http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Europe , Serbia en-us Tue, 10 Nov 09 22:38:43 +0000 Tue, 10 Nov 09 22:38:43 +0000 Finally made it in to the Rajkovic heartland... Had a crazy taxi ride from the Airport as one would expect and checked in to teh Hotel where for the first time in my life I wasn't asked to spell my surname that was worth the plane fare alone....Considering it's only 10 years since the city was bombed by NATO it has recovered reasonably well although as I was told before I arrived it is the mos http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-449972.html After some ticketing hassles in Vienna we made it through to Belgrade and had 6 hrs to kill. Of course we decided to make a short visit to the city. Negotiations started as soon as we stepped out of the arrivals lounge with the first taxi offer being about ten times what was suggested by the trusty LP. We opted for the 500 Dina option of the airport bus. Nothing to see on the trip into townt http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-443009.html I spent the wandering through the city. I visited the war museum and walked the perimeter of the fortress. I went back to my hostel to cook dinner and met Carrie. She was working at the hostel. She and I had some great conversations. She started to tell me about her life during the war. She told me she used to cry everyday when her father would leave for work. she was afraid he would not return http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-442526.html We entered the world of Cyrillic bus timetables in the bid to relocate to Novi Sad capital of the autonomous region of Vojvodina. The timetables of course meant absolutely nothing and it was just a case of scrolling down until finding what Novi Sad looked like on the Cyrillic translation we had written down. In the end it was all quite straight forward we were directed from one ticket booth to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/North/Novi-Sad/blog-442048.html We arrived back at the Bus Station in Belgrade after 3 days in the north. The arrivals is across the road in a separate section and the missing onslaught of taxi touts from the airport are all there in force. We ignored the clamour and proceeded to walk up the hill towards Republic Square to get a bus to our accommodation a word of warning if carrying a large rucksack the hill is steepOne of http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-441843.html Belgrade apart from a few perceptive pieces in the travel sections of the weekend broadsheet newspapers and a growing reputation amongst the dedicated followers of the club scene it doesnrsquot usually get a glowing press. As a rule it seems to suffer from the reputation which the previous tensions in the area brought about and unfortunately our visit coincided with some more international b http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-429691.html 1041107710861075108810721076 Beograd or Belgrade SerbiaWe decided to travel to Serbia earlier than originally planned after finding out about the Schengen Rules for travel in the EU. We thought we would leave the Schengen area for a while now rather than later. Without much notice two very nice women in Belgrade accepted our request to couchsurf with them. Tina and Lily ro http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-427860.html I figured that if I were to go to a completely unfamilar place with a different alphabet I may as well make friends before getting on the train. It so happens Liam this scottish fellow was that very person. Safety in numbers and all that. Ended up having him tag along back to the hostel and fortunately he'd brought some cyrillic translations or I'd have been that much more disoriented. L http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-427364.html Belgrade day 45 July 12A very local train to Belgrade plastic seats but comfortable enough for the short journey. Then a half hour local bus to our hotel who didnrsquot have our booking and they were full from having the European Youth Games in town. While our leader sorted it out we went in search of coffee and a toilet the hotel refused to let us use theirs. Fortunately the coffee http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-426211.html Novi Sad 23 June 2930I met the rest of the group on the work to the train station. Our train trip was a warm but comfortable enough one on the way to Novi Sad Serbia. The border crossing was pretty painless and we were soon there.We had lovely rooms in Novi Sad. The town had a very alive feeling and lots of cafes. Our orientation work took us past the local market and over the Danube to the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/North/Novi-Sad/blog-426209.html Today Gail woke up at about 8 am and had to rush to the Tesco and get our staxs of food for our 37 hour train to Athens in Greece. After making staxs of sandwiches for our train and getting packed we rushed to the station to find out that yes todayrsquos train was also delayed.... 61516 but only by 20 minutes. So after our long wait we got onto the train this was going to be a deathly No http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/North/Subotica/blog-423826.html DAY 103Flying to Belgrade this morning We are on our own for the next month. No more having to fit into other peoples schedules. We are up at 545 and leave the hotel at 700AM. We take the metro to the bus station. It's an hour ride to the airport. We are flying JAT airlines. This is the Serbian Airlines. We have no idea what to expect but everything seems to be just like all the other http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-421436.html 17 July 2009 FridayWoke up very early this morning and showered and did some uni work. Packed my bag and hung around until 9am but when the hostel guy didn't show up I just left him a note to say I still had the key and my bags were there even though I had 'officially' checked out.As I hadn't had a whole lot of a chance yesterday to look around beyond the pedestrianised area downtown my first st http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/blog-419747.html 15 JULY 2009 WEDNESDAYWell itrsquos the first day of my lsquobig triprsquo and already it is proving quite eventful. After spending a few days saying some lsquofinalrsquo farewells and packing and shipping my things back to Australia it finally came time to leave my house in Tooting. Since my flight was at 1645 I thought I would allow myself plenty of time and so left at 1230. The http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/blog-419226.html After catching an overnight bus from Sarajevo leaving at 10pm arriving at 6am I was ready for sleep. Partially because of the usual restless night that you would associate with overnight traveling and partially due to an annoying American that wouldn't stop talking to me and who decided it would be a good idea to have a conversation at 4am when im trying to sleep arrgh Although I was tired I http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-418751.html We took the overnight night train to Serbia. Realising that we had no money on the train we panicked as we thought we needed a visa to enter Serbia. 'Take credit cardrsquo doesnrsquot really cut it at the border at 4am. Visions of being dumped off the train and having to wait over night at some forgotten station in nomansland began running though my mindhellipDoahLuckily when the polic http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-413337.html I arrived in Belgrade only to find one of the ugliest and dirty cities I had ever seen. The train ride into Belgrade gives you an idea about how dirty it is. Gypsies occupy the area near the train tracks and live in shanties build with ply board plastic tarps and used tires. Little kids walk around on the roofs of these places and just stare into the train windows like they have never seen such http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-410513.html We had to get up nice and early to catch the train to Belgrade. It was quite amusing as the very second that we had all hopped on the train the train moved out of the station. 20 minutes early. We were all a little surprised by the fact that the train was leaving ahead of schedule until Chris told us that this was in fact the 630am train that was in fact leaving an hour late not the 730am train http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-410266.html 'Why would you want to go there' Delivered in a flat cold tone by a woman who had been scrupulously fair and reasonable in our discussions when we mentioned that we intended to travel through Serbia. She was Slovenian though and that may have been part of the reason.Signs on the motorway from Zagreb only started to indicate that we were on our way to Belgrade after we were well on the way. Croat http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/blog-409714.html Yesterday we had to leave the wonders of Budapest and head towards Novi Sad in Serbia. Susie and I were actually a little sad to be leaving Budapest in the end as we had actually discovered that we liked it quite a bit. However it was off to Novi Sad with us. Luckily our train wasn't until 110pm so we still had a bit of time to enjoy the wonders of Budapest. So in the morning we headed off down t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/North/Novi-Sad/blog-409088.html