Saturday 24 August: River cruise (Belgrade, Serbia)

We had again travelled through the night and this time arrived at Belgrade, Serbia. Our ship would be docked here all day.

It was a bit of a later start to the day today as they had a talk on before the shore excursion. Our excursion today would take us into Belgrade to a fort and a castle, viewing sights along the way.

Our first stop was the fort. There were only one or two buildings that remained intact in the fort. The walls of the fortress had changed shape and purpose over time. This was due to the requirements at the time – such as them being there purely for decoration as opposed to being there to protect what was inside. The thick walls were there for protection and there was a section where you could see what had changed over time.

The views from within the walls were fantastic. You could see a long way, with the Danube directly in front. Following the walk around the fort, we headed to the shopping centre to use the toilets before heading back on the bus, next stop the Royal Palace.

Along the way you could see the different architecture of the city – there wasn’t one style, it was just whatever fit. There were also a lot of buildings that simply weren’t lived in. This was for a range of reasons, but the two biggest being that the area changed from being residential and into commercial or industrial instead; and the second being that the buildings had been taken away from the owner during the war period and not returned.

As we neared the Royal Palace we were told that sometimes the Crown Royals are there, but they typically travel a lot so it’s not always possible. She mentioned that out of all the trips she had done (about 2 per week), she had only seen them 3 times. Not much of a chance.

When we got there, we found out that they were there and would address us. We were directed to an area outside of the Palace and waited for them. A few minutes later they emerged. Crown Price Alexander told us the story about his family and how they came to be exiled until 2000. His Godfather was King George VI of England (Queen Elizabeth II’s father) with is Godmother being then-Princess Elizabeth, now Queen Elizabeth II), He also talked about his time in the United States too.

His wife, Katherine, then talked about her humanitarian work including getting medical supplies for hospitals in Serbia – incubators especially as an example. One story she told was about a function they put on every year for orphans. There were about 1000 orphans from all over Serbia invited to the White Palace. During the event there was a loud scream. Two children who had been orphaned were separated at the time. By luck they had both been invited to this event and found each other. She said it was one of the most heart-touching moments. They could not separate the children after that.

We had a group photo taken before we had a tour of the palace. The tour started with some drinks and biscuits and history of the room. As we were in the room the Crown Princess entered the room and explained the globe in the room. The globe had been damaged during the war and there were quite a number of pieces. They gathered up all the pieces and got the help of the local university students to put it back together. It took a number of days. The globe isn’t one you would typically expect it see – it’s not of the continents and oceans, it’s of astronomy.

After visiting a number of rooms on the ground level, we headed underground. Here we found the ‘man cave’. It was a large space, with about 6 rooms with various purposes. There was a large pool table, theatre, chess etc. The theatre was left as it was when Tito had taken over the palace during his reign. There were six chairs on the lower level with another platform a few metres behind on which he would sit and observe. An interesting fact was how they got air into the basement – there were air ducts in the ceilings that blended into the ceiling through the patterns they had painted on them.

The next stop was the Chapel. The Chapel had been used for a number of years, but during Tito’s reign was used as a storage room instead. One of the paintings (of Mary, Mother of God) had been taken. As Tito had a visitor who wanted to use the chapel, they had one day to convert it back. They had a painter redo the painting in one night and restore it to what it looked like. During the time of Tito, they had done quite some damage to the chapel, including firing a bullet into the forehead of Jesus on the ceiling. All other bits in the Chapel were restored, with the exception of the bullet hole.

The return trip home was hot – it was 35 degrees outside. Getting closer to the boat we were stopped by roadworks. Their form of a blockage was a pile of bricks on a pallet in the middle of the road. We had been waiting about 15 minutes when the next bus turned up behind us. We were sitting up the back of the bus, and noticed that the bus was the one that Carol, Mick, Neal and Rose were on. Ros made a few funny faces and was poking her head through the curtains. After some negotiating (and large gesturing of hands by our driver), they brought around a forklift. Then we could continue on our way.

It was a free afternoon, but rather than going out we rested in our room. We had put the air con onto freezing and was great.

At 5:30pm they had a talk that we attended. It was about the history of Serbia and how they got through to today. The history was very interesting including all the changes to Serbia over the years from WWI through to today.

After dinner they had a group of local dancers on board. They were accompanied by a band which was fantastic. The dancing was very interesting and given that the roof height was not that great, they did a good job of not hitting their head when doing their moves. One particular dance had a guy bounce along on the ground on his butt – he looked so excited when he was doing it!

Following the performance, we were going to head upstairs. Neal started playing the piano and got a few people up dancing and singing. The boat was departing at 11:30am and so we got upstairs and saw the night life. There were a few barges on the opposite bank that were nightclubs as well as nightclubs just down the road from us.

Given the time it was now Mary Lou’s birthday in Australia (about 7am), so we tried to call. The group of six of us left a great rendition of Happy Birthday and then headed downstairs to bed.