Before the trip.

The number of Australians I spoke to about my plans for a holiday in Belgrade that didn`t know where Belgrade was surprised me. Maybe it`s just my own personal interest in the Balkans throughout my life that caused my surprise at the ignorance of others.
A couple of days before we were due to leave I received the plane tickets and noticed to my dismay that they had spelling errors [our names]. After ringing the travel agency and mentioning "consumer affairs" the problem was sorted out [ at some financial cost to them and me.......sometimes it`s just not worth the effort debating], but it was a rough afternoon.
We arranged with our good neighbors to have our rats and guinea pigs fed and watered,mailbox emptied [ even though we had had organized to have our mail redirected it turned out that was beyond the skills of the post office and the day we got back three weeks worth of mail was delivered in one hit] and for them to generally keep an eye on our property.
I organized for a couple of credit card bills to be paid while we were away and also found out that because my bank savings card has a "cirrus" [two small blue hemisheres] sign on it I could withdraw cash in the local currency from any atm that also had the "cirrus" sign, very convenient.
We packed our bags the night before we left and stored two photocopies af all our important papers like passports,insurance details general travel details etc in our carry on luggage, we had also left copies with my parents. I had a couple of hundred in U.S. dollars and several hundred in Australian.

Flying off

A friend of ours gave us a lift to the airport and we arrived there at about six pm and after checking in kept busy for two hours. I have always enjoyed airports, the mix of people from around the world arriving and departing I find fascinating and I generally chat with anyone whilst having a smoke. We had a couple of friends seeing us off and got so caught up talking and shopping with them that we only boarded the Emirates plane at the last call.
The seats were great, because we had a toddler we were given seats at one of the bulkheads and had plenty of legroom,and the toilets very handy. Before takeoff we were given a babies seatbelt for Natasha, it is just a small belt that fastens to the adult belt and you hold baby on your lap.
After the plane was high enough and leveled off,about 15 minutes, a stewardess mounted a bassinet [with its own little safety belt] to the bulkhead and Natasha could play,sit and sleep in absolute comfort.
The food was good and I actually ate everything, we had our own food for Natasha but the airline also supplied some. Sleeping wasn`t easy for me but I did notice many others that had no trouble.
I have been in so many timezones the past couple of days that I`m not sure how long the first flight took but I think it was around fourteen hours to Dubai.

Dubai Airport

Now this is an interesting place.
Being a smoker I was in need of a fix. Dubai terminal has two smoking areas that I now know of, one is a smallish glass fronted room and the other is a semi-open area in the middle of the airport terminal,both areas have exhaust fans but the smoke fills the air like a light mist.
The duty free shops here are great, one was similar to a small supermarket. One thing of some annoyance was that whilst all the shops took any currency they would give you change in Dubai Dirhams.
A small coke,a coffee,an orange juice and a muffin cost twenty U.S. at Costas Coffee[located next to the open smoking area].
There are small buggies that continually charge up and down the terminal carrying officials and a large number of airport workers, a couple of powered walkways and a couple of lifts. The overall impression I got of the place was a feeling of efficiency, this is a major transit facility and very well organized.
We were there for about two hours and enjoyed the break.

I`ll add to this post soon [after I recover from about 30 hours of sleepless travel], including pictures,might even mention Serbia!

Keep it coming.

How did Natasha deal with the take-offs and landings, did she suck something to stop her ears popping?

I'm not that surprised that some people haven't heard of Beglrade.

In the summer of 2000, I spent two weeks in Bulgaria. In a cafe I visited in Veliko Turnovo, a beautiful city which was the medieval capital of the Kingdom of Bulgaria, I met someone who'd visited England as student. Imagine how she felt when she found people in England who said they'd never even heard of her country. She found others who'd heard the name, but had absolutely no idea where the country is. After all, Bulgaria isn't some post-Cold War creation!

Personally, I would happily go to most of the other Balkan states, but Serbia isn't on my list. Slovenia is a very nice place (very green, the people are quiet, look at you funny when you speak English. My kinda place), and Croatia is a lot more lively, very interesting architecture. When I hear Serbia, I think of a war torn Balkan country. I'll stick with the Slovenes, I think. Good food, quiet people, trees and lakes. Srecno.

