Belgrade, Part 3-- back again! (After Novi Sad) Saint Sava Temple; Misc. architecture/churches

 After my week in Novi Sad, I returned to Belgrade for 3 nights, as my impending flight to Mexico departs September 1st. Unbelievably, as soon as I arrived, I was faced with more travails dealing with Airbnbs: I first arrived at "airbnb number one", aka (in the listing) the "Comfy Oasis", which turned out to be the misnomer of the millenia!!! True, it WAS, as listed, in the center of Belgrade (the historical--and most desireable--part to stay in), but an "oasis"?!?! Heck, no!! The supposed "one bedroom" was little more than a closet! I mean, truly claustrophobic! But, far worse than that, the run-down apartment building was adjacent to a mammoth structure where VERY loud construction was going on! I am talking about jack hammerimg sounds.... clanging, banging, buzzing... throw in whatever other construction adjectives you can imagine... and that was the noise that residents of this apartment building were being subjected to!!!

Needless to say, I immediately contacted Airbnb to cancel my stay. By some miracle, the host actually agreed to a FULL refund... a blessing, true, but then I had to scramble to find a replacement. ALWAYS a challenge, but worse under this kind of pressure. I finally settled on another Airbnb--it had 5 stars from 10 guests. I of course wrote to the host and asked my 4 most critical questions, namely: 1) Is it QUIET?!? That is to say, free from traffic noise (especially at night); 2) Is the wifi strong, because I do video conferencing for my online English lessons; 3) are there adequate cookng facilities for me to do most of my own cooking? 4) Is this a non-smoking rental?  If the answer to all four is "yes", then I generally book the place. This was the case with my replacement Airbnb, rental #2. (The price was also good; at about $30 per night, it was comparable to the "Oasis". ) Well! Truly, I am cursed... as it turned out, the young man who was my "host" at the new place lied through his teeth!!! The studio apartment (admittedly, newly renovated and tastefully put together) was RIGHT on a BUSY road!!! What is more, it was located on a slight hill, with a speed bump right in front of the unit, so that all the cars and trucks coming up the street had to rev their engines after slowing down to go over the speed bump... and, it short, it was utter hell. AND the noise from this traffic continued all through the night! (On my first morning in the unit, a rumbling truck woke me up at  4:30 a.m. ...consequently, I was a wreck for the entire day!!)  I told the host that I was NOT happy with his lack of honesty about the traffic noise... he alternated between being defensive about it (NO place is "quiet" in the city of Belgrade, he protested!) and being apologetic. Ultimately, he offered me a discount and the option of cancelling and going somewhere else the third night (the most critical one, as it preceeded the long, 20-hour journey to Mexico.)  I accepted this... and so, I toughed it out for the subsequent 2 nights, managing to sleep with the aid of medication... not optimal, to be sure!!

In any event, on the positive side of things, I had a nice--but brief---last visit/stroll with Mukti, and visited the famous Saint Sava Church-- a massive, orthodox church that is presumably the second largest in all of Europe. Most impressive to me, however, was the vast amount of mosaics covering almost every bit of wall and ceiling space. They were guilded, incredibly bright and gorgeous! See for yourself... 


Part 1: Saint Sava Church-- The church is dedicated to Saint Sava, the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church,  and an important figure in medieval Serbia. It is built on the presumed location of St. Sava's grave. It is the largest Orthodox church in Serbia, one of the largest Eastern Orthodox churches, and it ranks among the largest churches in the world.  The church contains a symmetrical layout which allows for a great amount of light due to its large dome and four apses. Most impressive is the  130,000 sq. ft. of gold mosaics. Construction began in 1935, and after numerous modifications, was finally completed in 1985.

 























Part 2: The "lesser" church; strangely enough, only perhaps 100 meters away from Saint Sava! While not at all impressive from the outside, it was quite beautiful--and quite new--on the inside...



Just LOVED the beard on this guy!!!


While not as brilliant and impressive as the labor-intensive mosaics of St. Sava, I nontheless found these paintings beautiful--and certainly elaborate--in their own right... 





Part 3: My last stroll in the Belgrade center, and photos of architecture....
















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