Throw back to early November...
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| Christmas is coming! |
One of the "unfortunate" things about travel is you can't see or fit in everything you want to. Comparing our situation to others we've met, we aren't really pressed for time overall (and shouldn't really be complaining). We had organised a workaway in Romania, and it has given us a bit of direction and a date to work to as we traverse across the Balkans. After Macedonia we found ourselves at the cross roads. Bulgaria or Serbia? We could only fit in one..
Travelling to Serbia and Belgrade for me was something I wanted to take a week or more to do as I reckon it has a lot to offer. From Skopje I wanted to head to Bulgaria and explore Sofia, and wander across to the Black Sea before heading to Romania. Amy convinced me otherwise and we decided to take an 8 hour bus to Belgrade for a couple of nights instead then head to Romania and spend some time around Brasov... Hopefully we can see Bulgaria another time.
Overall we were looking forward to heading to Belgrade, since we've spent so much time in the Balkans, we had come across a lot of fellow travellers who've been to Serbia and only had good things to say. Also, we were fascinated to see what the former capital of Yugoslavia looked like and hear its side of the story from the Balkan wars and communism.
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| Long busses makes my eye go lazy and beard look less dense - more like a goate. |
The trip didn't kick off as planned, we missed the first train in Skopje at 10am (internet timetable wasn't correct), so we had to wait until 1pm - we locked our bags in locker and went to the nearby shopping centre to kill some time for a couple of hours, drink some coffee and scab some wi-fi. TIP: always when travelling through the balkans, check train times at the station.
Our first pure Serbian experience was when we'd reached a bus stop to switch buses at Nis, the bus driver didn't speak any English so we didn't realise that we had to do this, but thankfully a local on the bus could translate to us and helped us get off the bus. I was busting for a piss, but as per usual you needed to pay for the toilets at the station... Amy struck up a conversation with a young bloke in a cafe who was telling her how poor the country (and more specifically the town) was while I was flapping around looking for an ATM, we didn't have any Serbian money (dinar) or Euros which would have been accepted, and there wasn't an ATM at the bus station... man... the young Serbian bloke was very kind and tried to give us money but we refused after his poverty conversation....... I ended up jumping the fence around the station and taking a leak up an ally close to the bus station - I didn't want to do that, because spending money in the Balkans I reckon makes a difference, but it was desperate times. We took the small chaotic break in between busses to have our dinner - tuna on rice cakes. I split tuna juice everywhere staining my jeans and Amy's shirt, we were in shambles.
Off the bus at Belgrade and it was cold!! Directly across from the station was an undercover parking area with a lot of homeless people camped out. This wasn't really what we had expected to see right in the middle of town.
We had a really affordable AirBnB in Belgrade, $32AUD per night for an entire apartment about 20 minutes walk from the centre of town - the best value for money accommodation of the trip! The host's even picked us up from the train station at 10pm. This was the 8th of November and the night of the US election. We kicked back with a cuppa tea and watch it all unfold on CBS for a couple of hours before hitting the sack after a pretty eventful day.
Day 1 - we kicked it off with a run around our neighbourhood. It was bloody cold and had rained all night so it was a little wet under foot. After breakfast we were undecided on whether or not to do a walking tour so we just wandered into town after brekky to have a look around, we ended up heading to the old fort - Kalmegdan Tvrdjava and the military history museum to get out of the cold and wet!
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| Starting to get those Christmas feels in the centre of Belgrade - Knez Mihailova Belgrades main pedestrian and shopping street |
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| It was COLD! views from the fortress over the Danube and Sava rivers and what we could see through the fog of Belgrade across the rivers. |
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| Actual armour from a knight - I really found the museum interesting. There was weapons and armour from early Roman times, right through to shrapnel and displays from when the NATO launched air attacks on the city in the late 90's Kosovo War. To conclude our trip through these Yugoslav countries, visiting the museum was really worth it. |
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| Tito! |
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| Selfie with Tito! |
After the few hours at the museum we were hankering for a feed, and we actually stumbled across Submarine BBQ - the same burger franchise we loved in Zagreb and again it did not disappoint! Brendan was so worried with how expensive this burger place was though in comparison to Zagreb and after a little while of stressing out about cashola Amy realised she had given Brendan the wrong exchange rate, oops! The burgers weren't that expensive after all. After freezing our tits off all day outside, we went on the hunt for some merino thermals but didn't do any good.
