Blogs from West, Serbia, Europe - page 9

After our nighttrain in a very quaint harry potter train, which involved a lot of head outside the window action, we arrived in serbia where we were immediately greeted by bombed buildings and harriets lost phone turmoil. We decided to do absolutely fuck all and have an extreme lie in to help recover (after harriet tramped around for a while trying to cancel her phone in a place where public phones do not exist). We discovered the wonders of adventure time on a really extreme cartoon channel. Once we had sorted our lives out we decided that it would be an excellent idea to go bungee jumping as its so fucking cheap here. We attempted to get there in a tram, but somehow ended up in some eastern european shrubbery under a gigantic half built motorway ... read more

After writing about Vukovar I can't think of an appropriate pun to use in the title of this entry! Any ideas for this and future country/city puns please let me know. When the Vukovar visit was over, we moved on the most appropriate activity for travellers sobered by recent history - a wine tasting! Actually two different wine tastings scheduled for the same day! Still on the Croatian side, we rolled up just before noon, ready to take the edge off the day. I should probably add now that as I write this, it has been at least 35 degrees every day for the last 7 days. There is talk of a storm this weekend, but who knows when this unseasonably early heatwave will end. We firstly viewed the wine cellars and learned about the history ... read more

After the extraordinary level of helpfulness from the guys in the management and press office of KK Crvena Zvezda in procuring the basketball derby ticket the previous night, there is always one that spoils it. My mind suffers eternal flashback to the security guard waving his gun at an empty BKV Elore in Budapest. Belgrade's "Mr Unhelpful" was to be found at the defunct home of FK Obilic. In advance of my derby ticket forray, I had decided another tour of the grounds was in order. If you are reading this blog and have read others, you will have spotted the pattern developing - if there is some stadium architecture to see, I will endeavour to get to it. It really is a great way to see behind the scenes of a city - to go ... read more

Nous redoutions un peu le trajet entre Sibiu et Belgrade. 7 heures de train pour se rendre à Timisoara, arrivée vers 22h40. Le lendemain, départ à 5h40 du matin pour une combinaison train-bus de 4 heures jusqu'à Belgrade en Serbie. Ça avait bien commencé, un gentil Justin Bieber roumain m'a aidé à placer mes bagages dans le compartiment et Nellie a fait une longue sieste. Mais quand Justin et grand-maman Bieber sont débarqués, une vieille dame roumaine est entrée et une terrible avalanche de mots roumains s'est déclenchée. Blablablablaaaablablablablablabl....Elle arrêtait pas de parler (fort!) à l'autre madame de notre compartiment, qui a fini par se sauver car elle débarquait bientôt, la chanceuse. L'attention de la vieille pie roumaine s'est donc dirigé vers qui vous pensez? Le fait qu'on ne parle son langage ne la dérangeait pas ... read more

They say it is better to travel ........... although it is undoubtedly better to travel in style. The economy measures were in full swing on this solo mission - £1 mega train deal to London and £2 back to Luton Airport on Easybus. The snag with this deal was staying up all night and walking for 45 minutes between St Pancras and Gloucester Place to pick up the bus. The train stopped at Luton – should I chance the barriers being open or get a cheap single from somewhere to Luton? Why bother I thought, I am in no rush and besides I’ve never seen the new St Pancras after all those 1955 hours after match trains that were once my life. The time passed remarkably quickly and Luton was a hive of activity at 2 ... read more