Belgrade

Although it's near the end of our trip the journey from Skopje to Belgrade is our first taste of an overnight train. There are only a few people getting on so we have a cabin to ourselves despite it having 6 'beds' in it. We don't know how safe someone on the top two beds would feel as they all just look like oversized bookshelves hanging on the walls! We decide to take the bottom two, just in case we fall off in the night. At first it's nice to be in a warm cabin after sitting on the platform, but soon we start to sweat as it just seems to be getting hotter and hotter in the train. Cue a rather uncomfortable night's sleep, but even that makes the 9 hour trip seem a lot shorter, plus it saved us from having to pay for a night's accommodation!

Top, middle or bottom?!

We are immediately shocked at just how cold it is here, Skopje was like summer in comparison! The heat of the train seems a million miles away now and we slowly freeze waiting for our tram. Thankfully Christine reads the signs properly otherwise we would've gone in the wrong direction as James is still far too confused by the Cyrillic writing! We've got ourselves a nice flat really close to the centre and our host is good enough to let us check in at 8am and we collapse gratefully into a real bed for a few hours. We're here for a while so spend the rest of the day stocking the fridge and making some plans for the week.

It's time to see what Belgrade has in store for us today so we wrap up in most of our clothes and head out into the cold. First stop is St Mark's Church, burial place of Alexander I of Serbia (horribly murdered in 1903 so we'll leave you to look up the details if you choose). It's obvious why Belgradians are proud of this place as it looks just as decorative outside as inside. We continue walking past the Parliament building and on to the bohemian quarter; Skadarlija, which has it's own history. It had always been the home of artists of different forms and managed to keep it's cobbled streets and dilapidated roofs despite the rise of the city around it. It even has it's own flag and a handy signpost to help you find the Moon! Alas it's become such a tourist draw that now it's full of overpriced restaurants rather than taverns occupied by singing Serbians but it's still a nice change from the modern city around it. We walk up and down a few more streets getting a feel of the place but it's very much a shopping city and our pennies won't go very far!

St Mark's Church

Tomb of Dushan the Powerful

Inside St Mark's Church

What's this all about?

Parliament

No idea. Is the horse tired?

An introduction to Skadarlija Street

Skadarlija Street

Which way to the moon?

Parliament at night

The next day we head for the remains of the old fortress. There are reminders of the recent wars surrounding the entrance, large guns and tiny tanks (that, to be honest, look like fun to drive), but the gateways to the fortress seem to have survived remarkably well and all seem to be about 300years old. There's some good views from the edges of the walls, especially of the unique point where two major rivers, the Sava and the Danube, meet but it's clear from the signs that tourists will get no sympathy if they fall off the edge! On our hunt for photo opportunities Christine manages to find a tramp 'toilet' in one of the look out posts. Yuk. Back to the warm apartment for a wash!

What are the chances that someone has left the keys in?

The joining of two rivers

Anyone fancy peering over the edge? No? Us neither!

At the top of the fortress

Stinky look out post

An upside down tree.

Today it's Christine's turn to be ill but she still feels like shopping so we head out to the big market. On the way we explore St Sava's Cathedral which is absolutely huuuuge! We could see it poking over the top of buildings from way off but it took ages to get to it. The inside as a bit of a let down though as it was going through serious renovation so we couldn't really look at anything but the ceiling, way up in the air. The domes that made up the roof did look spectacular from the outside though. The market is just around the corner but was half empty, obviously Serbians do feel the cold too, but it was still amusing to see some of the rubbish that people were trying to sell. I suppose it is true that one man's (or little old lady's) trash is another's treasure! 

St Sava's Cathedral

We're sure it's beautiful under the covers.

An ill Christine but she's still smiling (kinda)

We stop for a rather disappointing lunch in a posh restaurant then head to the Tesla museum across the road (James has been going on about it since we arrived). We get an introductory video about Tesla's life and works which seems to assume everyone has an A-Level knowledge of physics but then get shown some cool demonstrations using his inventions. We get to play light sabers by waving neon light strip bulbs near a Tesla coil, James gets shocked by a transformer (not a robot) and Christine gets to play with the world's first remote control toy. We even got to see Tesla's ashes, held inside a specially made brass sphere. It was sad to hear that his ideas for free worldwide energy could have been in place by now if it wasn't for the greed of a few and his vision could have improved the lives of millions of people. Will the world ever see another like him?

