These are excerpts from an April 2009 letter.
Spring has arrived and I have spent as much time as possible overcoming vitamin D deficiency drinking espresso on sunny sidewalks and walking through Belgrade’s and Novi Sad’s parks.
On Saturday Suzi and I drove to Novi Sad, Serbia’s second city, a Hapsburg town on the Danube a little over 100 kilometers north of Belgrade. We visited friends and took a look at the Novi Sad School of Journalism weekend school. We had a stroll along the Danube and enjoyed the views of the citadel across the river and the colorful storefronts on the pedestrian streets. The Catholic Cathedral dominates the main square.
The Citadel was called “The Gibraltar of the Danube. It is on a big rock that dominated this river highway. The clock in the tower is backward. The hour hand is the long hand and the minute is the short hand. The reason was that the hour was more important than the minute in earlier times not as obsessed with time. The larger hand was more easily visible from boats navigating the river from the Habsburg Empire to European Turkey.
The Citadel has a hotel and restaurant. I have attended symposia in the citadel and enjoy lunch on the terrace overlooking the river and looking down into the narrow streets of Old Town Novi Sad.
