As I entered the Smederevo Fortress, the sun was already high above the Danube, illuminating the old stone ramparts with a golden glow. The wind gently carried the scent of the river and spring, and the laughter and shouts of children could be heard from the courtyard of the fortress. That day, the fortress came to life in a completely different way, it became the kingdom of dinosaurs.
As soon as I stepped inside, I was greeted by the thunderous roar of a tyrannosaurus. A huge figure, almost real, moved its head and opened its mouth, while children screamed with excitement and ran around it, some with phones in hand, others with lollipops and balloons. The parents tried to catch up, smiling and panting as they explained, "Look, son, that's the biggest predator that ever lived!"
I walked down the aisle between models that looked so believable that for a moment I felt as if I had stepped into the distant past. Next to me, on a pedestal, stood a ceratosaurus with its distinctive horn on its snout, as if looking me straight in the eye. His skin was covered in patterns in shades of brown and green, and he looked like he was about to step and growl at any moment.
A little further, in the shade of the old wall, there was a showcase with fossils of ammonites, spiral shells that once lived in ancient seas. The sun's rays reflected on their stone forms, making them sparkle like jewels.
The atmosphere was cheerful and playful. Children ran on the grass, pretending to be little paleontologists, digging in the sand looking for "dinosaur bones", while parents rested on the benches with a cold drink. The sounds of the jungle and dinosaurs were occasionally heard from the public address system, so the whole fortress turned into a real scene from the movie "Jurassic Park".
I stood on one of the ramparts and looked around, the fortress was full of visitors, and above it was a blue sky without a single cloud. At that moment, I felt some strange combination of past and imagination: medieval walls, the Danube flowing through the ages, and between all these creatures that walked the earth millions of years ago.
The day was perfect and sunny, colorful and full of joy. I felt a childlike excitement fill me, the same one I had once upon a time when I was flipping through the dinosaur encyclopedia for the first time.
On that day, Smederevo Fortress was not only a monument of history, it was a time machine. And as I exited through its massive gates, I could have sworn that somewhere behind me, I once again heard the low, distant, but real roar of a tyrannosaurus.