We quickly made the border crossing to Serbia by crossing the Drina River. It was a high-speed divided highway all the way into Belgrade with lots of grain fields and level land.
The new currently constructed Bus Station was a short walk to the city bus, and it took me into downtown Belgrade. The buses here are free and frequent. My Google Maps show me where to take the bus, and which route would get the closest to the Cabbage Hostel which was located on a fairly residential street.
It is a very nice hostel with lots of showers, friendly staff that frequently offered free food including chicken soup, choice of hot beverages like coffee or tea. The Cabbage Hostel played off of cabbage motif with various famous prints and photos that included cabbages. Here are a few.
Here’s my bottom bunk, which includes a charging plug, lights. a privacy curtain, and locker
I made use of the free metro system to make my way around to the various tourist spots. First was to the Belgrade Fortress that included a chamber of tortures museum.
It’s really been hot here so I’ve been drinking a lot of tea and lemonade and I noticed that here they keep the lids attached to the drinks which lessons finding stray lids around like we see back in the United States. We should adopt this method.
From there, I visited the Serbia Museum. It contain a collection of archaeological findings and history of the country, along with artwork by famous artist, including some Serbian artist. I also saw Van Gogh, Gauguin, Pissarro, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Monet, Chagall, and Kandinsky works of art.
Here’s some Serbian artist work, including one that depicts the burning of Saint Sava at the hands of the Turks,
Despite the 97° weather, I waited a half an hour outside the Tesla Museum before going in. We first watched a 15 minute movie about Tesla’s life, and then a guy pointed out some inventions and gave us some demonstrations.
The guide proceeded to show us some of the alternating current devices that he had created.
He showed us the voltage generator transmitted through the air, electricity that lit fluorescent tube people were holding.
We also had a chance to touch a machine generated over 120,000 Volts without getting harmed. It felt like a little static electricity jolt, apparently the excess electricity flows down the outside of your body to the ground so you don’t get injured.
One of his mentors in Europe had recommended him to Thomas Edison saying that he was a genius, and that Tesla would help him immeasurably. He worked for Thomas Edison for quite a while, but they parted ways over a dispute about how electricity would flow. Thomas Edison favor direct current while Tesla favored the alternating current approach.
Tesla’s work was to electrify the Chicago World Fair with alternating current and that wowed everyone and won the day over direct current. Alternating current could travel further over lines than Thomas Edison’s direct current system.
In the United States, Westinghouse was one of his big benefactors until they parted ways primarily because Westinghouse almost went bankrupt because the high payments of royalties to Tesla. In turn, Tesla ripped up the contract and then went to do his own research with less financial backing. They remain friends throughout.
Tesla continued to try to develop a system or wireless transmission around the world along with other inventions. Tesla had 112 patents in the US and another 200 in other countries.
This golden orb contains the remains of Tesla.
After a hot day of touring, it was time to enjoy dinner at a spot recommended by one of my travel group buddies back in Seattle, Brooke Yool, who is also a travel agent. I found the Dva Jelena Restaurant along a cluster of restaurants sprinkled with wandering musicians.
I enjoyed the veal, rolled with ham and cheese, smothered in the delicious mushroom sauce, along with some vegetables and about three glasses of lemonade.
i again navigated with Google Maps back to my hostel by taking some short walks and riding a bus. I love this free bus system, and the information on what buses to take and where to take them on the Google Maps app.
I was able to cool off, shower, and wash some clothes before bed.
I visited the Seti Sava temple, which was the biggest Orthodox Church in the Balkans and the world’s second biggest in the world. The Turks burnt the remains of Saint Sava here.
The mosaic you see is 1500 m², one of the world‘s largest on a curved surface.
I returned to the restaurant area and ate at the Red Rose Restaurant. I had a Serbian specialty, beef sausages, sauce, with potatoes, along with a tomato and cucumber salad sprinkled with cheese. This time I only had two glasses of lemonade. The portions were way too large, but I couldn’t stop myself eating the tasty sausages and potatoes.
In the morning, I caught one of the frequent buses, number 95, that took me out to the Belgrade Bus Station.
While I was waiting for the bus. I met Serbian journalist and poet who worked during the Bosnian War as an interpreter for the United Nations. He told me he speaks seven languages and dialects and was offered a job in the US working for NSA but he said he’d rather be a journalist than a spy. True or not, he was an interesting fellow.
I headed to the bathroom before boarding the bus, and I was surprised to see access to the bathrooms could be done by using your credit card or Apple Pay.
The Green FlixBus left at 8 AM. It was a comfortable bus, except the air conditioner could not keep up with the outside temperature of up to 107°.. It had Wi-Fi and charging plugs.
During the journey we went through two borders: Hungary, and Austria. We only had to have our passports checked at the borders between Serbia and Hungary. We continued driving through the border between Hungary and Austria without stopping before arriving at the Vienna Bus Station.
