Blogs from Belgrade, West, Serbia, Europe - page 11

Belgrade The train from Sofia to Belgrade was the worst ever and I was on it for 11 hours! Really dirty, people smoking in the carriages, and a police raid half way through; I found out later they found a load of brown paper bags stashed inside the seats of one carriage, presumably something on its way from Istanbul to Western Europe. In the end it wasn't so bad, it was just me and one Serbian guy in the carriage, having a kind of half conversation with what little English he knew and my phrasebook. My couchsurfing host met me at the station which I was so grateful for because I was knackered! Jelena (pronounced Yelena) lives about 30 minutes from the centre of Belgrade and I didn't fancy navigating by myself at night after 11 ... read more

let's see: from belgrade, serbia i took the slow train to sarajevo, bosnia/herzogovenia. we crossed through croatia and made all the required passport checks. we even changed train engines at each border? why is beyond me because none was any faster than t'other. at least i added a bunch of stamps to passport, or rather i should have. i have had to just rely on the border guards for my stamps because i don't know what the hell they are doing. i didn't get stamped leaving serbia and worried a bit about this. especially when the croatian border guard balked when she perused my passport and then said "moment" and walked away with passport. i heard her calling in my numbers to check on it. a short while later she returned and stamped passport. don't know ... read more

Day 8-Sailing Day 8/24/10 Ditto on the weather. How long can this last? Today we sailed all day without stop. There were two river locks, known here as the Iron Gates, that we passed through. This, I guess was the technical highlight of the day. I missed the second as I chose to get a massage. We passed through the lock as I was getting my back rubbed down. I did not see a thing but Jackie said it was interesting as there was a large hydro power plant at the site and the lock bypassed the dam. The most scenic highlight was area known as Danube’s Gorges. These were impressive. We were also surprised to find their version of Mount Rushmore. I can’t remember who was the face carved into the mountain side but it ... read more

Day 9 Budapest to Belgrade So. To start with, anyone who said "yeah right" to my early night comment on the last entry may also now justifiably say "I told you so". But no gloating! Maybe we didn't get an early night but we did have a good time at Champs bar celebrating the world cup. Which we all agreed was positively the most boring game we have seen. We had a little wager (and when I say little, I mean 100Ft each, which is about 30p) but no-one won, so the waitress got a very measly addition to her tip. Oh well. I got the score right, I just picked Holland to win. Can't say anyone was too invested in the game though, as Thomas was watching it at the Spanish Institute and not with ... read more

Eileen: Well, where do I start? Richard, Jane, Peg and Kristy went to the bar across the street after dinner last night and did not get in till 4:00 in the morning. Mugs and I were sleeping in our comfey beds. Who was the first one up this morning? Jane, two hours before everyone else who got up at 11:oo am. We went to the local grocery store to shop for breakfast and it was facinating. The bread is out of this world, Bread everywhere, every color, kind, shape and flavor. I think this is where the saying bread is the staff of life came from. Jane cooked us up eggs and bacon, we had bread , bananas and the best sweets we found in a window at street level with a woman standing in the ... read more