Sue, Natasha was drinking fruit juice during take-offs so that helped, she didn`t complain at all during the flights to Dubai or Belgrade.
Bloomsby I am amazed that some people hadn`t heard of Bulgaria. Not knowing the location of the country...... Well at least they have heard of it, that is at least showing some knowledge of the existance other countries.

Dubai To Belgrade

After the type of service we received on the Emirates flight it was a little bit of a culture shock to fly with "JAT".
The hosties weren`t rude but they certainly knew who was in charge, and it wasn`t the passengers. The first indication of this was when the stewardess noticed that we were actually sitting in our correct seats [no bassinet just two seats] "don`t be silly and just sit there move so you have three seats"!. We moved to the more comfortable seating arrangement.
When it was meal time there was no asking what type of meal we would like or if in fact we even wanted food, more like
"here, here, here, here" heard down the aisle and people meekly accepting their food tray.

We refueled at Kuwait and were only there for an hour. The city looked pretty much like Dubai did from the air, except smaller, straight roads through sand leading to buildings surrounded by sand.

Going though passport control was fairly fast and after we collected our luggage we headed of in the direction of customs. Halfway to the line of people we were noticed by a couple of officials and told to not bother going through normal procedure and to just duck out through a door they had just emerged from! We did as told and found ourselves in Serbia.
My wifes two brothers were standing right in front of us as we exited and I actually asked my wife to protect me from any traditional kissing. I must have had a premonition, her older brother grabbed me and planted three kisses on me. Now whilst I can`t say I was unprepared the fact remains that I have never been kissed by a man before, I wasn`t sure how I was supposed to respond, on the third kiss I gave him a slight peck on his cheek from the corner of my mouth! That doesn`t mean I`m gay! Hehe. The younger brother shook hands [maybe I should have shaved or cleaned myself up before landing].

The trip to my inlaws unit situated in "Little Kosovo", so nick-named because many of the new residents were Serbs driven out of Kosovo, took about 20 minutes. It took me a couple of days to get used to traveling in vehicles driven on the opposite side of the road and a little longer to get used to the Serbian manner of aggresive driving. The car rules in Belgrade and pedestrians had better be quick. I`ve heard that people in Italy and France have similar driving techniques.

Next......Belgrade and pictures.

Belgrade Part 1

My wife Lily had an emotional reunion with her parents, she hadn`t seen them in eight years, and both her parents cried with joy. The first couple of hours there were spent catching up, with everyone speaking Serbian [though her younger brother spoke fluent english and her older brother could understand basic english] I expected to have no input or knowledge about what was being said. After a short time I realised that if I caught a single word or two in a comment I really could get the gist of what was being said, and I wasn`t left out of the conversation at all.
After the trip there neither Lily nor myself felt like sight-seeing and as it was three in the afternoon it suited us [as if I had any say anyway] to stay in the 2 bedroom unit and chat. The room we were given to use was small with one double sofa and had backdoor leading onto the balcony
That evening I was given my first taste of Serbian food and realised that whilst I normally lost weight when on holidays that probably wasn`t going to be the case this time, the food was great! Cavepi a traditonal style skinless sausage generally served with onion,[ you are given the option of ordering a plate with either five or ten small sausages when in a resturant] and moussaka which I believe is a greek dish adopted by the Serbs consisting of:
1 1/2 lb. Potatoes
1 cup Olive Oil
1 1/2 lbs. Ground Beef
1 fnely chopped Onion
1 minced Garlic
1 1/2 lb. Aubergines
2 tablespoons Butter
3 peeled and chopped Tomatoes
2 teaspoons Salt
dash of Pepper
2 tablespoons, toasted Breadcrumbs
3 Eggs
Parsley
Bechamel Sauce
1/2 lb. Cottage Cheese
1/2 cup Kefalotiri Cheese

There are many other great foods but the two above were my favorite meals. The homemade style breads from cafes etc were nice and the cheeses fantastic tasting. Most of Serbian cuisine contains meat and that suited me fine.

