August 3 - Belgrade

After getting a great sleep in a 6-person cabin which only contained Jez and myself, we arrived in Belgrade. If we were here 15 years ago, odds are that we probably would have been shot during the hostilities. However, the only shots we would be getting here were at the bar (Thankyou, thankyou, I was up half the night thinking of that one).

We were really keen to get to Dubrovnik to meet up with some of the people we were in Greece with, so we hopped off to the bus station which conveniently was right next to the train station. We rocked up to the bus station and enquired about tickets. Unfortunately, we were going to have to take an overnight bus to Dubrovnik (luckily for me it didn’t go by Macedonia).

I went and got some cash out of the ATM for the bus tickets and received a call from an unknown number in Australia. It was NAB checking that my card hadn’t been nicked and that I was actually withdrawing money from Belgrade. Good to know to they are checking up on me and they are looking after my dosh.

As our bus left at around 11pm that night, we had the whole day to kill. So, we decided to have a bit of a wander around. One of the more interesting things we saw was a few blocks away from the train and bus stations. There was a 10 storey building that had been gutted, obviously from a bomb blast. All that was left was the concrete structures supporting the building. For some reason, it hadn’t been knocked down. Still, it was a vivid reminder of Belgrade’s recent past.

For the rest of the morning we just wandered around downtown Belgrade. One of the highlights was a ‘Life in Clay’ art exhibit that was on in the streets of Belgrade. It really was a slow morning….

After getting our clay fix, we headed off and had a look at the Kalemegdan Citadel which had some pretty good views of the city. We were walking around and saw a sign informing us that we risk our own lives by walking around here. Presumably they have just forgotten to take it down since the introduction of peace here.

For lunch we went to ? Café. ? Café was originally called the Cathedral Café due to its proximity to a cathedral. However, it was decided that this was too controversial so they were forced to change it. In the interim, the owners of the café called it ? Café. That was back in the 1850’s and it doesn’t look like changing anytime soon. Real Talk.

The service at ? Café was very, very questionable. The waiter really didn’t want to be there. We would catch his eye and signal him to come over, and he would just take off in the complete opposite direction. No tips were left.

We passed the time in the afternoon by grabbing a milkshake and playing some cards in another café. This was until we were informed that we couldn’t play cards there. This wasn’t due to us hogging the table, as there were dozens as spare tables around us. We can only assume that the waiter was a cards-cist (my new made up word for someone who doesn’t like cards).

After being booted from the café for having too much fun (perhaps he was worried we were stealing it from homeless people), we headed off to the movie theatre to watch Harry Potter. Thankfully it was in English with Serbian subtitles, as we hadn’t actually checked prior. It was just before the movie started that we both realised that when the movie finished at 8pm, the left luggage compartment at the station may not be open when we get there. And with our luck we were experiencing at the moment, it would be the case, making us unable to catch the overnight bus to Dubrovnik. Thankfully Belgrade does not like to kick a man whilst he is down, and the left luggage compartment was open.

Satisfied that we were actually going to have all our worldly possessions with us on the bus, we went to an Irish pub for dinner. When this pub advertised ‘dinner’ what it actually meant was ‘toasted ham and cheese sandwiches’ which tasted awesome and reminded us both of Australia.

After the traditional Aussie dinner, we went back to the station to grab our luggage and hop on the bus. By now, Jez and I are getting a feel for travelling, so before we hopped on the bus we both bought a litre of beer for the trip.

When we polished off the beers we tried to get some shut eye. This proved to be difficult as we were woken every time we stopped to drop someone off, which was regularly. We were also woken at around 3am for passport checks out of Serbia and into Bosnia. This proved to be more successful than our last passport check on a bus and I was allowed to continue on.

Keep up the good work,

Monty