Serbia – Belgrade
Our 10-day Balkan Tour starts in Belgrade.
Arrived at Belgrade at ETA of 5pm. Somebody was already waiting for us at arrival with our name on a sign. The Cowboy changed USD to Dinar at the airport to pay for local fees of our tour. There was actually exchange available around the corner from our hotel, ABBA. Upon check-in, we met our guides Tanya and Naya. They gave the whole group of around 40 a thorough briefing for our tour of the Balkans over the next 10 days. I thought that was good framing and expectations management. The group looked more mature than Busabout crowd. I didn’t expect it to be this big though.
Regrouped at 8pm and the bus dropped us all at the Belgrade old town center. Knez Mihailova is the main street lined with cafes, restaurants, boutique shops. I like Belgrade! It’s very cosmopolitan yet retains the old world charm of Eastern European countries.
Free time. We followed Naya and Tanya for dinner at the old quarter, with cobble-stoned streets and traditional restaurants. More like a tourist trap of fairly expensive dinner with musicians playing. I didn’t enjoy “dinner” as we were squished in a corner, and I didn’t like the selection either. So I just went about for a walk and re-joined when the group was almost done.
Along the way, I dropped by into a desert café. I was about to buy some. “3 marks please” the lady said. I looked at my wallet “Do you take Euros?” “No.” “Card?” “No, sorry” But she kept on slicing the desert bread. “oh, I only have Euros, I’m sorry never mind.”
“No, no…it’s ok, you take.”
“I don’t have dinar.”
“Are you coming back here?”
“Here in the city yes, but maybe not here… I’m on tour.”
“You take it.”
“But I probably won’t be back.”
“It’s ok… it’s on the house.”
And just like that I got me a free desert bread and it was very good too. Sugar-free full of nuts and dired fruits and figs.
Breakfast the following day, was way better than I expected. It was a good buffet spread of both cold and hot food. I enjoyed their eggs and sausages.
St. Sava Temple was our first stop for the day. It’s very significant to Serbian history. St. Sava pretty much established Serbian culture, the religion, the language… Hence despite 500 years of Ottoman rule, the Serbs retained their Slavic culture.
Belgrade Old Town. We had a walking tour from the old city center to the fortress passing through the Istanbul Gate. It culminated on a view of the Sava and Danube river, and with the victor statue – more like an oblation – naked with a bird on hand. It was to symbolize that the Serbs no longer want war and just want to enjoy the fruits of freedom. The local joke is that the victor statue’s butt faces Istanbul and his dick faces Vienna…
It was a scorching hot walking tour!
It was a long bus ride today. We spent a good six hours on the road plus border crossing. It was fairly easy crossing from Serbia to Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH).
