Blogs from West, Serbia, Europe - page 3

Back to Belgrade. I was here last year, but I was a bit under the weather, and I decided I wanted to come back to experience more of the Serbian culture. I had a very nice stay at a particular hostel (Hostel Bongo), and I wanted to personally come back and thank the Bongo girls for taking such good care of me. I had given each a fun little name that they just thought was something else. They were Dashing Daniella, Terrific Tamara, Irresistible Irena, and Sassy Sadja. I was not sure which ones would still be here, but they had emailed me a few times within the year just to say hello. Upon arrival I felt they were excited to see me as well, as my name was remembered (they called me Gorgeous Gary (go ... read more

July 9 Sunday Woke up at 5 AM so I decided to get some work done before heading down to breakfast. We left the hotel at 8 o'clock in the morning. The tour director talked about the Hungarian language and alphabet, which originally was not using Latin script. He passed around a copy of the original Hungarian script which I thought was similar to ancient script of other countries. He even stated that the ancient Hungarian script was found in some places in North America. As we drove through the Austrian countryside heading toward the Bulgarian border, how many farms growing crops of wheat, corn, and sunflower. The wheat crop was in the process of being harvested. About an hour and a half along the highway we passed a military caravan of vehicles. The last one ... read more

Day 229 Saturday 3rd September 2016 – Budapest to Belgrade No great rush today as we didn’t need to leave the hotel till 10.30, and we were able to have breakfast, pack and even watch some TV before leaving. As we were getting ready there was this sudden crescendo of classical music and we suddenly thought that our life had a sound track till we realised there was an orchestra in the park putting on a free concert. As we were leaving the hotel the music had stopped but there was a Punch and Judy show going on for the kids, a nice way to leave Budapest with a bit of puppetry violence. Taking the Budapest Metro out to the train station was not a problem at all, even changing trains wasn’t a hassle. ... read more

Itinerary part 2 - Continue to Belgrade (Beograd), the capital of Serbia, for one night where Dinner is included at a restaurant by the river. After we all dried ourselves off from the pouring rain we headed off to Belgrade where we were give some free time to walk about. The problem was it was still so wet; no one wanted to get of the coach, except for my coach buddy Mary. She ran to the nearest shop to find an umbrella while the rest of us travelled back to the hotel. Once we settled down dad and I thought we could get a taxi back into the centre of town but it was just a little bit too far away from our hotel to be worth the time. It was a shame as this was ... read more

The capital of Serbia, Belgrade today. Off on another city tour. Mostly by bus but we also got off and did a few walks. First was to the St Sava Cathedral. This is still being built following the Nazi occupation and NATO bombings. The place is huge and the guide told us that the cupola alone weighed over 400 tonnes and a special crane had to be built to lift it into place. There is no money coming from the government so they are relying on donations to try and complete it........ Back to the bus, then into the main central pedestrian plaza for free time. We wander down to the markets and walk amongst the fruit, vegies and bric a brac. Nearly every stall had cartons of cigarettes on display, and a lot had all ... read more