1936 On the Continent

Danube were already covered by the autumnal mists of the river when I saw a young woman coming towards me on the Embankment with little parcels in her hand. I could hardly believe my own eyes. It was Miss Glinton.
    “You, in Budapest?”
    “As you see,” she said, and laughed in my face.
    “But why didn’t you answer my letters?”
    “Where did you address them?”
    “To London, of course. …”
    “Well, that’s why. You see, I gave up my flat in London and moved to Budapest about six months ago.”
    “But how and why, I mean …?”
    “I married a Hungarian.”
    She smiled again, bowed her head, and in a minute she had disappeared in the crowd on the Embankment.

JUGOSLAVIA
by
ALEXANDER VIDAKOVI
    TABLE OF CONTENTS

JUGOSLAVIA
A Holiday in Jugoslavia
    I F your wife suggests for your next holiday something romantic, thrilling, different, and you wish to satisfy her without going to undue expense; if, in other words, you belong to that vast mass of middle-class people who are in need of a real change but must watch the cost, then you cannot do better than come to Jugoslavia.
    For Jugoslavia is not only romantic, thrilling and different, but also inexpensive, or, to be more precise, ridiculously cheap. But above all it is
different
. Not only in the sense that Jugoslavia as a country is different from other countries, but also because the contrasts within her boundaries are such that when you cross from one province into another you imagine that you are in a different country. One can almost see the Great Architect looking down on Jugoslavia with pride, not only because of its beauty and variety, but also because its 96,000 square miles represent a masterpiece of artistic condensation.
Contrasts
    Indeed, what more striking contrasts could anyone wish for than the grandeur of Slovenia’s snow-capped Alpine peaks and the sunny coast of Dalmatia, with its olive, palm, and orange groves, Bosnia’s dense forests, broken by mountain gorges and waterfalls, and the sheer, barren rocks of Montenegro, the primitive ruggedness of South Serbia, and the boundless sea of flowing wheat and maize in the Banat? And could even the most jaded traveller complain of a country which can provide him within a few hours’ run with a morning’s strenuous ski-ing in the deep snow of Mount Orjen, and an afternoon’s bathing in the most gloriously warm sea at Dubrovnik?
    There is no taste which need remain unsatisfied in Jugoslavia. The student of ancient lore may enjoy himself among the marble amphitheatres, basilicas, sculptures and mosaics of old Roman towns like Salona or Stobi, and the vast splendours of Diocletian’s palace at Split. The artist will discover absorbingly beautiful palaces, cathedrals and numerous Gothic and Renaissancebuildings in Dalmatia, as well as precious medieval frescoes in the monasteries of South Serbia. The fisherman will find abundant material for the most amazing tales of night fishing at sea, or of river trout weighing twenty pounds and more at Ogulin, Ohrid, Slovenia or Western Bosnia, and that at a cost which caused a certain English colonel to exclaim that one could travel and fish for a whole month in Jugoslavia more cheaply than rent fishing rights for the same period in England. The hunter may shoot not only partridge, hares and foxes, but also more exciting game like deer, chamois, wild boar and bear. The sportsman, finally, may choose between aquatic sports, bathing, and beating the world’s ski-ing record by jumping a full 100 metres from the highest jumping board in Europe, at Planica in Slovenia.
    But even if you belong to no such classifiable category of humanity, you need not despair. Jugoslavia has enough beautiful scenery, enough sun, and enough interesting people to refresh you and provide you with pleasant memories that will be sufficient to lighten the dreary months of enforced work and winter fog at home.
Educated Peasants
    It is the common people of Jugoslavia, with their endless variety of picturesque costumes, their quaint customs, temperamental folk dances, and vigorously rhythmic and sometimes weird songs who are one of the country’s chief attractions. All the most violent contrasts of the scenery are faithfully reproduced in their mode of life. Modern, go-ahead towns, with architecture in the latest style, and all the amenities modern science can provide, are often surrounded by quaint villages in which the patriarchal life of centuries ago still continues. In Bosnia