Balkan Travels

The day after my birthday, Dragan needed to go into town and do some things but said we would meet later in the morning to go to a spa. It was unclear where the spa was and if we were going to go in or not. But when the times approached Zorica brought us big…

Monday morning, my 65th birthday, we got up early enough to have some eggs before going down for coffee as we had no idea if they would give us any food. Turns out indeed Dragan had gone to the bakery for freshly made burek (savory cheese filled pastry) which we ate, along with liquid yogurt,…

Sunday morning we had a leisurely breakfast then walked back to the green market to buy a plant for our next host, Zorica. Like many (most) people here she has a lovely garden and we trusted we couldn’t go wrong by getting her a plant. We left Kruševac at about 11:45 and arrived in Zajačar…

We drove to Mrzenica (a tiny village about 15 minutes north of Kruševac) where Zoran’s grandparents settled long ago. We parked by the side of the through-road where Zoran was waiting for us. He greeted us with warm hugs as if we were long time friends even though we have only met once before, and…

I forgot to mention that on the drive to Kruševac we stopped  at the top of a pass at the sprawling Kadinjača monument to WW II fighters from the town of  Užice designed by an artist and architect. We came upon it on our last trip amid thick fog. This time the day was sunny…

Sleepy morning in Kruševac. I feel lousy after too many nights of too little sleep, and last night was especially poor. On top of that I woke with a headache.My eyes are burn-y and tired, but what is hard to describe is the sensation overall in my head. I pray I feel better soon as…

We left the house with Zoran and Milesa at 11. The border crossing was quick and easy and the drive to the village house took about 15 minutes. Zoran let us off on the main road so Milesa could take us on a walk up a small side road that leads to her family village…

We had a leisurely day Wednesday. I worked on some writing, did laundry (hung it on the line over the balcony as there is no dryer), and spent way too much time translating info about how to add time to our SIM cards (all info is in Serbian, and the process confusing). In the afternoon…

The previous evening our hosts said they would give us eggs from their chickens, but they didn’t say anything more specific and we decided to go ahead and have breakfast. We had pastries and eggs. About 15 minutes after we were  done our hosts sent a message asking us to go down for breakfast! We…

The drive south along the two-lane winding road that follows the Drina river Monday was relatively easy and exceptionally scenic. There was very little traffic and the drive took almost exactly 2 hours as expected. The only momentarily hair-raising part was when we were at a town where the road was being repaired and was…