they are dealing with a country that falls outside the familiar European framework. As if there is Europe — and then there are Serbia and Kosovo.

This situation, to such an extent, does not exist in any other former Soviet-bloc country, even in the most “Soviet-style” ones like Bulgaria and North Macedonia. Yugoslavia supposedly distanced itself from the Soviet bloc, but apparently it has its own unique form of “Sovietness” that it is in no hurry to abandon. A peculiar and not very pleasant specificity. I will provide a far from complete list of car rental companies reported to be unreliable (some are active only in Serbia, but most operate across several countries): GOLDCAR, keddy, INTERRENT, Click Rent, record go, drivalia, Victoria rent a car, CARWIZ, Ar rent a car, Surprice, Green motion, Final Rentals, addCar, wheego, Abby car, Auto Union, Ace Rent a Car, Moris Rent a Car, VIP cars, City rent a car, Opodo, GotRental cars, Fox Rent a Car. In short, there are countless. Moreover, even the most “reputable” companies may charge unjustifiably large sums, especially in case of accidents or even minor scratches. Lasr year, I was charged in Germany for an accident which never happen.

And so, we are on our way. The Arkia flight departed 25 minutes late, with the captain promising to make up time, which he did; we even arrived 15 minutes before the schedule. For the second time in a row, I flew during the day time and could capture Turkey from above (currently the only way for the Israelies to see it).

At Belgrade airport, right in the baggage claim hall, there are two SIM card sales counters, which is extremely convenient. The cost is next to nothing: a SIM card for 15 days costed me 700 dinars, which is about 6 euros. Then Sergey arrived with our car (it turned out that the company was founded by two guys from Moscow, Sergey and Kirill, with a local partner), and we set off for Subotica, anticipating the long hoped-for encounter with its Art Nouveau treasures.

DAY 2. Subotica

In my story about the first day, I forgot to mention a small incident at the airport. When we were buying SIM cards, a Serbian woman passed by. Hearing that we have Israeli passports, sheapproached us asking, “How does it feel to kill children in Gaza?” – “And how does it feel to kill and burn children in Israel?” “Lie!” she exclaimed. I ended the discussion there by waving her away. Welcome to Europe.

Our apartment was right in the center, which is extremely convenient, though not without drawbacks: 2.5 floors plus a staircase to get to the bedrooms, while the toilet was downstairs. The hosts were very nice — they didn’t wait for our call and came out to meet us, since finding their place on your own is next to impossible. Also, when booking, I had overlooked that the accomodation had not have its own parking. And for a tourisl to pay for parking in Serbia is an epic ordeal: you must send a message from a telephon with a Serbian number to the number listed on the pole by the parking area. Seeing our struggle, a Serbian man passing by was kind enough to pay for our parking. It costs about three euros for the whole day.

Our walk around the city was very pleasant despite the steadily increasing heat. The city is very green and calm. The first major stop on our route was the synagogue — I think it may be the only one in the world built in the Art Nouveau style. Contrary to what I had found online, it is open for visits every day except Monday (see the schedule in one of the photos). The synagogue is huge, magnificent Hungarian Art Nouveau with stained-glass windows. It stands freely and isn’t hemmed in by surrounding buildings. An interesting detail: there is no bimah (pulpit) for reading the Torah; instead, the entire area in front of the aron ha-kodesh, the ark for storing the Torah scroll, is fenced and raised, making a stage (“bama”) to be use for this purpose. There is also a small synagogue, also Art Nouveau, stuccted at the back of the courtyard, where members of the city’s tiny Jewish community actually pray today.

The second outstanding landmark is the Reichle Palace — unbelievably beautiful. Unlike most Hungarian Art Nouveau buildings, which are usually big or even huge, this one is small, compact, and harmonious. And of course, Zsolnay had a hand in it too (figuratively). You can’t take your eyes off it.

Nearby is Solomon Sonenberg’s palace — also very impressive. The third dominant point in the city is the City Hall, which takes up an entire block. Until 12:00, you can enter City Hall on a guided tour (unfortunately, we were a bit late), including a climb up its very tall cross-topped tower. And around these great landmarks there are many other Art Nouveau buildings, making a walk through the city a true pleasure.

We spent the evening in Palić — a small town 7 km from Subotica. A large park on the shore of the lake of the same name, is full of wooden Art Nouveau buildings decorated in a folk style. The most famous are the Water Tower with its gate — the entrance to the park — and the Women’s Bathhouse right on the shore, extending out into the lake. All this beauty was built by architects Komor and Jakab — the authors of Subotica’s synagogue and City Hall.

One can park not at the parking lot far from the park entrance (there is a sign) and also on the lake shore (past the park to the right; wherever you park, walk along this avenue — it’s lined with Art Nouveau villas). A glass of excellent local beer for the ridiculous price of 1.5 euros on the lake shore made a decent finale to the day.

However, when we returned to our place, we heard music and walked towhere it was heard from — the square in front of City Hall, which happened to be just around the corner of our accommodation, to listen for a while to a jazz orchestra performance, and photograph the illuminated City Hall and the city theater.

DAY 3. Novi Sad and Nearby

After small, slightly provincial Subotica with its Art Nouveau pearls, the quarter-million-strong Novi Sad impresses in a different way: beautiful modern buildings, elegant Baroque, tall church spires, and the ribbon of the Danube. But we began our acquaintance with the city once again with a synagogue.

This one is also huge, but completely different. Brick, with strict lines, it belonged to the Neolog movement in Judaism that originated in Hungary as a predecessor of Conservative Judaism. The sole decoration of the interior are stained-glass windows. And again, there is a large stage instead of a bimah. This synagogue is not used for its original purpose any more; thanks to its excellent acoustics, concerts are sometimes held there. To get inside, you need to find the guard at the end of the courtyard, who will open the door for you after collecting the “voluntary” donations of 100 dinars per person.

