After Sofia our next stop was Belgrade, Serbia. We chose Belgrade simply because it was one of the two cities that was directly connected by train to Sofia, the other being Bucharest which we are visiting later in September. We checked out our options and decided on the night train. Being Eastern Europe, you cannot simply go online and purchase the tickets. So we headed to the train station and after wandering around what looked like a movie set for a zombie film we finally found the tiny international ticket office. The lady in the office greeted us by asking if we already had tickets. Of course we already have tickets, we just stopped by to chat! After explaining that we were indeed in the ticket office to purchase tickets we were given our options for seat type. We had done our research and knew that we had a lot choices: first class, second class, business, 6 bed sleeper, 4 bed sleeper and 2 bed sleeper. The ticket lady, however, gave us two options: sleep or no sleep. We chose sleep.
The train ride was actually quite pleasant. We were in a 6 bed cabin but we had the whole cabin to ourselves. The train left at 8:30pm so we had a snack and then went to sleep. Other than being woken up several times in the middle of the night for passport checks it was not bad at all! We got much more sleep than either of us has ever had on a plane or bus and arrived in Belgrade the next morning actually feeling human.
We knew almost nothing about Belgrade but it turned out to be a pretty nice city. At first sight there is not a lot to see. On the walk from the train station to our hostel we saw mostly ugly communist buildings and we were not all that impressed. The one interesting thing we did see was two buildings that had been bombed during the 1999 NATO bombings. Most of the damage from the NATO bombings has been cleared or restored but these two were left standing for some reason and they are strangely fascinating to look at.
We knew there had to be more to Belgrade then just crappy communist buildings so we decided to join a €1 walking tour. We had been on free walking tours in both Sofia and Buenos Aires and they were wonderful and very informative so we were expecting the same from the €1 tour. However, no one even showed up to give the tour! We were standing there starting to wonder why we even came to Belgrade (you are also probably wondering why we went to Belgrade. The Answer: it was on the map and the train went there, so why not?) when a girl came up and told us about the free walking tour that was about to start. This guide actually showed up along with 25-30 other tourist and we were relieved to see that other people found Belgrade worth a visit as well.
We have determined that the best strategy when visiting a new city is to do the walking tour on the first day and then decide what to explore further based on what you learn on the tour. We realized that this is not only a good strategy for site seeing but also for our weekly date nights as well. We have decided that every Monday night will be a date night no matter where we are. We had our Monday night date in Belgrade and we walked all over the city looking for a good place to have dinner. Finally we found what looked to be good restaurant and went in to find that they were only a craft brewery and did not serve food at all. We were exhausted so I ran next door to the supermarket and bought bread, cheese and pretzel sticks which we attempted to eat under the table without getting caught. It was still a great night but the next day on the tour we learned that we were only a block or two from a very romantic, cobble stone street lined with outdoor restaurants and live music. Always start with the walking tour!
The guide for the tour (forgot his name) was very passionate about the history of his city. To become a tour guide in Belgrade he went to University to get a degree in history and then had to take several test in order to get an official tourism license from the government. His tour seemed to have two themes: the history of Belgrade and a message that Belgrade was a fun and safe city worth visiting. He would show us a bridge, explain its history and then instruct us to tell everyone we knew that Belgrade was open to tourism!
The tour took us to all of the good sights: the old castle fortress, the oldest residential street that now contains most of the good restaurants and nightlife, bridges built by the Germans in WWII, and the many beautiful churches throughout the city. Belgrade has a pretty fascinating and tragic past. Because of its location (where the Danube and Sava rivers meet) it has been a key point for past empires. It is where Europe meets the Balkans and at one point anyone traveling further south to Greece had to pass through it. Throughout history the city has changed hands many times and has also been bombed and completely destroyed more times (between 38 – 42) than any other city in the world. The most recent bombings were in 1999 when the Serbian military traveled to the southern Serbian territory of Kosovo to stop a rebellion from the Albanian majority living there. NATO warned Serbia to withdraw with threats of bombing Belgrade but the Serbs protested saying that they had the right to protect their own land. NATO bombed the city for just over two month despite the fact that they were never given approval by the UN. Serbia, however, is set to join NATO as they do not wish to be the only non NATO member in the region.
We finished up our three day trip with a visit to the Tesla museum. Nikola Tesla was born in Yugoslavia (present day Croatia) and despite only spending one day in Belgrade asked his family to send his remains and a few of his works to the Serbian capital to start a museum. The museum was small but there was a working replica of Tesla coil that made the museum well worth a visit. Telsa’s invention would have made free electricity possible for entire cities but his investors (J.P. Morgan among others) did not see the profit potential in free electricity and Telsa was forced to use his inventions for other things. He died poor despite having over 100 patents to his name because of his extravagant lifestyle.
Although we picked Belgrade purely because of its accessibility by train we ended up seeing a lot of cool sights, meeting some interesting people, learning a lot about communism, Nikola Tesla and NATO and thoroughly enjoying the city!
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