Konak Knezevina Vranic

... in the citadel which essentially docuements how the people of the balkans have been kickin the sh1te out of each other, at fifty year intevals, going right back to the 4th century. As well as uniforms of captured US pilots and soldiers, they've a panel from the stealth bomber shot down in 1999. At the time, they gave most of the plane to the Russians to have an auld goo at, much to the dleight of the Yanks no doubt.

... to the Chornobyl Museum in Kiev for rendering something completely unintelligible in very pretty colours. The Tesla Museum is the exact opposite, an eye opening example of what can be done without a great deal of money but which brings a story to life. Tesla was a man who made discoveries and earned a huge number of patents in the field of electrical engineering. He successfully demonstrated the case for Alternating Current (AC) versus Edison's preference for ...

... off to Budapest, so we parted ways after a few hours of fun train riding and some great scenery. (the Bathrooms on the train were another matter... HORRIBLE!!! It's best that we just don't talk about it.) We got off at our transfer stop, which was in the middle of nowhere. As usual, the middle of nowhere is a major hub for trains, so we had a nice hour and a half wait before getting on our train to Belgrade. We ended up in a car with an interesting fellow. He was a ...

By Kim: We were joined on the train to Belgrade by a friendly German woman who works on a WWOOFing farm (willing workers on organic farms). She has lived in Serbia for the past five years and was able to tell us a bit about Serbia and its people. We decided to stay at a hotel recommended by our friend Paolo and spent our first day exploring the citadel, a massive area of ruins ...

The next morning we slept in and had a delicious breakfast. We didn't do anything Eastery with the family, except crack hard boiled colored eggs just like you do in bulgaria (you hit 2 ends together and the egg that doesn't break is the winner.) Nikola and I went for a walk in the park in the early afternoon and met a couple of his friends there. After some pictures at home we took a bus back to Belgrade then back to the apartment, where I had about ...

On Saturday morning I woke up early to get a bus back to Belgrade. The trams were supposed to be running but after waiting 20 minutes I had to take a taxi, as I was afraid I would miss the bus. I arrived in Belgrade in the early afternoon and lay around in a grassy square waiting for Nikola to get off work. The reason I had rushed back to Belgrade was to spend Easter with Nikola's family in his home town of Arandjelovac, about 1.5 hours south of Belgrade. After he got off work ...

I spent the next day with Milos, my original CS host. It was great to have someone show me around and to go out to lunch with. As far as I can tell Serbian food is basically the same as Bulgarian, only with better quality meat. And the beer is better. We had a great day walking around and talking. Belgrade isn't so different from Sofia, just a bit nicer. What really sets it apart is having a nice pedestrian area right in the center. That's what Sofia is ...

... on, but my bus was leaving and I had to go. Everyone has been shockingly friendly, often going far out of their way to help me out. The Latin map and Cyrillic street signs can be very difficult. There were also no large buildings to help navigate. I am shocked at how beautiful Belgrade was. I expected a lot of rubble. I did learn that the city has been rebuilt 40 times. Perhaps that is why the people were able to just pick up the pieces ...

The weather held for the whole week, September and October have been glorious for this trip. Although a lot of the route to Bucharest was only following the Danube in principle- dedicated riverside bike-paths being a luxury Serbia and Romania have not yet found time for- there was some memorable scenery and several interesting characters. The majority of the ride was as you probably imagine, fields- a multitude of different fields of crops. There was corn, corn ...

I got out of my wagon car and Thomas the train engine was there to greet me. I asked about how to get to the airport and the woman at the information booth answered me in Serbian. Out came the LP guidebook and I walked a kilometer to where the JAT (Jugoslav Airline Transport) airport bus left for the airport. At seven am Belgrade was already bustling with morning traffic. There was enough diesel fuel in the air to suggest that everyone had ...