24-IX-2016.
(most of text here, and on the day before, comes from what I wrote on suština, so the style is somewhat different)
The hotel has its own touristic point of interest - the staircase. All the rooms are upstairs, all six (the tavern is below), access from the sidestreet entrance. The first few passes felt weird, until it dawned on us that the stairs were done by a naive mason. They are of unequal heights, the fourth and seventh are quite taller, and fifth, sixth and tenth somewhat lower than the average. By the time you come down, you sober up.
The souvenirs are a part of the spa folklore. We all, more or less, grew in houses where there at least three pieces emblazoned with „greetings from Vrnjačka Banja“. Small pots, džezvas, pieces of wood with a photo of the building with ship's windows. Granma used to fry for me hen's (engrbian: chicken) liver in one such small pot.
So we took the morning walk browsing the souvenir stands. We notice that the spa culture goes so far that the natives aren't agressively pushing their wares, no sleeve pulling, no peddlers roaming, and above all, no turbo folk music (v. narodnjaci)! Though, other kinds of music is also absent, nobody's turning up the amps. If that's also part of the folklore, kudos.
I do buy a souvenir, but not a back scratcher or any other gadget, but again, as per tradition, something that will be used for a long time - an ashtray. With letters in cyrillic, which is becoming rare even here.
Whether it's the air or the water, the walk we take is quite long - from the roundabout at the entrance into the city, all the way to the other end of the promenade. And back, of course. By the bridge nearest to the hotel there are two cafes with huge terraces. I took a shot of the right one last evening, they hung the lights in an interesting manner, but I wasn't satisfied with the result. Neither are they with the business - they always have many vacant tables, while the one on the left is always chock full. Takes a sharp eye to spot a vacant one, which we manage - trusting the regulars to know why they frequent the place.
The turkish/domestic folklore changed somehow. Once it was customary to serve it with a couple of sugar cubes and that was it. Now how where*, but apart from sugar, usually some sweet is served too. Two days ago, at a nondescript cafe on the big gray cube's parking lot we got the grape sweet with a glass of properly chilled water, as if we were some guests. Here, a piece of ratluk (rahat lokum would be the full turkish name of it) in cellophane. And the ice cream was great, and the eos70 chose to focus on it, or perhaps I was getting into the hang of what it does and what should I do to it.
For lunch, the menu for full pansioners had green peas, sweet cabbage and some nonsense. I said peas, but the hotel owner said cabbage, with a slight wink. Obviously, he knew something we didn't, so we took him on his word and it was great. Good, excellent, with ribs and bacon, and not such a big dose as yesterday, so we won't drop dead when we go for the afternoon walk. There's some folklore festival on the main square in the afternoon, so we went up into the room for a nap until it starts.
Whether it was the cabbage or that air, we slept like cannons and arrived at that festival with some delay, but not too late.
...After these guys it was some Bulgarians, soundrack from a mp3 player, and there I understood why some people can't stand bagpipes. It's off tune completely. Though, you can't expect pastors to know exacly where to make holes to get the right tones, but at least for performances abroad they could get a proper recording. Or the offtunedness is a part of that tradition that nobody dares touch, and then they wonder why the audience begins to leave. Well, that didn't take long; then some female singing company performed, at least half of them close to our age but their voices carry. This also sounds untuned, but almost. They hit the same half-tone (or quarter?) each time, half of them jump in at the exactly same place into what the other half is singing, and the whole construction is really quite complex, it's that we aren't used to this kind of tonality, strange intervals and the rhythm which is there but with a long step and probably a very odd count. Serves me well to love complicated music, eh? During their second song she drags me into more walk. The other way. Delay the dinner, walk, walk, walk.
And we stayed in the park until the lights came on and illuminated the Roman bath. The building I saw so many times on various souvenirs (even in Slovenia!) that it comes somehow unreal to see it for real. What see, take my own shot!
In the military hotel there's a wedding, and just as we passed by, someone opened a window and a strike wave of turbo folk rushed out. We supposed that, by some energy conservation law, the folks inside were relieved by the same amount. By the time we reached the square, it wasn't heard anymore. Only a minute and a half for the whole vacation, all of it in public places, excellent.
In the morning we ate breakfast and hit the road. Had a coffee just at Pojate, before entering the highway, because then we'd have little choice. We manage to drop by the airport again, as the sign to our exit to Zrenjanin and Pančevo says only „Batajnica“ - even Zemun isn't important enough. Since I rarely approach it from the south, I didn't recognize it and whizzed by. The next chance to turn is at the airport. We arrive home at lunchtime.
Dropped by dad's, found aunt Milica, waiting for her cousin to pick her up and drive her home. At home all the eleven cats, ten hens (one died the following week), one rooster and three hedgehogs were waiting. The hedgehogs then stopped appearing, now whether already estivating, who knows. We'll see them when we see them.
I knitted 335 shots for the weekend, and we walked at least 10km on saturday alone, slept well and had good time. Even my tinnitus shut up (returned on monday). And I still don't know how many kilometers I made (the Gugao whispers „623 kilometers“), but the saxo is a little French, at Citroën's even the smallest cars are comfortable, I didn't even feel tired.
It turns out we have both visited Vrnjačka once upon a time, though I couldn't remember when (there, later, fes brought up the picture - summer 1972).
----
* „how where“ means „differs from place to place“
Mentions: 18-I-2013., aunt Milica, engrbian, eos70, fes, Gugao, narodnjaci, saxo, suština, in serbian
16-XI-2021 - 30-VI-2024