On arrival at Belgrade we booked into a cheap hotel near Central Railway Station. We met an Australian couple, Adam and Trilby, who were using the hotel’s internet. As I could not use my laptop at this hotel Adam helped me transfer entry #4 onto the hotel’s computer, then send it through hotmail. After that we went exploring. Belgrade was a huge surprise! One fantastic city built at the junction of two major rivers. At the top of the town we found an open-air plaza that went for 2km. It was wide and lined with every kind of shop, restaurants, vendors, ice-cream stands, buskers, etc. A shopper’s paradise. April, you would love it! There were people wall to wall – thousands of them. Apparently, it is like this till 3am every morning. The atmosphere was great! Everyone was friendly. We walked from one end to the other, then crossed over into a massive park where there was a display of around two hundred enormous photographs of some of the most interesting places in the world, taken from helicopter. We spent hours enjoying these incredible, lit-up pictures. At the end of the park was the Belgrade Fortress – a gigantic structure built in the 1400’s. We explored part of it that night and the rest if it the next day. Then we pressed our way through the people-thick plaza, arriving back at our hotel at around midnight.
In the morning we went downstairs for breakfast, which was included in the hotel price. There was no one else there, even at 9am. That’s because Belgrade is a very nocturnal city. In fact most of Europe seems to have breakfast at around 10am. The waitress was obviously ex-KGB. In a stern voice she said, “you vant coffee?” “No thankyou.” “Vhat! – no coffee! Vhat you vant zen? – Tea?” “No thanks – just food.” In a louder voice she exclaimed, “fruit!” “No, not fruit – FOOD, please.” “Food! – Vhat sort of food? – you vant bread, jam?” “ Do you have eggs?” “You vant eggs? Boiled?” “Yes please, soft-boiled.” “You vant coffee?” “No thanks.” Vhat! – No coffee!”
She steamed off as if we had insulted her and returned about two minutes later with the eggs and some bread rolls and butter. As I cracked the first shell, raw egg poured out all over my bread. I called the KGB officer over and showed her the raw egg all over my plate. She said, “You vanted zem soft. I cook for two minute. Zey soft- ok! You vant coffee?” “No thanks.” She quickly disappeared never to be seen again. As an expert on cooking eggs, I would say that she never got the water to the boil. Well, I like eggs any way. As I soaked the raw egg into my bread and raised it to my mouth I couldn’t help but notice Debbie’s face. I couldn’t tell whether it was a look of horror, absolute disgust, amazement, or a mixture of all three. Anyway, she decided at that time that she had been having too many meals on this holiday – she usually has only two meals per day. So she decided to skip breakfast. I was happy with that because I got to have her eggs. She watched me eat one, then headed for the bathroom. What is it about raw eggs? Anyway I felt like Popeye all day. Raw eggs beat spinach any time!
We had a fantastic day in Belgrade, shopping, exploring the fort, climbing on tanks left over from the war and learning some of the history. In 1993 Serbia experienced the worst inflation in world history. The government had to keep printing money with bigger numbers, even up to a 500 billion Dinara note. I was able to secure a collection of original notes ranging from 5,000 to 500,000,000,000. Today AUD$1 is worth 50 Dinara. In 1993 NATO bombed Belgrade for 74 days. There is still a lot of damage, but we didn’t get time to see it all. For lunch we tried a traditional Serbian salad, with avocado, home-grown chicken, walnuts, lettuce, morello cherries and Serbian mayonnaise. What a great combination!
After an exhilarating, exhausting day we made our way to Central Railway to board the train for Thessalonica, Greece. Departure was at 9pm for a sixteen hour trip. The train was about ½ km long, however the only carriage going to Thessalonica was the first one – a sleeper. We made our way to the very end of the platform and climbed into the carriage. We were the only people going to Greece. We had the whole carriage and a guard to ourselves. We were shown to our room which had bunk beds and a basin. The train was pre-war (1st WW) or earlier, with holes in the ceiling and wall, but it was very comfortable. Debbie asked the guard if it was air conditioned. He laughed, explaining that we were in Serbia, then he opened the window and said, “This is your air conditioning.” It was very, very hot, so I decided to run back to town and buy some more water for the trip. The guard got me to buy him a couple of bottles too, so I knew the train wouldn’t go without me. When I got back I was so saturated with sweat that I had to change clothes.
Debbie couldn’t sleep, but I had a good sleep. The scenery in the early morning as we railed through Southern Serbia, then Macedonia was breathtaking. We arrived at Thessalonica in the afternoon and hiked about a kilometre to a Hertz office where we hired a car and headed for the area called The Three Legs. We stopped for lunch along the way at a little restaurant serving home-cooked traditional Greek meals. We are now just out of a little beach village where we will stay for two nights before heading for Athens.
God bless you all,
Gary and Debbie
