Belgrade

Since our trip was turning out to be The Amazing Race Woodbury style, we thought we might as well make the most of it.  Our hotel was ridiculously cool.  Room view of the new section of Belgrade- very modern.

Indoor garden in the hotel.

Statue of Atlas I think.

And mosaics.  Oh mosaics, how I love thee!

We had just 2 hours in the morning before we needed to be back at the airport so we had our cabi from the night before show us a few of the sights around Belgrade.  I have to say, I LOVE that they've turned this 3rd century BC fortress into a city park and rec area.  Almost every European civilization has conquered and used it from the Thracians to the Celts, to the Romans, and the Goths.  Atilla the Hun is supposed to be buried under it.  Seriously a crazy amount of history here and now they're playing basketball and tennis and going to see animals in the zoo in all the different amazing corners.

The original or who knows when it was added onto architecture is just stunning.

Seriously, random dinosaur statues in the middle of the fort.

And of course they have tons of tanks and other military equipment just sitting out to see.

Very big, very useful back in the day.

And the views from the fort are the reason for it's location, where the Danube and Sava river converge leading you straight up into Europe.

I'd apologize for the number of pictures but really this is just the tip of the iceberg and this place was amazing.

And from there we went on to see the local churches.

And sadly that was the end of our time in Serbia.  But it wetted our taste for a new part of Europe I wouldn't have been that keen on seeing so we'll definitely have to go back another time.

As I side note, Taylor would not let me take any pictures of the many, many bombed out buildings still standing and looking like zombie havens.  Apparently when Taylor was serving in Bulgaria, he was sent (as the mission finance guy) to do audits of the branches in Serbia and being American was a decidedly bad thing back then and still mostly touchy 15 years later.  Apparently interfering in their war and bombing their buildings is still touchy.  They've literally just left all those buildings as testaments of the war and it's kind of amazing to see the directed targeting that destroyed but didn't knock down the buildings and cause other deaths and damage.