Churches and an Earthquake

Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016--Prizren

Churches here tend to be locked much of the time.  Therefore, Sunday is the best time to see them.  Today, I visited two cathedrals--the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral and the Catholic Cathedral.  Both are just a block from my hotel in different directions.

Most Serbian churches were greatly damaged in the war against Belgrade's efforts to hold as much of Yugoslavia together as possible by force.  Some have had no restoration at all and are closed.  But St. George Orthodox Cathedral has been restored to a great extent and can be visited.  Unfortunately, when it was burned in the early 2000s, the frescoes were lost.  The beautiful woodwork inside has been rebuilt, but the walls are now a simple white color.  Next door to it, the small St. George Church which is older has also been restored.  Its ceiling and wall frescoes remain, since it was not burned as a part of the war.

The Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, the Catholic Co-Cathedral for all of Kosovo, is also undergoing restoration and has nice, old frescoes on its ceiling.  It is only open for the 11:00 o'clock mass on Sundays, so I went there at the beginning of mass this morning to see the inside of it.

After seeing the churches, I walked out to the edge of town where I found the animal market which was doing a booming business today due to the tradition of slaughtering a live animal on the holiday that will be tomorrow.  Most of the animals for sale and being bought were lambs.  But there were also turkeys, chickens, and cattle.  Every family either buys its own animal or poorer families go together to share in the purchase of an animal they share.  Everywhere I looked, the legs of live animals were being tied and then the animal hoisted into the back of a truck, an SUV, or the trunk of a car!  Tomorrow is one of the two most important holidays of the year for Muslims, so everyone seemed to be in an excited mood with the wives shopping for other needed items at the fruit and vegetable market and at other stores while the men handled the buying and selling of the animals.

Back at the hotel, I was in bed working on the computer when we had an earthquake.  Research on the Internet showed it was centered at Cair in northern Macedonia not far from here.  It was a 5.3 quake and didn't last long, but it had my bed wobbling rather strongly for 3-4 seconds.

In the evening, I clarified my plans for tomorrow.  I will pack and check out of my room at noon.  I still have one tourist site I want to see, so I will go there and I may sit and read somewhere.  Then I will be back here at the hotel at 14:00 to be picked up by the father of the men who run the hotel.  He will drive me about 30 minutes away to meet the bus from Pristina headed to Tirane on the highway.  The bus should be expecting us.  I just hope it all goes well!!