After dinner we handed the presents out and I left Lily to talk with her relatives, and went out and read for a couple of hours on the balcony and crashed out at about eight.

The first morning there I woke at six and after sorting clothes and various travel items had
another great Serbian meal for breakfast and headed off down the road with my father-in-law to find the local moneychanger [they are everywhere] and explore the local area.
This area is mainly newer buildings with houses still being built,
in fact the whole of belgrade had renovating and building work going on. One thing I found interesting was the fact that no single residence had its own garbage bin and people generally took a bag of rubbish with them in the morning and deposited it in one of a number of large lidded waste bins.
We were fortunate that the shops and bus depot were only a three minute walk away, not that we ever caught a bus as there was a taxi stand nearby that always had a couple of cabs parked there.
It cost me about three Australian dollars to catch a cab to the centre of Belgrade, a 10 minute trip,
from "home" and we got twenty percent off that if we called the cab! Though tipping taxis wasn`t the norm there it was hard not to at those prices, plus I generally treat foreign currency as monopoly money and spend it as such. A number of the drivers understood english and quite a few spoke German[ I learned that many had worked in Germany], I found them to be honest and friendly but a little "enthusiastic" as drivers.
After changing the money over I thought myself very rich indeed, the exchange rate was about 64 dinars for 1 Australian dollar. A large meal for three consisting of drinks and main course cost me less than twenty Australian. A packet of 20 Pall Mall cigarettes cost 55 dinars [I pay eleven dollars Australian back home for a packet of 25] and a two litre coke cost 84 dinars.
Clothes were cheap as well, a business shirt was about twenty Australian and a good pair of shoes about forty. My wife purchased a few items for herself and a lot of things for Natasha. I bought some shoes,clothes,tools and a great many computer programs,games and movies.

Serbian highway.

Local area, that`s my wife heading off with Natasha.

Main Belgrade Metro.

Apartment building in New Belgrade.

Not much in the way of adverts in the Metro, nor graffiti

Whoa, that's a pretty big apartment building.

There was very little graffiti on any of the train station walls Sue, the rest of the city apart from the main shopping area had plenty. Red Army [something to do with sports] was the most common phrase. After I took another snap in the Metro a civilian came up to me and by mime told me that taking pics was not allowed. I took one more pic and decided not to take anymore when an official left his office and stood at one end of the station for about 10 minutes and watched the station happenings. At Pancevo, half an hours train trip away I took this photo, are your papers in order?

Blurrystar that picture was taken from the carpark of an amazingly large supermarket , similar to a coles or woolworths but bigger, nicknamed "the greek supermarket".
There are quite a few apartment buildings that size in Belgrade.

Some countries can be a bit iffy when it comes to photographs of any form of public transport, trains, 'planes etc. There was the famous case of the 'plane spotters arrested in Greece as spies, I think it was last year. Scarey.

This is great, Roos. What a wonderful experience for you all.

Having never lived in an flat I can never believe how so many people live in blocks of like that.

Photos are not allowed to be taken on the MTR here, though people do.

Quote:

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Having never lived in an flat I can never believe how so many people live in blocks like that.

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Jill, Hong Kong has massive housing estates like that, an incredible sight sometimes.
Roos, what a fascinating account of your trip. Did the air seem polluted there? What was the weather like?

And most importantly, can you get beer and footy results there?

Thanks Jill, the building we were staying in had only 10 apartments and I wouldn`t have liked to stay in anything much larger myself. Local area shot. Note the communal rubbish bins on the right.
Ren the pollution wasn`t as much as Sydney and it wasn`t actually noticed by Lily or myself. That said when we traveled to Topola, a small town, we did notice the air was fresher to breath. The weather was fantastic, we had rain for one hour the whole time we were there and the rest of the days were about 29 celcius and sunny, the nights were warm as well. A couple of mornings I enjoyed the sight of heavy to moderate mists.
Lol Oz. Can an Aussie not get beer anywhere if he really wants/needs some? Here is a shot of me being Australian and having a beer or two in one of the more traditional style beer halls. The beers I had, I only drank 4 the whole time I was there,were easy to drink and had a fine full flavour with no nasty aftertaste at all though they were a little bit weaker than Australian beers. The country is sports mad but I`m not, I assume that if you so desired you could find out the results of any sporting event. There were many sports betting centres scattered throughout the city, like our TAB I guess.
The next photo is just one I thought I would throw in here. Orwellian type sign.