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| Ahhhh, the YUGO - plenty of these around all the old Yugoslav countries. What a beauty. |
Day 2 - suns out, lets do the walking tour.
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| Tour meeting place in front of the currently renovated town hall. |
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| First stop - Skadarlija Street know as the bohemian quarter of Belgrade. Just a couple of hundred metres from the city centre. For traditional affordable tucker this looked like the place. We've had enough grilled minced meat in bread (civapi) with raw onion so didn't check this out. |
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| Complementary Rajkia, honey flavoured too, not the overly traditional stuff we're used to but the top shelf rather. Happily consumed before lunchtime. |
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| One of the older type buildings in the town dating back to 1850 managed to survive the wars and bombings. Our walking tour host was doing A LOT of talking and it was at this point we lost a few of the group unfortunately. |
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| Zindan Gate at the medieval Kalemegdan fortress. |
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| Belgrade has a lot of history - the fortress shows many of the people who've conquered and settled, each have had a crack at strengthening the fort's walls. You can see different types of stone and building techniques used from the Romans, Ottomans, Austro-Hungarians etc. |
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| The statue of Pobednik - a naked bloke and popular attraction is sort of hidden and facing away from the fort purposely by the people of Belgrade because his lack of clothing apparently (naked). |
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| Yugoslavia 1993-94 went through a period of hyperinflation, between October 1993 and the end of January 1995 prices increase by 5 quadrillion percent. This is a fake 500 billion Yugoslav dinar, the largest nominal value ever officially printed in Yugoslavia. |
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| The Ruzica Church tucked away in the side of the fortress walls, its unique because of it's two chandeliers made from bullets, swords and rifles. Its a humble size but boasts some pretty impressive art! |
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| Amsterdam fries - we couldn't walk past them and they didn't disappoint with a beer of course! |
Nikola Tesla Museum - couldn't miss this sucker and we just caught the last tour of the day! Nikola didn't spend any time in Belgrade but they honour his existence through this museum which houses his ashes and a fair bit of his estate - some of his testing equipment, blank letter heads, his suit.... all the good stuff!
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| The great man. |
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| Actual one of his flat head screw drivers. pretty interesting stuff! |
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| Tesla's urn and ashes! |
It was a pretty good museum, not real big and kinda hard to find. There wasn't anything obvious that said 'Tesla Museum' - oh and they don't have a toilet so make sure you do that first! Inside they ran an English tour which consisted of a short video documenting his life and significants of his work. After the video they have several working model replicas of his original DC motors and experiments. Despite the name - Tesla - and its recent popularity via Elon Musk's car company, this museum does a great job of showing the significants this bloke has had on the world. Something like 700 patents to his name.
Christmas is in the air, and after the museum we walked back into town to get amongst the Christmas lights before heading back to our apartment for some home made chicken soup Amy whipped up.
Amy and I both agree our visit to Belgrade and Serbia was rushed... we missed out on visiting Belgrades famous night clubs and experiencing some Technofolke first hand along visiting some of the unique op-shops.
However we learn't a lot about Serbia and Belgrade in particular - it is the second best geological place in the world (second to Istanbul) since its location in between the Danube and Sava rivers and sits on a hill. Because of this significants Belgrade has faced around 115 battles and it has been flattened around 40 times.
In traveling the Balkans, the Serb's seem to always get the blame for starting recent wars or conflict. And despite being the home of Yugoslavia the monarchy and Yugoslavia the communist state, it seems it's just as, if not worse off then some of its neighbours. Belgrade is a modern city with plenty to offer and see, its very similar to Zagreb - maybe not quite as modern but I think more cultural then Zagreb.
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