I think it would be safe to say that we have a thing for mosaics. Especially ancient Roman mosaics. In another Serbian suprise I give you Constantine the Great’s Roman villa in Medijana, Nis, Serbia.
Built in 306, it’s hard to imagine how large and sophisticated this villa is, featuring heated floors, saunas, gymnasium, a water tower, a colonnaded courtyard, and more tile mosaics than I’ve ever seen in any one place.
The first thing you notice is the fantastic expanse of this beautiful and clever building erected to protect the villa. Although Roman artifacts can be found all over the flat plains of Mediana, we found it hard to keep in mind that this is just one man’s home, but then if you think about it, Constantine does carry the moniker, “The Great.”
One of the many brick fireplaces used to heat floors and water.
Endless permutations on geometric tile motifs.
Marce inspects the peristyle colonnade courtyard.
Six sided fountain room.
You could spend days in this place but time waits for no one and we have a date with a Bulgarian border crossing.
Many of the countries we’re traveling through have recently signed on to the travelers’ curse known as the Schengen Agreement. Those countries allow citizens of non-member countries to travel freely within the Zone for 90 days out of 180 days. Then you have to leave the Zone until you’ve saved up enough days Out before you can re-enter. If you overstay your allotted 90-days-out-of-180 you could get fined or banned from re-entry for a period of up to five years. So it’s good to keep track of your Days In. To find out where we stand on the Schengen countdown Marce consults several apps that purport to be the official accounting of our days left in Schengen land. It’s a rolling calendar, so you don’t have to do exactly 90 In/90 Out. And that’s why tomorrow when we cross into Serbia we will be leaving the Schengen Zone for awhile, and need to keep track of our Days Out.
We’ve got a beautiful day for it and it’s not a big crossing so we’re expecting a smooth time of it.
Looks like mountain passes and rough tunnels are going to be the order of the day. We crossed the Danube River at the Iron Gates, a UNESCO Heritage site which forms the boundary between Romania and Serbia. This last gorge on the Danube also separates the Carpathian from the Balkan mountains.
This rock sculpture of King Decebalus is said to be the tallest rock sculpture in Europe, carved somewhere between 13,000 to 5,000 years ago, which I think pins it down pretty well.
Soon we find ourselves in the mountains again and when rounding a curve on a steep downhill slope we saw a view so magnificent that I quickly pulled over into a gravel roadside overview, covered in a cloud of dust.
The Danube River my ancestors floated past
It was a brakes don’t fail me now moment.
We decided that there was no other view we’d rather wake up to, so we stayed the night.
In the morning we selfied and paused a few moments to let this magnificent view soak in one last time.
Down the mountain we cautiously went.
Marce had found a small garden like parkup where there were signs extolling the virtues of the heroes of the battle of Cegar in 1809. We enjoy a good memorial so in true Escapee tradition we were off.
Turns out ya pays your money and you waits your turn.
It seems the Serbs badly lost the battle against the Turks, so they shot at their own powder magazine preferring an honorable death, being blown to smithereens, than slavery under the Turks. The Turks built this memorial in an attempt to frighten the Serbs but didn’t understand the mentality of who they were dealing with. The freedom-loving Heroes of Cegar.
Yes the Turks built a Tower using those dead Serbian hero’s skulls
But, funseekers, this is not even what we came for. Stay tuned for the next installment of fun in Serbia.
