Skull Tower

What was it with those Turks? The Serbs rebelled against them and after one particularly bloody battle in 1809 at Cegar, near Nis, Serbia, the Turkish pasha Hurshid decided to take revenge for the loss of his soldiers. The bodies of Serbian soldiers were desecrated by decapitating them. The heads were skinned, filled with cotton and sent to Istanbul as a war trophy.
But the sultan didn't think that was enough: he ordered that the skulls be taken back to Nis and put into a tower that was built by a busy road for everybody to see and consider.
This Skull Tower rose to a height of 3 meters and 952 skulls were positioned face-out, mounted on all four sides. Some of the skulls fell out or were taken out to be buried properly. About 60 of them remain.

Marshall Tito Restaurant

This was the BEST restaurant ever! We rented a car again from Zoran (don't you love that name?). He told us about this restaurant in Skopje and even though we kind of had our beaks set on going to Gina's we decided to try it out.
Not only was the food fabulous and very inexpensive, but the service was excellent and the decor was a more than a little interesting. In addition to many photos of Marshall Tito, it is a virtual museum to Communism.
Paintings, bronze busts, and posters with the likenesses of not only Tito, but Lenin, Marx, Che Gueverra and John Lennon are all over the place. I kind of get it that John Lennon was included in all this, but I don't quite understand how John F. Kennedy got so much play in there. Must be something they read. But it's a fun place with terrific food. Did I say that before? If you go there, it would probably be helpful to take a Macedonian friend with you. The menu is all in Macedonian but since we have eaten at restaurants in Serbia and Montenegro we were able to recognize a few things. Try the salty palecenko. It's killer!

Remember the Yugo?

I bet you forgot about the Yugo that was being sold in the US for maybe two years back in the 1980's, I think it was. They weren't a big success in the US but you still see them here in the Balkans. They're not in great shape but then most 20 year old cars aren't.
Traffic in the Balkans is a mixed bag of old sputtering cars, brand new Hummers, old Communist era buses, tractors and horsedrawn carts. This photo was taken in Skopje, Macedonia a few weeks ago when we were there. As you can see from the gypsies in the photo it was shirt sleeve weather which was really unusual for November.
I like to go to Skopje because it is only about an hour and a half trip, depending on how congested the border is. It's like a different world there...it has a McDonalds and a couple of really modern shopping centers. The old Turkish part of the city is really interesting, too, and gold shops are choked with gold jewelry. I would enjoy Skopje a lot more except the gypsies there are EXTREMELY aggressive in their efforts to get money out of you. They are at almost every traffic light and they come up to your car, knock on the windows or start to wash your windshield. Getting out of your car poses a problem, too, because they are right there either begging or trying to sell you a bunch of wilted flowers that look like they were pulled up from someone's garden, usually with the roots and dirt still attached. And they will not let you go.
Sorry it has been so long since I updated the blog here but it's been kind of quiet. Just trying to shop online for Christmas gifts and that's about it.