My aunt and I recognised each other straight away on the very small station at Sremski Karlovci. Anka is a very warm caring individual and we both felt welcome straight away. Her and I talked flat out all the 3 days we were there about everything imaginable while Rick tried to understand, amused himself as best as he could. Anka has a lot of wise sayings such as; a a wise man doesn’t need to be given money and a fool doesn’t know what to do with it! Anka also is a very generous cook, so we ate up hearty meals of mostly home grown fruit and vegetables and meat. We went to the cemetry which has her husband Stevo and my grandmother Boja buried there. It was good to go there and see the site but sad to see that Ankas face and birth date is already etched next to her husband on the granite stone , all that is necessary is her casket and her date of death which hopefully will be a long time as she’s only 68! The town is one of the cultural centres of Serbia and has just been made the official legal centre with the main court of Serbia moving here in Belgrade’s process of decentralisation. The has been part of several different dynasties starting off as a Roman fort , passing over to the House of Hasbbourg , the Ottoman Empire and back to the House of Hasbourg(later the Austrian-Hungarian Empire) following the treaty of Karlovitz- which was signed here and ended hostilities between the two. The solid stone buildings of its streets are heritage listed. The population is largely Serbian in origin. At the end of Ulica Mitripolita Stratimirovica (Anka’s street ) is a mineral spring which runs continuously and has people coming from far and wide to collect the water. The town is situated on the Danube river 8 km from Novi Sad . During a walk along the banks of the Danube there were many frogs hopping into the water when I disturbed then and I also happened across a metre long black coloured snake which no doubt preys on them .