Belgrade part 2.

My younger brother in-law, Ivan, had taken holidays at the same time we were over there and was our guide
for three weeks, having someone with us that knew Belgrade was fantastic. The first day out we went to the main shopping area in Belgrade, Kneza Mihaila St. This is a pedestrian only zone that was created in the late 1980s and a great place to walk around. The various shops cater to
every taste from Levis jeans to Paris fashions, there are a great number of book shops with most of them stocking books in english [ I purchased and read "Digital Fortress" by Dan Brown whilst there and also "Secrets Of The Code" by Dan Burnstein, the Serbs spell Dan Browns name Den Braun]. A great many computer retailers were evident in the main street,also in the side streets.

Walking down the main street it`s hard not to notice that there are lots of pretty woman, I was told by a few people
before I left that Belgrade prides itself on the fact that it has the most beautiful woman in Serbia and after having been there I couldn`t disagree.
There are a great many sidewalk cafes throughout Belgrade and a large number of parks most having
statues,art works and fountains though the lack of enough public toilets was irksome, I did find the many public "bubblers" to be handy though. Bubblers seems such an inadequete word to use actually, these were designed with style in mind.

The second day we headed off to visit " Kalemegdan Park" and "Belgrade Fortress". this
picture is in the park and shows what I called Lace Avenue , there are about 30 or so women on either side selling lace table cloths etc with a couple of men there selling various tourist souvenirs.
The Fortress is a restored area of the city,it`s also called the "Old City", and we had some great views of the Danube and Sava rivers from its parapets. We spent most of that day there though we also went to Belgrade Zoo as well.

Days and days were taken up exploring along the rivers and walking through the parks and the streets of Belgrade, I think we averaged about fifteen kilometres [Serbia uses the metric system] a day.
We visited a number of museums and shopped till we dropped, all in all we went hard and loved every minute in Belgrade.

There are currently three McDonalds in Belgrade and whilst I only ate there a couple of times it was nice to know that if I got desperate for some junk food I could get it, though there are also a few places that sell hotdogs,pies and pizzas etc as well. One day I sat down at McDonalds and was waiting for Lily to bring me some lunch [ she does her masters bidding.....if she feels like it that is] one of the many Gypsy beggars came up to me and tried to get some money, her ploy was to show you a picture of a sick kid, as I had handed out enough to Gypsies that particular day and had just sat down to relax I wasn`t in the mood. "Look I just have no cash lady", "please go away and leave me alone" didn`t seem to work at all so I looked up at her and said "Dovidjenja" [goodbye] in a very serbian accented manner and tone,she looked astonished and after giving me a couple of "oohs and ahs" went away.

The Gypsies seem to live on the edge of society there,as in other countries I guess, I was told they don`t like working much and prefer to beg and scrounge. I don`t know about their preferences but they were certainly noticable as beggars though I did also see a few with stalls in the various markets we visited. There were a handful of motorcycles with small trailors attached getting around Belgrade carrying varying sizes of bits of cardboard and I couldn`t work out if the cardboard was of monetary value to them or if they were using it as housing materials.
The main Gypsy "town","living area" is known as Carton City .I did hear that the city authorities are planning to knock "carton city" down and relocate the Gypsies.

Is it just me or does anyone else think roos looks like (a smarter version, for sure) of Russell Crowe? I'm still on my guard there, though, since he jokes real well. Loving the adventures, quite so. THOSE I'm sure are right .

Roos, are you posting this all from memory, or did you write a journal while you were experiencing these things? This is great stuff... I almost feel like I'm there while I'm reading it.

"Dovidjenja"... any clues on how to pronounce that? I've got a "thing" for languages. Wish I could speak 'em all.

Lol Gatsby I DO look like Russel in that photo......I`ve seen pictures of him drinking beer as well! Glad you are finding some enjoyment reading this mate.

