To be honest, I haven't always dreamed of visiting the Balkans like I'd dreamed of visiting France, Spain or Australia, or still dream of visiting Argentina and Bali. All those news reports of this region back in the '90s definitely made me weary of this region, the way the Middle East would feel now. But when I discovered the Balkan Adventure tour in the Intrepid Travel brochure, I was intrigued. I had been thinking about taking a trip around Eastern Europe, and thought that this trip would fit nicely with the other places I wanted to go. All of the places the tour stopped in (including Belgrade and Sarajevo) sounded fascinating, and i knew that visiting soon after the conflicts would be especially interesting. In fact, all of the countries I have/will be visiting had tragic 20th century histories. Here in the Balkans, the tragedies are still fresh on people's minds because they were so recent.

Upon arrival in Novi Sad, Serbia, I expected to find a sleepy town still struggling to emerge from the 1999 NATO bombing of that city that destroyed several bridges. Instead, I found a fairly vibrant city and citizenry that didn't seem at all as if it had been touched by war in the last 10 years. Many locals spoke English and were eager to help us visitors feel comfortable, perhaps in an effort to rebuild their tourism industry and to present a softer view of Serbs than the one that had been portrayed in the media during the Balkan wars.

It was only about 2 months ago that Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, and Belgrade erupted in protest against the international community for recognizing its nationhood. By now, the city is calm, and once again it's difficult to imagine the city being bombed less than 10 years ago. On an orientation walk with a local guide today, I learned that the breakup of the former Yugoslavia is still a touchy subject, and it appears that the Serbs never even accepted the independence of Bosnia. This is a region where ethnic identities run very deep, and understanding the wars of the 1990s is definitely much more complicated than the two world wars. 

Serbia's got a long way to go if it wants to attract the tourist numbers of Hungary, Poland, or even Croatia. I didn't encounter any other tourists here aside from our group. But that's why I decided to come this year, to get a glimpse of a region that could soon becom overwhelmed with tourism the way Krakow and Prague have become. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to Sarajevo, the highlight of the trip according to our tour leader.