Belgrade
Trip Start
Jul 09, 2008
1
5
13
Trip End
Jul 27, 2008
Belgrade,
Serbia and Montenegro
Friday, July 18, 2008
So I got on my sleeper train. I was in the top bunk of a 6 berth couchette and rather scared at the height of it. I did find the attendant and try and get a bed in the sleeper but it was full. It was an old Austrian car and the beds were so narrow I ended up using my luggage security strap to attach myself to the bed rather than my luggage! The other people in the couchette were a German guy (who was teaching himself Romanian via his iPod and kept mumbling to himself while we were all trying to sleep....), a Canadian/Serbian girl on her annual trip from where she grew up in Canada to visit the relatives and a Serbian girl. We were joined by two v young Irish boys at Budapest. I probably got about 4 hours good sleep and some dozing but I'm not too tired today.
We arrived at Belgrade only 40 mins late which wasn't too bad. We passed by a gipsy encampment on the way in, which was an unexpected sight. It was a proper slum/shanty town, I wanted to take a photo of it as I've never seen anything like that before, and was really shocked to see something like that in Europe, in a country on the edge of the EU (physically and otherwise). But I didn't as I realised it was a bit poor taste to do so, especially in front of the Serbian girls. Oh and the rest of the carriage I found out this morning was a group from Namibia! Random! They were singing Bob Marley songs all the way on the final approach to Belgrade which was some free entertainment!
Belgrade train station is rather 'wild west', not at all what you would imagine from a capital city, it was a bit of a time warp (circa 1958!) really. The left luggage is some ramshackle shed (left only semi-attended while the bloke chain smokes outside) where I dumped my stuff. I wonder what I'll get back later..... The tourist information place didn't open til 9 so I had an hour and a half to kill before they opened as I needed to get a map and didn't get one before cos I'm only here for a few hours. I had a bit of walk around outside the station but went back in quickly to sit and drink coffee and eat a hot cheese banitsa until 9. The taxi touts I could cope with but the other people around were the sort of people you would expect find hanging out outside a train station at 7.30 in the morning.... including a woman in a massive fur coat in 20ish degree heat shouting randomly at passers-by... a whole bunch of stray dogs etc etc.
I got myself a map and headed for the Kalemegdan fortress for a wander. I've had a good wander round a lot of the old town and I love it! The architecture is just the sort of type I love. The place is chock full of street cafes which is nice so I have been going between them when the heat gets too much. Oh yes, Vienna yesterday: rain. Belgrade today: scorching. Except that when I first got to Belgrade in my discombobulated state in the train station I left my suncream in my rucksack. Doh. I think I have caught the sun a bit although I did get chatting to a young English couple at one of the cafes who invited me to join their table and who lent me some suncream and said I didn't look lobster pink or anything! They had been to the Exit festival in Novi Sad and were seeing a bit of Serbia while they were out here. They said they've really enjoyed it, the Serbian people have been very friendly and really gone out of their way to help.
I am taking a little refuge in this internet cafe from the heat and the sun. The rest of the day I'm planning to go by the parliament building, see another couple of churches and wander down this street that the Canadian/Serbian girl form the train said to wander down if we wanted to see some of the effects of the war. I've not seen much so far, only one building with bullet holes. Bit morbid I know wanting to see ruins and the effect of mortars/gunfire but I'm perverse like that I guess...
Anyway, I'll update again when I can find an internet cafe in Sofia...