Gemini it`s all being posted from memory. I saturated myself with the Serbian lifestyle and culture the three weeks I was there and recall every single thing I saw whilst there, but then I`m not like some of the poor people in this particular thread.

"Dovidjenja" is pronounced "dovi jen yah". Here is a link to a page that explains the evolution of the Serbian language and alphabet better than I could, though I did visit the home of Vuk Stefanovic Karadžic.
Thanks, I`m glad you are enjoying this thread.

Pancevo
Pronounced "Panchevo". The "ch" is said the same as the "ch" in cheese for example.

After a week of exploring Belgrade with our "guide" I was getting a little more adventuous and wanted to see
some more of Serbia. We decided to make a quick trip to Pancevo, a smaller rural town, and so took a short train ride, about 30 minutes, there.

The train ride was pleasant enough and we passed through mostly countryside. About a
kilometre from the train tracks I noticed that there were small "towns", well I guess you could call
them hamlets. Every one of these small, a dozen or so buildings, hamlets had a church spire
showing in the centre. We passed fields of wheat,corn sunflowers etc and traveled over a couple
a couple of bridges. The station itself was an old building and getting to it entailed walking over thetracks and watching out for trains. The photo in one of my other posts entitled "are your papers in order" was taken there btw.

The walk to the actual centre of town was about one kilometre and quite interesting, there were a number of open fruit orchards along the way and a market place . Pancevo is a university town and the number of kids and teens racing around was more noticable than even in Belgrade . The many older buildings,cobbled roads and horses really gave the place a rustic feel and the people seemed to be taking life a little slower and looked more relaxed.

The shops were not anything great, but then this is just a smaller town. Whilst we were walking along the main street I noticed this poor soul , both his legs useless and only one arm was of any help to him. Watching him move was painful, he would push one wheel and veer slightly
one way and make a little forward progress then push the other wheel etc, watching him cross the road was hypnotising I just couldnt look away, he made it across but the road on the otherside was cracked and full of potholes.

Many of the buildings had courtyards like this one , many of the buildings in Belgrade had similar courtyards, where you could find more shops or were used by the residents.
Pancevo had its share of parks though few if any fountains. The kiosk shown here is typical of the many kiosks found in Belgrade and other cities in Serbia, though I don`t recall any of the others advertising "Gril Bum"!

I had actually wanted to go to Pancevo to visit the larger market there but was warned that Russian Mafia along with other less than savoury types ran it (Lilys father was concerned that Natasha would be kidnapped) so we gave that a miss though on the way back got a quick look, what a mess,crowded with stalls that gave it a real enclosed look and rubbish everywhere, a real run down place.

I found Pancevo to be a nice break from the fast moving Belgrade and was glad to have visited but wouldn`t go back there.

ANother great report! Keep them coming!

Love that courtyard - very cute plus the 'rustic' photo too. And how clean is that train? Suppose that ties in with the little graffiti at stations you mentioned earlier.


"I had actually wanted to go to Pancevo to visit the larger market there but was warned that Russian Mafia along with other less than savoury types ran it (Lilys father was concerned that Natasha would be kidnapped)" Yikes. Lost for words over that but that's a 'wow' moment.

Sheesh to the comment about possible kidnap - wow.

Keep the reports coming, they are really interesting.

The train was clean enough Jill but don`t get me started about the small room with the hole in the floor. The sign on the door read toilet but that room was so far removed from any toilet that I have even been in I walked in and walked straight out again!

We didn`t tell Lils father that we did end up going to Pancevo. He thought we were off shopping in New Belgrade for the day. I hated deceiving him but I`m sure he slept better not knowing.

Thanks Sue I`m glad you are finding Serbia interesting.

Edited to add. My actual involvement in keeping mum about our sneak trip wasn`t revealed to me till we were back, I was told to just not say the word "Pancevo". So I`m not as guilty as my brother in-law or my wife!

This is an amazing account of your vacation. I just want to say how much I appreciate the effort you've gone to to do this for us! The kidnapping comment must have been a little scary.
I loved the 'gril bum' sign on the food wagon! I've never tried grilling bum before.