A Serbian Sprint

Continuing the theme from my post on Romania, a sprint through Serbia after the jump!

A pile of greenery in the middle of Belgrade, which is: not the prettiest city!

I was lucky to make my connection from Timisoara to Belgrade via a small shuttle van - about the same price as an all-day train trip with one tight connection, this allowed me a short three-hour trek in the company of a group of friendly, talkative Serbians, including a driver who initially mistook me for an Australian. At the border crossing, as we waited for a passenger to sort out a tax refund with customs, he extolled the fast-paced energy of Belgrade ("Coffee, coffee, food, drink, everything every hour of the day and night") and filled me in on his globetrotting past as the child of diplomats. He'd lived in Seoul, Denmark, a few other spots, and now with a family of his own was based in Belgrade, though often on the go transporting passengers between Balkan states. He finished by telling me to just eat all the street food I could find: "We have amazing fast food, but not like your American fast food. Local, organic, fresh." Well, okay!

Burgers and beer: genuinely a Serbian thing but also it was nice to have a hamburger sometimes you do want hamburgers, this concludes my report on hamburgers across the globe.

I only had a few hours in Belgrade, which I spent exploring a couple of areas: Skadarlija, a cobblestoned area full of restaurants and shops, and then Stanica Kalemegdan, the old fortress turned city park, which was full of school groups, couples, and older adults out seeking shade from the heat and the sun. I made my way south along a central pedestrian-zone street, eventually finding the bus station and my hour-long connection north to Novi Sad, my home for the night.

Not pictured: the animatronic dinosaur park on the other side of this formidable gate.

My host in Novi Sad, baby in tow, checked me into my cute apartment (a standalone building in the courtyard of an apartment complex) and after checking in to let my parents know I was making connections okay, I zipped off into town, where the nightlife was just kicking into gear. It was exactly my kind of place: not mad with clubbing, but tons of young folk out having food and drinks, wandering the cobbled streets, listening to street musicians, walking alongside the Danube (which weirdly reminded me of the Twin Cities riverscape back in Minnesota) or relaxing in the park. I got the local street food signature, an "Index Sandwich" (an unholy but tasty toasted ham-cheese-and-other sandwich), and joined the wander for the evening. This, I thought, would have been a pretty great place to plant for a few weeks of getting work done, exceedingly pleasant without being distracting in the mode of major cities.

One end of the major square/thoroughfare in Novi Sad. I apparently didn't take as many photos here as I thought, though I think the video has more of the imagery that captivated me?

The next morning, I made my way to a cafe and plugged away at work for the day, stopped off for a street-food lunch, and after an afternoon round of productivity, returned to the bus station for my summer record worst decision ever, an overnight bus ride from Novi Sad to Kotor by way of Belgrade. After the first leg of the trip, I felt good - a nearly empty bus, room to stretch out, quiet. In Belgrade, everything changed. An amped-up group of Serbian teenagers filled in around me, playing music on their phones, snacking, and loudly bantering until 3-4 AM. They all fell asleep right as the bus coasted into the wildly stunning landscape of Montenegro (there's a train line that echoes this journey and I could not recommend that idea more strongly), of which I have no evidence, having been moved away from the window. Ah well! I catnapped when I could, reminded myself I was saving a night of lodging expenses, chalked it up to Life Experience, and once in Kotor underwent one of the truly greatest naps of our era.

The Danube in Serbia! This river goes everywhere! What the heck, river?

Up next: Montenegro, and the arrival of a friend!