I slept incredibly well, and it wasn't until 11am that I finally made it into Nis town to explore it. My Serbian has become very proficient and it was easy to negotiate my way into town by public transport. My first stop was the supposedly interesting fortress that the Turks most recently re-built when they occupied Nis. Unfortunately it was pretty much all closed and the National and Ethnographic Museums didnt seem to exist. So I strolled around the fortress and market for an hour in the sunshine, taking it all in.

Pretty disappointed I took the bus to see what the guidebook describes as Nis's most gruesome exhibit, the Cele Kula (or tower or skulls). This was built in 1809 when the Turks finally quashed a Serb uprising. In punishment the Turks ordered the Serb survivors to cut off the heads of the dead, skin them and then build a tower in which their skulls were cemented on the outside. The result was a 4m high "tower" with nearly 1000 skulls embedded and a pretty nasty reminder to the Serbs "not to do it again". The tower entrance was actually locked when I arrived, since there arent many tourists about, but a short scout found the man with the key and an English guide to explain it.

According to the guide, 200m down the road was the Archaeological Park which contained the ruins of Emperor Constantine's Palace. What I hadn't yet realised was that in Serbia when someone says 200m they actually mean, bizarrely, 2km! So I walked and walked and walked until I almost gave up hope and came accross a small sign pointing me to the ruins. It all looked terribly unofficial and before long I had strolled into what appeared to be someone's house. I knocked and politely asked if the museum was open to which I was told that it wasn't open yet but that I shoudl sit down and have a drink of his homemade plum grappa. Not being one to decline such an invitation I accepted and he went off to fetch the drink. As if from thin air someone else arrived and when he found out that I was Swiss and could speak french we got chatting. He was called Pedrag and explained most of the history of the ruins and various other bits form Nis. He was obviously incredibly intelligent and had been working for the National Museum for over 30 years.

A few drinks later and a coffee to finish it up , he offerred me a lift into town in his old Renault 4 which I cautiously accepted given the number of drinks we'd had. I grabbed a bite to eat and then wandered over to one of the preserved concentration camps in Nis - but alas it was closed and the lady at the desk spoke rather broken English and a lot of Serbian I didn't understand. So I headed back to Nishka Banja for a beer and some supper.