Chill Time in Serbia

Sara flew back to the UK on the Tuesday and we took Lolly to the Iveco service centre in Panchevo. Jovi knows the owners (of course) and the General Manager spoke enough English for Colin to run through everything he wanted doing.  They got Lolly up on the ramp straight away to assess the condition of everything, and suggested a few other things they thought should be checked.  We’ve not had the best experiences with Iveco service centres in the UK, so Colin was feeling pretty happy when we left that they seem to know what they were doing.  We checked in a few times over the week and it all seemed to be going to plan.  A part they needed to order wouldn’t be delivered until the Friday afternoon, so we wouldn’t be able to collect her until the following Monday.

Jovi is generally in Serbia Monday to Friday most weeks, spending weekends back in the UK.  He is the true definition of an Entrepreneur – always looking at new business opportunities and he never seems to stop – arranging meetings and constantly on the phone.   He has a recycling facility just outside Omoljica which he has built up over the past 20 years. His son Nemanja now runs this, but Jovi has an office there (well stocked as you can see) and is still involved if issues arise.

We joined Jovi for a couple of business dinners with different sets of people.  There was a lot of talking, but with most of it being in Serbian we don’t know what was discussed. 

While Jovi appears so focused on work and business opportunities, it is even clearer his passion in life is his family. We can't thank him and Sara enough for the help they've given us in Serbia which should hopefully mean Lolly is good for a few thousand miles this year.

The only thing we can really say we don’t like about Serbia is the smoking in cafes and restaurants.  The majority of people seem to smoke right through meals, and when you come away it is reminiscent of being back in the 1970’s and 80's in the UK when your hair (yes Colin had hair back then…) and clothes stink of smoke.

Jovi kindly lent us a car so we could get around while Lolly was in the garage. We went into Panchevo town for a stroll by the river, which looks like it will be lively in summer with café bars and house boats. The town centre itself is very pleasant with a mix of attractive old buildings interspersed with some ugly Russian style developments.  On the edge of the town there is a huge petrochemical plant that NATO had bombed during the Balkans war. It billows out smoke constantly and you can smell the chemicals in the air as you drive past.  

We visited Belgrade a couple of times during our week. The first time we went to the National Museum to keep out of the cold.  It is housed in a grand old building, but the exhibits weren't too captivating. They had a large art collection and even a small room with some Monet, Matisse, Picasso and Renoir works.

Before Jovi headed back to the UK he took us to his local restaurant in Omoljica for some typical Serbian food.  It was a lovely cosy place and we enjoyed delicious warm bread with cheese, fish soup and pancakes for dessert. Washed down with a glass of hot Rakia and a mulled wine it was just £23 for all three of us.  They even had direct lines to Trump and Putin in the restaurant.

Our favourite meal this week had to be at Jovi’s sisters house.  She prepared us a fabulous spread of her home produced food – a filo cheese pie, home cured/smoked meats with peppers and ajbap (a mix of pickled paprikas and garlic) washed down with local wines. There were plenty of Zivelis (Cheers) going around the table.  She and her husband do not speak English, but they gave us the most warm and wonderful welcome into their home.  We also got to see the smokehouse in their garden where meats were hanging – it smelt delicious.

On the way back from here Jovi pulled up at a random house and we were joined by another vehicle. It turned out to be the storage place for hundreds of old military vehicles that the guy has acquired and rents out for movie shoots. He pointed out a couple that had been used by Ralph Fiennes and Johnny Depp to name but a few.  Colin told him he should open it as a museum, but we think it would take an awful lot of work to get it into order.

We went back to Belgrade for a second visit, this time concentrating on the waterfront that has been totally redeveloped since Colin first visited in the 1990’s.  We parked at a super- modern new shopping centre (the Galleria) which even had a Maserati showroom in it. Not being big lovers of shopping, we had a walk down the waterfront to the old town with an impressive fortress and lovely parkland around it.  It was a beautiful cold crisp sunny day, but the wind chill made our eyes water.

Our last couple of days, after Jovi departed, we spent time doing laundry, having a walk in the local area and getting on with admin tasks (with the help of Mimi the black and white cat) while we had the use of good WiFi.

Lolly was ready for collection on the Monday, so we got her reloaded and ready for the off again on Tuesday morning. Our departure was delayed while we tried to get our new Global e-SIM loaded on our router. We need a good WiFi connection to do it, and the European eSIM we set off with from the UK stopped working in Serbia. We had hoped we would be able to pick up Jovi's house WiFi from outside, but it wasn't a strong enough signal. We ended up at the recycling plant offices where we did manage to get a connection outside but again it didn't seem to be working for us. We ended up with the IT manager and a manager who could speak some English in Lolly helping us. After a lot of faffing and scratching of heads we finally had success. We hope our new eSIM will work across the majority of countries we are passing so that we don't need to change it again.

