Recovering by the Vineyards

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Hello my fellow travellers!

After a shaky, but eventually quite pleasant, day in Bucharest yesterday I was on the train bound for Belgrade with hopes of a relaxing stay with a confirmed and well recommended host. Things started off pretty poorly as I realized I'd forgotten to buy water for the eight hours train ride to Timisoara on the Romanian border. Things didn't exactly get better as the train was smacked completely full and was steaming hot. Even worse it left the station with roughly 40 minutes delay, which isn't a good thing when you have a transit time of 30 minutes in Timisoara. I wasn't exactly feeling to optimistic about it!

Once we finally got rolling I actually did manage to get a little bit of sleep, but it was quite scarce as I spent most of the time just thinking that I would most likely dehydrate before reaching my destination. As I feared we missed our train in Timisoara, but no worries, there is a mighty two connections daily and the next one was only eight or nine hours away. I didn't really feel like spending those hours in Timisoara because this city didn't really appeal to me based on what I could see when rolling into it on the train. I wasn't alone in this though as there was a middle aged lady as well and the two of us decided to just share a taxi across the border to Vrsac, a nifty little ride of about 125 kilometres. Luckily taxis are pretty cheap here so it only ended up costing me 25 EUR and the driver was a really nice chap whom I enjoyed talking to a lot, small blessings you know!

From Vrsac there are a lot of connections, both by train and bus, to Belgrade so I decided to stay here for a while as I liked the feel of this small town. It's mostly famous for it's wine and the prominent mountain nearby produces a lot of quality grapes. I stayed in this quiet little hamlet for a few hours, walking around at a relaxed pace and resting in some nice parks. I talked to a lot of lovely people, especially this wonderful girl at the station whom I listened to some music with on her phone while we waited for the train to Belgrade.

Vrsac is a really quiet little town and there aren't a great deal of sights here, but there are a few such as the Vrsac Castle (which I didn't visit because I was to tired) and a few beautiful churches. The first one that I visited was the Romanian Orthodox Cathedral which is very beautiful with it's dome ceiling and vivid paintings. The second one was the Saint Nicholas Serbian Orthodox Cathedral which is located next to the Bishop's Palace of Banat Eparchy. The palace is also gorgeous but it's unfortunately not open to the public. The third one was the Church of the Assumption and the final church was the Cathedral of Saint Gerhard, which in my opinion was the most impressive of them all with it's massive twin spires!

Eventually I of course took the train to Belgrade and the ride went smoothly so I arrived there without further delay. Even so I was very tired when I arrived in Belgrade, after all I had now spent three nights in a row on buses and trains. Because of that I didn't even want to attempt to get my bearing in Belgrade so I just called a taxi company that my host Nikola had recommended me. They arrived in three minutes and just a few minutes after that I was at his doorstep, the ride cost me 750 RSD and was well worth it at this point. Even though I got to wind down a bit in Vrsac I'm still quite tired.

I wasn't Nikolas only guest for the night though, there was also a Spanish guy named Alex that was bicycling through a few different countries whom I'll be bunking with tonight. Nikola is actually a trained physiotherapist, although he is working a a chemist analysing drugs for the forensics department. Being a physiotherapist he very kindly gave me a great massage which really helped my poor back and legs, they have taken quite a beating so far on this trip. He also bought me a tasty dinner and even provided me with a good tourist map that I can use when I explore Belgrade tomorrow. On top of all that he will also take care of my laundry! It looks like my visit to Belgrade will be a really nice one!

So far this trip has been quite full of surprises, Turkey which I was close to not visiting at all is now the home of some of my most fond memories of all times. Bulgaria which I did not really expect to enjoy gave me some amazing adventures that I could never have seen coming! And Romania, for what it's worth did give me a really good story that I will be able to share with other travellers on the road for a long time to come!

Tomorrow I will set out to see what Belgrade has to offer, I don't really know what to expect to be honest since I haven't read anything at all about this city! I hope that it will have a good array of interesting sites to visit! One thing is for certain though, a feel far more ready to explore Belgrade now after I got to spend a few hours of well needed recovery amongst the vineyards in Vrsac!

Until tomorrow I wish you all peace and happy travels!

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Wine country
Sounds like you unexpectedly found a cute town and Belgrade is to your liking. Love to see some photos.

[A Small Swede in the Big World]

Most definitely, a pleasant surprise. I will add pictures once I'm back home and have a good connection.