Chain smoking Serbs and one day in Belgrade
Trip Start
May 19, 2006
1
27
46
Trip End
Sep 26, 2006
Belgrad, Serbia and Montenegro
Friday, August 11, 2006
Bar, well, what to say about Bar. On first impressions i was willing to judge it the worst city i have ever been to. On closer inspection it wasnt that bad, still pretty horrible, but it had its good points. The first being that its surrounded by quite an impressive series of mountains, which i didnt notice at first since it was raining so heavily, but once it lifted the view was very good indeed. The second is that there were almost no tourists there, its a port city where people get off the ferry or train and head to somewhere better down the coast. So the only people there were locals, and so it was interesting to see what life in Montenegro is really like. I attracted a fair few stares, but that may have been more on account of my crappy pre pubescent beard.
In the end i was dissapointd to be leaving the Adriatic behind, its definately one place im looking forward to visiting again, but not Montenegro. To say its a little dilapidated is too kind. The place is insane, basically every stereotype you can think of for East Europe fits the place to the ground. Speaking to a local on the trip to Belgrade, she said there had been far more tourists this year then any other, probably on account of its independance, and it hadnt been able to cope. Speaking of the train, i had by far the scariest experience of the trip so far when i got lost heading back to the station at about 9 at night and nearly missed my train, the last train, out of there. I eventually only found the station by stumbling onto the tracks in the dark and running down them a few kilometers to where the station was. Was a very worried little boy indeed for a while.
But anyways, Belgrade is lovely, actually quite charming in its way. Its still big and dirty, with lots of concrete as you would expect, but there are also lots of parks, cafes and churches spread out all over the city. Its still quite cheap as well compared to other places. Also it is good to be back on the good old Danube, my favourite river. Unfortunately i will be leaving the Danube behind me soon as i cant follow it into Romania as silly visa restrictions mean i will be giving that country a miss. I was also a little dissapointed in that i didnt get a specific Serbian stamp in my passport. Since the split was so recent, they havent set up a proper border between Montenegro and Serbia yet. Damn.
