23-5-11
Hotel Royal, Belgrade
Finally – the bike ride! We met Rolf at the bike shop…this time having double checked that he was going to come! When we arrived, we were informed that Rolf was using our group to participate in an advertisement bit for his bike tour company. A local reporter and camera crew would follow us around and maybe even interview a few of us. We were told to act like they weren’t there and just “be normal.” An easier task than you would think actually.
We soon took off on our route. Rolf is a riot – a great guy, he loves the city, and he genuinely loves people. We started in Belgrade, passed by Kalemegdan, and took the elevator up the side of a bridge and crossed it into New Belgrade where we bike through neighborhood and past the seat of Tito’s government, Hotel Yugoslavia, and the Western Gate of Belgrade (a large office and housing complex built by Tito) before jamming eighteen people and seventeen bike into a small ferry back to Belgrade and where we were to eat lunch.
Rolf focused his tour on the recent history of Belgrade, attempting to never go back more than seventy years. The most interesting thing, to me, that he told us was actually quite early in the trip. While on the bridge into New Belgrade, he stopped us and pointed out a tower rising above the park trees. That tower had been built prior to World War Two. When the Nazi’s conquered Serbia in WWII, that spot was almost ready-made to be a concentration camp – all they had to do was put a fence around. After the war, the place was quickly dismantled and within 10 years of the war, the Roma (gypsies) were already moving back into the park where they had been slaughtered by the Germans. Now there is not a trace of the former concentration camp. No museum. No plaque. Nothing. Nothing except that single grey spire.
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