From the synagogue we walked past the snow-white modern National Theatre to Trg Slobode (Liberty Square) with its City Hall and a number of beautiful pale-toned Baroque buildings, and then along the elegant pedestrian Zmaj Jovina street with café and restaurant tables on the sidewalk and expensive shops. It reminded me a little the Širok Sokak street in the North Macedonian city of Bitola.

After walking along Zmaj Jovina, we headed to the Danube and then along the Quay of the Victims of Fascism up to the memorial to the victims of the massacre carried out at that spot which took the lives of 1,246 Serbs and Jews (more than 800). From an Israeli guide telling the story to a group of tourists at the memorial, we learned that the Serbians were the only people in Europe to have saved many of their fellow Jewish citizens. (Bulgaria saved almost all of its Jews, but not due to the compassion but rather under pressure from two senior clergymen and some Parliament members, while deporting most of the Jews of North Macedonia, which it controlled during the war beeing a German ally.) And then I realized that my scant knowledge about Serbia is basically limited to the World War II and Tito. I’ll need to fill the gaps.

After Novi Sad we finally said goodbye to the absolutely flat stretch of Serbia — part of the vast East European Plain — and climbed up to the small town of Sremski Karlovci. Walking along the central square Trg Branko Radičevića, where the town’s most important buildings are concentrated, we saw at its far end a large building in two colors, yellow and burgundy. Approaching it, we surprised to find out that it was the local high school, a Gymnasium. It is so beautiful that it alone justifies — more than that, it obliges — a visit to the town. And Sremski Karlovci also stands right on Serbia’s Wine Route, having therefore many wine cellars. I have only tried Serbian wine once, and it was excellent.

Our last stop of the day was the Krušedol Monastery on Fruška Gora, whose church has fairly well-preserved 18th-century frescoes painted over 16th-century ones.
The trip to the place of our overnight stay was made under a rain that had started when we left the monastery. Please, not tomorrow and also not after that. But the heat is exhausting too. Isn’t it enough that we have it at home?

DAYS 4–5. Belgrade and Tara National Park

I wasn’t planning to visit Belgrade originally, but I had to show it to my companions. We started with the Millennium Tower on the Gardoš hill, which turned out to be in Zemun, Belgrade’s suburbs, the area of our overnight stay. The Hungarians built this tower in 1896 on the site of a destroyed medieval fortress to commemorate the millennium of gaining a new homeland — as they call their migration from the Ural region to the East European, or Pannonian, Plain. We found there a café with a terrace, had breakfast with a view of the Danube — much wider here than in Subotica — and went to the almost completed (at last!) Cathedral of St. Sava. About twelve years ago I saw it completely bare; now it shines with gold neo-Byzantine mosaics that cover every inch of its walls.

Then we walked to Republic Square with the monument to Prince Mihailo, and then along Knez Mihailova Street to Kalemegdan Park and the fortress of the same name inside it. There wasn’t time to go in this time, but it’s one of the most pleasant places in the city, with a view of the river.

Belgrade remains gray, just as I remembered it. And, oddly enough, new buildings are also being built in gray. What a contrast with the beautiful, well-restored streets of Novi Sad and even Subotica. The monotony was broken by an incident that happened to my companion: a pickpocket had already pulled her small bag with money and passport when she noticed and screamed. He threw the bag into the bushes and ran away. Miraculously, it ended well.

From Belgrade we headed to Tara National Park. Just before the town of Bajina Bašta, where we were to spend two nighs, we stopped for lunch and to see a local attraction: a tiny house on a rock in the middle of the Drina River, once built by swimmers for their own needs and then becoming a symbol of the town.

We spent the whole next day in Tara National Park (entry fee: 100 dinars per person). Before entering the park, we stopped at the Rača Monastery — small and photogenic, but with rather unremarkable frescoes. The hostess of our apartment rejected my planned route and suggested a new one. The most important part of it was that she advised against going to the highest viewpoint, Sjenič, at over 1,300 meters: it’s a long way go go, the road is bad, and the viewing tower is in an emergency state.

First, we drove to Lake Perućac, created by a dam on the Drina, and happily drank our morning coffee at a lakeside café enjoing beautiful views of the lake and beyond. Then began an epic search for the tiny Vrelo River — only 365 meters long — since the navigator took us into the mountains instead and announced, “You have arrived!” In the end we found it, but we couldn’t walk all the way to the source: the path was blocked by a locked gate. Then, finally, we climbed into the mountains and walked (800 m one way) to the Banjska Stena viewpoint at an elevation of 1,063 m and admired the magnificent scenery.

Returning to Mitrovac, we switched to another road and descended to Lake Zaovine. Setting out in search of other viewpoints (there are 12 of them in the park in total), we ended up on a narrow road running along the edge of a cliff which enabled us to see so many views that we decided to forgoe the oficial lookout points and head for a restaurant, and then home.

Oh, yes, another curiosity: there is a place in the park called Tepih Livada, which translates as “Carpet Meadow” (“Tepih” is “carpet” in German, and livada can hardly be translated as anything other than “meadow” or “field”). The name is so intriguing that we feeled obliged to try and find it. The walk there appeared to be a little more then a kilometer round trip.

It turned out to be a small clearing with moss growing there instead of grass — a phenomenon of interest to specialists. But how could you regret another 20 minutes in the shadows of a mixed forest, breathing clean woodland air? In case anyone is interested, the trail starts from the road by the sign at the entrance to the Crveni Potok reserve. Overall, we were happy with this day: we drove through beautiful nature, did a bit of hiking, had a good lunch, so what more do you need on vacation?