March 17th-19th Belgrade

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Album I’m listening to: A Blur album that’s on someone’s laptop in the hostel.

So Belgrade was an experience, not really so much for the sights but more of the interaction with the locals, the people at the hostel, and the nightlife. There was much to see in this city of 3 million but I seemed to have missed much of it as I only had 2 half days and a whole day there which is not nearly enough. The train to Belgrade left at 7am, so it was an early start to the day. Marijka, the Dutch girl staying in the hostel, was also taking the same train but was heading to Budapest. She ended up being my wake up call as I didn’t hear my alarm go off. So for a few hours we ended up chatting and checking out the sights from the carriage. One thing I’ve noticed about countries like Bosnia, Serbia etc is the amount of rubbish on the ground. It seems the rivers are just massive dump sites. They are piled along both sides which is such a shame. Not too sure what they’re going to do about it. At about 12pm I got off at Strizivojna-Vrpolje, which is in the middle of nowhere in Croatia, and waited 2 hours for my connecting train. Fortunately the only café had a wall socket for my laptop and very faint wi-fi! No matter where I’ve gone so far there’s been wi-fi which is amazing. So arrived in Belgrade at about 6pm and got very lost trying to find the hostel. I asked someone as the directions from the website didn’t make too much sense and I was pointed in the wrong direction, or I just didn’t understand what she was saying. 20 minutes of walking up a hill with a big bag and a jacket in 17 degree weather makes for an angry Sam. I finally found the place, dumped my stuff, had a shower and chilled for the rest of the night. It was St. Patties and was initially keen on going out but I was having none of it and went to bed quite early.

The next morning there was a free walking tour and it was some really good weather so I wore shorts and a t-shirt, and a couple of other people in the hostel were keen to come as well. Mike from Halifax and a German couple (forgot their names) joined me and we took a 3 hour tour around the city. It was only a small part of the city as a whole but saw quite a lot, like the town square (which the locals think is too small for such a large population),Poets Alley, which is lined with bars, Kalemegdan Fortress of Belgrade, and Silicon Lane (you should have an idea what that is, but it’s where all the hip people go to party at night). Afterwards we (as well as a couple of other people who joined the tour) went to a local restaurant and had a great meal of lamb and potatoes and rikjia (local fruit brandy). We decided to carry on afterwards with the rikjia so went to a couple of cafés and just chatted for awhile. We got back to the hostel in the early evening to chill before going out for the night. A few other people had showed up (there were a few people for a UN conference, a mix of Serbs, Croatians, and Germans), as well as Daniel from Adelaide, who had been travelling Europe for a few months. We decided to get some drinks and chill in the lounge listening to music, and the night eventually turned to drinking games (each country had their own one). At about midnight a couple of the locals who were at the conference decided to show us the night life, which included a couple of clubs. Belgrade is considered the best party city in the world according to Lonely Planet because of all the underground clubs that opened up during the war. From the outside they look like nothing but once you’re inside, sometimes after walking down dozens of steps, they are massive, with hundreds of people, some good tunes and good vibes. I left at about 3am as I lost most of the guys and didn’t really know where I was but started walking and while occasionally asking for Republic Square (main square near the hostel) I made it after about an hour.

The next morning I woke up with the bottom of my camera broken and a big bruise on my backside (I fell down some stairs trying to take a photo of the city but didn’t know it was that bad). People slowly made it to the lounge where we veged in front of the TV and felt sorry for ourselves. I decided to make the most of the time I had left so Mike and I went back to Kelemegdan to look at the military museum which had weapons and clothing from centuries ago, as it seems the Serbs were constantly at war. We decided to go to “? a famous coffee house next to the hostel , for a Turkish coffee (which I am in love with and want to start making my own) and I ran into Fred and Pauline from Sarajevo! It was great to see them again and it was completely random, it goes to show it really is a small world.
Mike was heading to Budapest at around the same time as I was heading to Macedonia so after chilling in the hostel a bit longer we took a cab to the station and went our own way. I have to say Serbia was great (what I saw of it) and very cheap (I spent £40 for the 3 days there including accommodation) and would love to come back here another time as there’s too much to see in just a couple of days!

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