Halloween in Belgrade

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After Slovenia, we headed south to Zagreb, the capital city of Croatia. In the three hour train ride, the temperature outside rose almost 10 degrees, so we arrived to a hot, sunny day. After checking into our hostel, we took a quick wander around the old town. Since we arrived late, it was already dark, but the big old church near our hostel was lit up and quite spectacular. We stopped at a little restaurant that served Italian food and ate outdoors. Zagreb has a real coffee shop culture, where at all times of the day and night people can be found sitting outdoors on the patios of little cafes, sipping coffee and beer and socializing. After dinner we found an empty couch and joined the locals. TJ sampled the local beers and Teija enjoyed some Croatian white wines.

The next day we went up to the old town and meandered around the buildings which have designs painted on their roofs. Next we went through the Stone Gate, which actually isn't a gate at all but an outdoor church. The church was packed with locals worshiping and lighting candles. Next we hit up the lower city and walked through the botanical gardens and visited the Archaeological Museum which is home to an amazingly preserved mummy. Zagreb is known to be a city of museums and our guidebook listed about 20 options. Since we aren't big on museums, we just chose the one. After our explorations we ate at another outdoor dinner, this time with a friend we met at the hostel. Our hostel was quite fun and had an excellent common room that often had English language movies playing. After some drinks at a cafe we retired to the hostel and watched a movie with a group of fellow travelers.

We were up early the next morning in order to catch the 9am train to Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. The train ride was... interesting. Only the first car of the train was going all the way to Belgrade, but unfortunately it was a smoking car. Seriously, people smoked multiple cigarettes inside the unventilated cabins while we choked to death. Other than that the ride was uneventful and we arrived 6.5 hours and many passport stamps later.

Our hostel was fantastic and we immediately befriend a group of Americans and some Aussies. We cooked dinner in the kitchen and had some drinks, before venturing out to a local pub. They had a hilarious cover band playing old North American music (think Sweet Home Alabama).

The next day was Halloween, but we set out to do some serious sightseeing before the festivities. Belgrade is an amazing city, filled with fun things to do. We first went across town to the Citadel, the old fortress perched on a hill at the meeting of the Danube and Sava rivers. It is largely a park now, and free to enter, but the old walls and watchtowers remain and visitors can explore the ruins. Also situated at the Citadel is the Military Museum. The museum documents the history of the region and displays various weapons. The crowning point is the exhibit on the recent conflict with NATO, where pieces of an American war plane are proudly displayed. After the museums and some lunch, we visited the Princess' Palace, an old home of Princess Ljubina which is decorated in historical furniture. The high point were the cool Turkish baths built off of her bedchamber. We wandered down the pedestrianized shopping street next. The street had many recognizable stores, cool gelato stands, and people selling puppies and kittens in the street (odd). We finished off the afternoon with a visit to St. Sava's church, the largest Eastern Orthodox church in the world. It is incredible, huge and white with a blue dome and a cavernous interior.

That evening one of our hostel friends made vegetables, pumpkin pie and a jack-o-lantern and we all sat around and had some drinks. The drinks in Serbia are fantastic. For about 2.25 Canadian you can get a 2 litre plastic bottle of beer. It is quite economical and isn't half bad. Teija got 2L of wine for about $3.50CAD... it tasted like turpentine. A group of us went out to a local club and verified that the Belgrade nightlife really is amazing! The DJ rocked, the drinks were cheap and it was a good time! 😊

On our last day in Belgrade, we attempted to visit the Nikola Tesla museum (science related) but found out that half of the exhibit was currently closed. Instead we went to the ethnology museum without many expectations, but were very pleasantly surprised. It was extremely well done and had displays of traditional costumes, tools and housing. Fantastic!

We then headed to the train station for the scary overnighter train to Bucharest, Romania, but more about that later. Happy belated Halloween!

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Comments

[sak]

Sounds like fun
The accounts of your trip are fantastic. I really envy you. sak