Novi Sad

This morning I watched the sun come up up on the great Imperial fortress of Peterwardein opposite the second largest city in Serbia, Novi Sad. Despite the efforts of Tito and the nationalist tendencies after WWI, German influence was everywhere and is being celebrated more and more as they realize what brings in tourists.

How many towns do you know of with city maps on display everywhere?

Also evident are the houses of the nouveau riche, sometimes the result of black market activities as I said before.  But at least not everyone is poor now. Modernization is being carried out at an alarming rate, the whole town is a free wi-fi zone. Everyone seems to have a cell phone or a tablet or a laptop.

Yet the socialist past is not too far distant. The ubiquitous, ugly, uninspired flats are just on the outskirts of town, like everywhere else we've seen so far.

Along the river later, we saw many small Serbian towns to the east and Croatian towns to the west, many with a little church on a hilltop.