Monastery and church tours are all the rage in Serbia. At least that's how it seems. I can't say that touring these religious buildings makes much of an impression on me. Most of the time I listen to the tour guide and what he's saying goes in one ear and out the other. This weekend we went to see the Oplenac Royal Mausoleum about an hour and 20 minutes outside Belgrade. I can't say I retained more of the historical lesson but the visuals got my attention. It's a gorgeous building that sits on a hill. Very with and bright.
More impressive than the outside is the inside. It is completely covered in small mosaic tiles which are a sort of a museum of reproductions of the frescoes from the Serbian medieval arts. According to wikipedia (and possibly the guide we had), "The entire mosaic has 725 painted compositions (513 in the temple and 212 in the crypt), on which there are 1500 figures. The entire area of the mosaic is 3,500 square metres (38,000 sq ft); with 40 million various coloured pieces of glass which have 15 thousand different varieties of colour, making the most vivid artistic impression."
Many people take better pictures than I do. You can see a good set of pics by a photographer I do not know on flickr : http://www.flickr.com/photos/jup3nep/tags/oplenac/ . The mosaic continues into the tombs beneath the church where many members of the Karadorde family are buried. It's the most sparkly and glittery catacomb I've ever seen.
After ogling the mosaics for a while we went for a great lunch and wine tasting at a local winery. If I must visit churches, I'd like all tours to end in such fashion.
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