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Published: August 26th 2007
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It turned out that there were only two trains each day which run from Budapest into Belgrade in neighbouring Serbia. One that goes over night and one that goes during the day. As we had alraedy booked our accommodation we were stuck with the day train and it meant that we had to skip our planned brief stop in Novi Sad.
We also had difficulty changing money into Serbian currency for the trip with the exchange place at the station not stocking it. Then when we arrived in Belgrade we came across the first ATM that didnt accept Rosss Maestro card. Luckily Kerries Visa card was accepted. One other problem awaiting us in Belgrade was that not only did we not understand the Serbian language but we could also not attempt to pronounce it as everything is writtem in a different alphabet!
The trip to Belgrade was painfully slow. Firstly when we did the border crossing from Hungary into Serbia we stopped for 30 minutes on the Hungary side and then for a further 30 minutes on the Serbia side whilst the passport checks were done. Then after we got into Serbia the speed of the train seemed to
drop noticably. We checked the timetable and it turned out the train was only timetabled to run at something like 50km/h compared to the 100km/h plus speeds we had been used to elsewhere in Europe. The 50km/h speed was something you would more expect of a freight train in Victoria. And we all know about the poor state of the Victorian country rail network (well Ross would be happy to explain if you dont). Very few people were on-board our train to Belgrade and we guess the slow train speed explains why.
Anyway when we eventually arrived into Belgrade we were greeted with a fairly smallish (by European standards) station with no all encompassing roof over the platforms. One thing it did have though was cafes fronting out onto the train platforms, much to the enjoyment of Ross where we had a drink later. We were staying at a newly refurbished hostel located directly across the road from the station which was very convenient. Everyone we spoke to in Belgrade was very friendly and went out of their way to help us unlike Budapest.
The next day we went for a walk to check out the town. Unlike
everywhere else we had been to Belgrade does not really have any major attractions in terms of significant architectural buildings. In fact we would probably go as far as to say that it was the city we had been to so far that appeared the most like Melbourne. The major buildings appear to date from the same period as Melbournes old buildings. This is due to the many wars that have occurred in Belgrade over the last few centuries that have destroyed the older buildings. Belgrade also has a number of wider streets within the city centre that are more similar to Melbournes streets than other places in Europe. The main difference is that Belgrade generally has a lot older cars (that tend to drive a lot faster) and appears more dirty generally than Melbourne.
We slowly made our way to the remains of the citadel which is located at a park at the end of a pedestrianised street through the centre of the town. (it was another hot day!) We explored the citadel and had a walk through the small military museum which describes the various wars involving Serbia that have happened throughout the ages.
After this we decided to catch a bus to a popular swimming spot called Ada Ciganlija. It was peak hour at this time and there was lots of traffic congestion. Luckily the road to the swimming spot had exclusive bus lanes which meant we got to travel straight past the queue.
There were heaps of people at Ada Ciganlija, mainly sitting on a pebbled bank area which slopes down to the lake. Many more people were also in the water and at the great number of cafes (including McDonalds) located behind. There was even a rock climbing wall and volley ball courts there. It was here that we had our first swim for our trip and we really enjoyed it given the heat.
Later on we came across a massive roundabout which had a very wide circulating lane area, but no lanes marked! It looked like you could fit about 6 cars sided by side in this area. It was crazy, traffic was going through really fast with no real pattern of who was going first. To make things worse there were also trams and trolley buses which also circulated around the roundabout. A couple of times we noticed the trams stopped in the middle of the circulating lanes with the driver getting out to manually change points. Very scary stuff! Unlike everywhere else we had seen there were no low floor trams in Belgrade with all the trams looking very dated. There was no automatic ticketing with instead all tickets either having to be bought from the driver or from a small kiosk (shop) located nearby some of the stops. Tickets were valid for single trips only, there were no multi-trip tickets unlike everywhere else.
After our experience with the roundabout we came across a massive Serbian Orthodox church (biggest orthodox church in the world) which although looked complete on the outside turned out to be a construction site in the inside. It apparently has been taking a very long time to complete (started in 1935) likely due to the massive size of the building and the intricate detail required inside the building and various wars that have taken place.
It was only after leaving the church as we headed back to our hostel where we came across a couple of very delapidated buildings which appeared to be falling apart. We thought we may have seen some evidence of the US and NATO bombing campaign of 1999. The next morning Ross went up and asked a man in military uniform who was standing outside one of the buildings if the damage was from the 1999 bombing and it turned out that this was the case and that the buildings had been military buildings. It seems very strange that what appears to be an affluent western society could have been through something like this so recently. At least the only damaged buildings we saw were military!
One last observation about the people from Belgrade is that they appeared to look much more mainstream than the people in other cities we had been to. Nearly all the guys seemed to have short hair, rarely had mutiple piercings and wore normal looking clothing. This was in stark contrast to other places we had been to where there were heaps of people in gothic looking attire and AC/DC t-shirts were very prominent.
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