21-IX-2018.

Second vacation this year. I just declared it to be a very extended weekend, as I didn't feel three days would be enough and really didn't feel like working on monday. It's not that the work is hard - at my age (63 presently) programming is either something you hate or something you just do, comes easy. It's the sense that I'm tied to the keyboard, that every time I step away for a few hours, something will happen somewhere and I better be there when it does. Well, enough of that.

So we took off. Wanted to see Tara, the gorgeous mountain on bosnian border, where we went for a school trip in 1972 and Go went for one in 1992. The drive was easy - now with that bridge we didn't have to go through Belgrade (otherwise we'd go over Novi - it's the west edge of the country now, so why not go west first), so the first part of the trip was mostly speeding on the highway, until we hit Šabac. There we found the beltway right away, no problem, but it crosses the radial roads in five or six places, and there's just too much traffic and the queues at the lights are slow.

There's not much visible industry in Loznica anymore. I think we went that way in 1969, and the chemical industry had a lot of chimneys, but the road now goes around the place (actually far better) and there's nothing to see. Mali Zvornik was much more interesting, the canyon of Drina being narrow enough to leave no space for a bypass, so it's the same old road and a border crossing bridge next to it. Which is sort of ridiculous, there is no room for a proper queue so it spills on the road. The muslims in Zvornik, on bosnian side, have erected a huge mosque with two towers exactly so that it's fully visible from serbian side and not so much from theirs. I don't like the power that church has here, but they got it much worse.

Around 13:30 we decided to eat something. Found a place, quite beautiful and probably with its own b'n'b, a little swimming pool, its own beach, big lawn, all in wood. I had fish čorba, and trout, after so many years. Not bad at all.

Drove on and had a coffee at yet another nice place (i.e. made a few good pics). Had a cat sleeping on a chair by our table, didn't move no matter how many shots I took of it. Took off around 16:30.

Something milky white was leaking into Drina just 50m upstream.

An hour later we were on Tara. Which is bullshit. It maybe made sense for an ekskurzija in the previous century, where you'd land a hundred youngsters in the middle of nowhere and they could go wild all they want, they'd just fall asleep from all the walk over the meadows at 1km height. But for anything else there's nothing there. Two huge hotels owned by "Military Institution Tara"; another huge hotel by a different owner, closed. Was open a few weeks ago when the kids from Russia were there with some local counterparts, organized by some fund or other. Saw a total of five people, took three shots and decided there's still time before dark to get to Zlatibor. Or find a hotel in Užice and then Zlatibor the next day.

The building on the picture brings a deja vu, I remember it from 12-VI-1969., just not sure whether that's exactly the place where all the ruckus then happened. But then there aren't many others. Also possible that it was around 01-VI-1972., which I first misremembered as being to Divčibare...

It was getting dark when we reached Užice. No hotel. Another stop-go-stop drive around the city centre, which is a pedestrian zone in the evening. And this being the last weekend of summer, everyone was out. Stopped to ask someone, and he pointed to the concrete rocket behind him, "here's the hotel... yes, it works, well, mostly, er... sometimes". There wasn't a single lightbulb on in the whole 20 storey building. So we asked someone else for directions to Zlatibor. Take a right, right again, and then just follow the road, it takes you there.

Right. There was only one roadsign on the roundabout, pointing to Čačak. So Zlatibor officially doesn't exist. So we left. Pity, Užice is marvelous for night shots, it's in such a tight valley and it is built high up the slopes on all sides. Wherever you look, there are lights on the hills. She took a few shots from the car - we couldn't even think of stopping anywhere, there's no parking space.

Eventually found a hotel in Požega. The girl at reception desk tried the usual "do you have a reservation" bullshit. Anyone who has a reservation doesn't ask for a room, he first mentions the reservation. Who asks for a room doesn't have one or wouldn't be asking. So I said "well I see your parking is full of local licence plates, what gives, half the city comes to sleep here?". Took the more expensive version (double bed, breakfast) and went across the street to eat at the place she recommended - a tavern called Krčma (tavern). The usual quasi rustic garden-like ambient, with bare brick in places, lots of wood and the rest. But the waiter was fun, and we seem to have amused him too, and on top of it the cook deserves a medal. Didn't have dark Laško, though he thought he did (which is what started the conversation), so we went for bright. And it was good.

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Mentions: 12-VI-1969., ...to 14, 01-VI-1972., čorba, ekskurzija, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Novi Sad, in serbian

13-XI-2019 - 12-I-2026