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Hiking & biking in Serbia
OPIS KNJIGE:
The Ottomans brought the coffee culture. Each of the peoples of the Balkans has since brought the preparation of coffee to perfection. Black, thick, served in small cups and from bitter to sweet according to your taste, I had to get used to it, and then fell in love with it - and when served with a piece of walnut Ratluk (Turkish delight), I became addicted.
Coffee is served to every guest first thing he or she enters a house in Serbia. It is not only the taste of the coffee that got me hooked, but the stories coffee comes with, sitting at a table next to the only stove, with beds turned into benches, or outside, under an old oak or fig tree, reminding the attentive observer that the Mediterranean has left its light touch on Serbia, too.
Hospitality in Serbia is unpretentious. What the host has is shared with you generously: food, shelter and any information you may need; but when time has come for other obligations on your part or that of your host, you are let go in as simple and direct a manner as you were invited.
Although it has no high mountains and no sea, Serbia is a truly beautiful country. Since it is thinly populated outside Belgrade, you may not encounter a soul for hours, which greatly adds to the beauty of hiking and biking in Serbia. In its vast forests and across its high altitude plateaus, you can breathe deeply and let your eye wander, without hitting too many horrors of civilization; while the glittering of a yellow-bellied toad, the unmistakable bright turquoise of a kingfisher wing, or the warning zig-zag patterns on the back of a poisonous Balkan snake may suddenly catch your attention.
Serbia does not spare the visitor its struggles. The rural poverty is heart-breaking. You may discover a beautiful gorge which is completely littered, as in the upstream villages there is no orderly solid waste management. Sooner or later, you will be faced with Kosovo and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague; or you will meet with one of the hundred thousand Serbian returnees and refugees from Croatia in the 1990s, and learn about a very personal story of loss. And indeed it is important to talk about this part of European history. Committed members of civil society and journalists continue to research into the Yugoslav war and the Kosovo conflict and work to bring their findings to the attention of the public. Historians from different Balkan countries are beginning to work together for school books that describe history from many different rather than only one perspective. Such work, together with economic development and the many more chances for youth to meet with “the others" and to travel, may all contribute to helping deal with the past and enable Serbia’s swift European integration, since this is the wish of a majority of the country’s citizens.
Serbia has been my home for more than four years, and I will keep returning. This book may invite others to visit or live in Serbia. I owe this book to all the lady farmers who prepared precious coffee, the bus- and taxi-drivers who loaded my bike into or onto their antique vehicles, and all the enthusiasts who continue re-marking thousands of kilometres of hiking trails or keep the meat freezers running for the majestic vultures to fly once again above the Uvac River. May this book contribute in its modest way to helping the process whereby all of them can generate an income from rural tourism. They have taught me to take life with confidence and gratitude, and command my deepest respect.
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