Walk-hike above Vrdnik
Since I finally felt moderately awake and normal today we decided to take a walk above town. First Jim went to our favorite little bakery on the other side of town and brought home some pastries to go with eggs. He is once again the designated breakfast cook and I am the dish washer.
After breakfast we headed up the steep straight narrow road behind our place, passed through the cemetery with its lovely views, passed the invisible unmarked trailhead to the waterfall we went to three years ago, and further along the muddy road to new territory. Where the road ended the trailhead to Šuma Brdo was marked with a red and white symbol used to designate trails over here. The path led through pine and mixed forest to the top of a ridge where there were nice views of the flat lands below. At one point I saw an animal cross the path ahead of me and disappear into the trees. It was the size of a smallish dog but had the shape of a rabbit. A moment later it ran back across the path and Jim and I verified it was indeed a hare, but the biggest hare we’d ever seen! Once home I googled ‘rabbits in Serbia’ and discovered there are European hares here and they are among the largest in the world. I decided, this being Good Friday (called Great Friday in Serbia), that the hare was likely the Easter Bunny.
When we emerged from the trees into a very muddy road at the top of the hill a curly haired stray black dog, likely a Croatian shepherd, enthusiastically ran up to us, starving for both food and affection. Her teats were big and saggy, she was very skinny, and she had a few sores and small bare patches in her coat. But she was very bright eyed, made lots of eye contact and seemed smart. Numerous times when we paused to pet her she laid down and exposed her belly for more pets. She walked along with us for a couple kilometers until we almost got back to the edge of town where she turned around and left us. We wondered if she had reached the edge of her territory, or if she knew she would be poorly treated in town and wanted nothing to do with it. In any case, she was an extremely bright sweet dog, and if we lived here we would have taken her home and then for treatment. It’s so sad to see these precious beings be discarded or neglected.
Earlier on our walk we encountered a medium sized black snake. We don’t know what kind it was but when Jim got home he looked up ‘snakes’ and thought it was a grass snake. Serbia has several poisonous snakes, one especially dangerous, so we try to avoid snakes here since we aren’t experts at recognizing the venomous ones.
On our way back through town we made a detour and visited the Ravinica Monastery. The current church was built in 1801 but the previous monastery on the spot was founded in the 16 the century. While many of the frescoes are in good shape there are large areas of the ceiling that have yet to be restored. On one of the altars was a bowl of candy and deep red colored eggs in anticipation of Easter.
Once ‘home’ we lounged at the house until time to walk back into town for dinner, this time at Miner, another place we ate when we were here before. Our meal was as equally good as what we had the previous night. We both got chicken kebabs with dried plums, bacon and veggies in addition to plump pieces of chicken. We shared a ‘vitamin salad’, carbonated mineral water and of course bread. Portions were very large and our total bill was about $34. A similar meal in Seattle would be twice that.
When we arrived home our hosts were waiting for us. Today is the day when Orthodox families dye eggs. They brought us each an egg and told us how to play the game everyone (Orthodox) plays the day before Easter. Two people take turns striking the ends of their eggs against the other’s until one person’s has dents on both ends. That person is the loser. We were touched they bothered to stop by and bring us eggs. We chatted briefly and found out both of them grew up here, and his family owned a lot of the land around the house we are staying in. His mom still lives a few houses down the road.
All day I had been sad that the monastery was not ringing its bells the way it usually does. Then a little after 9 tonite the bells started ringing and rang and rang for at least 20 minutes. I read online that the Orthodox churches don’t ring the bells on Good Friday except at the evening service when they do a processional around the church in memory of Christ’s death.
Interestingly, at the same time the bells were ringing, a boisterous group of people somewhere down the road were partying loudly with a live accordion band. (They are still going at it as I write an hour later). The period when these two disparate sounds overlapped seemed to perfectly represent two important aspects of Serbian culture.
Other sounds I enjoyed today that are common here- dogs barking, roosters crowing, and a pheasant squawking, and cuckoos cuckcooing. I don’t know if I’m right but I’m guessing maybe the pheasant is being raised in captivity because every time I heard it the sound was coming from the same direction. They do have wild pheasants as well but I suspect this one lives under the watchful eye of a human family.
The only other thing I want to mention about Vrdnik for now is something our very first host talked about when we visited three years ago. He said the town has two sides- the old, traditional Serbian village side, and the modern, mob-funded newer shiny expensive side. Sitting on our terrace, and walking around town we see both. The older houses and buildings are of traditional humble style. The new buildings tend to be modern and boxy with lots of big windows. From our spot we can see the new huge spa complexes looming grandiosely high on the hill at the edge of town. They really detract from the charm of the rest of the town. And as I say every time we travel over here, the development does not help the locals at all. There is no trickle down. But for now this small town still predominantly feels and looks like older Serbia.
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