We were heading south in Serbia to the third city of Nis, but on the way we wanted to visit the Resavska Caves, one of the largest cave systems in Serbia. We were too late setting off to visit it on this day, but planned to get there before dark and park for the night in the car park. The landscape leaving Omoljica was flat as a pancake initially, but as we got further south hills loomed in the distance. When we left the motorway a sign said the caves were 49km away. Google maps said 39km which we were pleased about as the light was fading. The roads got narrower and more twisty and it was pretty dark by the time we were less than 10km to go. We turned up a cobbled road and started to question if we were going the right way, but good old Google maps said 'yes'. We thought it strange we'd not seen any more signs for the caves for some time. With two and a half kms to go Google said turn down an unpaved road then there was a clear sign saying 'do not drive down here in a passenger vehicle - it is totally unsuitable'. It did say tractors and off road vehicles may be OK. We deliberated for a short while. It was dark, we were tired and to turn around now would add a long time on to the journey. We're in a 4x4 'go anywhere' truck - how hard can it be?

Pretty terrible as we found out! The first half a km lulled us into a false sense of security. It was a rough and icy track, but Colin took at steady and Lolly was coping well. Then the track got narrower and much rougher. We had branches scratching down the side of Lolly and the road surface was all over the place. We suspected there was a steep drop off to the left, but couldn't see anything in the dark. There was no going back as there was nowhere to turn around. We were also getting concerned we may end up at a dead end. It was the slowest most tortuous last km. I was gripping the seat and trying not to gasp as Colin kept his cool and let Lolly get us down safely. We finally reached a paved road just before the caves visitor entrance. We breathed a huge sigh of relief and got parked up, joined by a friendly dog, and set up for a freezing night.

The caves opened at 8 am but the website said the first tour wasn't until 10 am and you can only visit on a tour. We'd seen the staff arrive just after 8 am, so thought we'd try our luck at 9. They confirmed the next tour was at 10. At least the coffee shop was nice and warm. There was just the two of us and the guide nervously told us she speaks very little English. She did insist on checking out tickets even though she had just sold them to us!

The caves were pretty impressive. A good path took us about 800m into the cave system where we had lots of features pointed out to us.

We took the correct route back to the motorway, which was strangely a much easier route.

We arrived in Nis early afternoon and found a Park4Night spot right next to the fortress and just across the river from the old town. It was bitterly cold so we first headed to the Red Cross Nazi Concentration Camp. We had no idea there were such places in Serbia, but it had around 30,000 people brought through it (mostly Serbs, Jews and Romas) and it is estimated around 12,000 were killed by the brutal treatment or execution. The main building there was originally a military warehouse, and 2 floors now have pictures and stories of those who had the misfortune to be here. There was a famous escape attempt on 12 February 1942 (one of the first in all the concentration camps across Europe) with 105 successfully escaping , but 42 died in the attempt.

We walked back into the city centre and had a much needed hot coffee in a cafe on Tinker Alley, a small street full of cafes and bars. The street dogs seem to be well looked after in Nis. The dog shelter below says 'This is my only home', and someone had put straw in for bedding and left food outside.

We caught a bus out of the centre to visit the Skull Tower. The original tower (which is housed inside a small chapel) was made from almost 1,000 skulls of Serbians killed during a battle with Ottoman forces in 1809. It was put on the road into town to warn off any further would be attackers. There are only 58 skulls remaining today.

Before heading back to Lolly we dined in a cafe bar on Tinker Alley - lets just say that it won't go down as one of our best culinary experiences.

We'd noticed that the water in Lolly wasn't heating up as well as it should do and the Webasto diesel heater was making some strange gurgling noises. Colin wondered if it was caused by an air-lock in the system or maybe water had frozen and had caused the issues.

After googling the issues Colin decided he wouldn't be comfortable trying the suggested solutions, and found a Webasto workshop on the edge of town. We canned our plans to wander around the fortress and town a bit more in the morning and drove to the workshop on a messy estate on the edge of Nis. Ivan the owner greeted us and with the help of Google Translate Colin went through the issues. He concluded there was nothing obviously wrong and after adjusting the thermostat on the system it seemed better. He offered us a coffee (and a brandy but we though 8.30 in the morning was a bit early to start, particularly when driving). He raised his eyebrows when we explained our planned trip. He wouldn't accept payment for his services and waved us on our way.

Webasto Ivan

On our way out of town we called in at the Babanj Memorial Park, where several memorials have been built to honour the victims of one of the largest execution sites in former Yugoslavia. Bubanj Hill is where the inmates from the concentration camp were taken for execution - there could be as many as 100 executions a day.

From here we got back on the motorway heading south towards the Bulgarian border - next stop the Bulgarian capital Sophia.