Another great nights sleep, due in part to a fantastic Serbian Folk show last night. Their energy totally tired us out!!
Unfortunately the photos are unable to convey the level of energy in the dancing. The performers were part of a 300 member group who tour the world.
After breakfast we headed out for a walk around the town of Vukovar. Coming from the west it is easy to forget that WW2 was not the last war in Europe. There was a lot of unrest, bombings etc. in this area of the world as recent as the 1990’s. It seems Serbia was at the root of much of this unrest. Although most of Croatia was occupied for around 3 months, it was closer to 8 years before Vukovar was returned to Croatia. The town was the first in Europe to be totally destroyed by war since 1945. More history here.
The town is, as expected, a mixture of new and old.
As we sailed into the town you could see an old water tower. Every day during the war 2 civilian vouluteers would climb the tower to raise the Croatian flag in defiance.
On the waterfront is a memorial to the people of the town who lost their lives in the conflict
Building on Main St
Storks nest in the area to mate and raise their young, then in September they head down to South Africa for the winter. They will return to the same nest next year. I was luck to catch the stork in the nest as we were walking away
When we finished our walking tour we got on a coach for a 45 minute trip into the country to have lunch with a local family. This turned out much better than I expected. Although the hosts did not (want to) speak English, they understood it quite well. This wasn’t an issue as we had interpreter with us.
The house was newly constructed after the war, as the old one was destroyed. The garden was huge, at least 100m by 15m. The husband raised fish, grew grapes, apples, vegetables, plums, blackberries, herbs etc. He was a paratrooper in the war as one of his activities as a civilian was parachuting. His wife was in intelligence. We had a 3 course Croatian meal with nearly all of the fruit and vegetables being supplied from the garden. We also had home-made blackberry liqueur and apple wine. During the meal we asked questions of the family, and they were interested in our lives. Overall a great experience.
We returned to Vukovar and spent some time in town on our own. Before the war the town was famous for shoemaking, although the original company no longer exists and the workforce has reduced from 4,000 to 800, they are still well known for quality footwear. I finally broke down and bought new pair of shoes at probably half of the cost that they would have been in Canada.
Tomorrow is our last full day, with a stop in Kalocsa, Hungary