Just outside Belgrade lies the village of Vinča, which has given its name to an entire archaeological culture. It has been lying there for some eight thousand years. It could, of course, have got up at any point and gone off somewhere else, but it has never wanted to. It is a stubborn village. And this obstinacy has made it famous: few places in Europe can claim so long an unbroken record of people simply staying put. What is best about Vinča is that great age has not made it in the least solemn.
Vinča also possesses a fish restaurant by the name of Da Vinci u Vinči. Leonardo, needless to say, had nothing whatever to do with it—and what, after all, is the Italian Renaissance beside the Serbian Neolithic?
We did not get into the restaurant. The cat did. Or rather, the cat got into the photograph, while making the most determined efforts to get into the restaurant. The food there must be good. Cats are not fools.
