Arriving back to Niš overwhelmed me with nostalgia. After all, it reminds me the city of my birth a lot. So I just feel like coming home even though it is my second or third home (if such thing even exist). After few months in Turkey I must admit it's way colder here, but during the daytime when the sun comes out, it is actually pretty nice to walk around just in your average spring clothes...
I am staying at a place like last year, just a different and bigger apartment. 250€ a month in Airbnb style place is actually quite good for eastern european standard city - both economically and culturally. In fact Niš hosts a traditional "Nishville" jazz festival. It all happens on the premises of local old castle ruins, where I am gonna take you today with my camera.
Finally I took my favourite Fuji x100 out of it's bag as I am again somewhere, where my lifestyle resembles a base of some sort and I don't have to drag a full backpack around like I used to for quite some years already.
Putting the beast on shutter speed priority, lowering ISO to bare minimum I was able to control the camera quickly and effectively. Which wasn't hard at all during a sunny afternoon...
The wall full of graffiti welcomed me in the park of the former citadel, where local artists made quite an effort to decorate some of the old barracks with cheerful images.
Next thing was some sort of old prison remains, which actually looked more like remains of a remaining remain if you know what I mean. Just a crack house with a nice sign in front. But hey, I was looking for toalet anyway :)
Luckily I didn't step on any old rusty nail or some injection. Leaving in disgrace, I am reaching the main protective wall of the citadel, which raises a question, how must have the castle looked like before, when in it's prime time. Probably much bigger, better and more awesome. Apart from a miniature of the premises, it is also a great watch spot. Overlooking the river Nisava, one can see far and clear, on the other side is some sort of rounded staircase where young locals like to hang out at both day and night. But at this time it was against the sun and hence I don't have a picture of that...
At this time I was starving. Just down from the gateway to the park, there is my favourite burger place, just a street kiosk, which will sell you oversized Big Mack for two dollars or so. Gotta love Balkan...
Walking around the river is main thing to do apart from sipping caffe in nearby restaurants. The place looks like nobody needs to go to work. Really busy with lot of people all around. Maybe not necessarily on my pictures where I am generally avoiding people on purpose.
There is something to typical street photography, where the lines and shadows of a building stands out only when portrait without people.
Niš truly represents a bridge between western and eastern Balkan. There are some trees you would find in around Podgorica in Montenegro and an the other side some flora, which resembles some parts of Romania. After a year around this part of the world I've probably developed an eye for it...
All the best,
Global Local