Tesla's coil

Tesla's egg of Columbus

The first remote controlled powered boat

Tesla's urn

Belgrade is famous for it's nightlife. Every blog and article we've read raves about it. The parties get going about midnight and don't stop until it's time for work in the morning so it's time for us to try it out. We've done a bit of research and found a funky jazz club to head for but it doesn't open until 10pm so we stop at a Cuban place for a couple first then continue our mission. We find the place without too much trouble (for a change) but Oh No! The doors are locked and the lights are off. What's going on? It's not even midnight! We know we've got the right place as two guys turn up at the same time and look just and confused as us. Hmmm. Luckily we've got a back up plan so we head round the corner to the main bar street. Well that's what it's supposed to be anyway, it's worryingly quiet. A little way down the street we do find a bar that's open so we get the beers in then find it's half price cocktails. D'oh! That'll be the next round then...or not, as 5 minutes later the police come in, the music goes off and the place starts to empty. We're not having much luck. There's another place over the road so we head for that only to be told it's a private party and we're not invited. No fair. So much for legendary nightlife. It's 1.30am and we're heading back, not even by choice. We keep our eyes open for anywhere else but it's no good. Maybe it's better in the Summer.

It's our last day and we're not sure what's left to do. Belgrade is pretty small. We've heard mixed reviews about the zoo so decide to go and see for ourselves. There are cool mosaics of different animals on the outside wall and we're hopefully that the animals inside have got lots of space but a look over the wall makes us feel sad. We can't see all the enclosures but the ones we can see make us feel that it'll be too depressing to go in. We could attempt to get in and jail break all the animals but the thought of a Serbian jail is a scary one! We have another wander around the fortress and the city before going back to pack for our trip to Brussels tomorrow. 

Seeing seals

Giving the zoo a miss

Another tour of the Fortress

Statues of Skopje

Henrik wants us out by 8am as he has to go to work and doesn’t want to leave us in the flat alone, hopefully he will learn to trust his guests if he is going to continue using Airbnb!

 

Our flight isn’t until 2pm but we just can’t afford to stay in Stockholm so we get to the airport 2 hours early. We go to check in but notice that the flight has been delayed by 3 hours, nooooo!! It makes it worse that it is an expensive airport. We kill time by playing snakes and ladders, hangman and Ludo, the oldies are the best. When the plane finally arrives it is time for Wizz Air to be annoying again by making people squeeze their hand luggage into the teeny tiny cage before sending them off to pay god knows what for oversized luggage, they must make a fortune that way. We watch as passenger after passenger is sent to the desk to cough up extra money to line the pockets of the fat cat bosses of the company, feeling especially sorry for the people whose cases don’t fit just because they have wheels on!

Errrmmm, what's the gambling age in Stockholm?

Finally arriving in Skopje we have missed the last shuttle bus to the city (Thanks again Wizz!) so we have to get a taxi to the city where our host, Filip, picks us up and gives us a quick tour of the city. The apartment is very (very, very) basic but liveable and we’re happy not to be in an expensive city anymore. It’s late at night so there’s no chance of us exploring today. 

Time for a tour of the city. We walk along the cracked pavements/roads (The rule seems to be that the pavement is the place to park cars), through the local market and arrive in the centre. It soon becomes clear that this isn’t a tourist city and we think we’re the only tourists here, we’re getting a lot of curious looks. There doesn’t seem to be a system on the roads so it’s a game of cross and hope for the best. We walk to the Grand Square where there are lots of huge statues, REALLY huge! The biggest is a statue of Alexander The Great (called ‘Warrior on a Horse’ to keep Greece quiet as they claim the real Macedonia is actually a region there) which is around 80ft tall! Filip has already told us that the people of Skopje aren’t happy with the statues because they feel the money should be spent on more important things. After tripping over the pavements and seeing very unstable looking horses and carts we can certainly see why. The government has actually spent over £20million on statues instead of schools, hospitals and employment so we feel a bit guilty staring at them.  

Huge statues, EVERYWHERE!

Warrior On A Horse or Alexander the Great? Whichever it is he's ruddy big!

Church of St Clement

Watch out for the horse and carts.

King Samuel

We stop for food and the waitress mishears our order of two beers and brings us two Baileys. She gives us a sob story that her boss is a hard man who will punish her for her mistake and asks to leave the Baileys there so that he doesn’t ask questions. Finally she takes them away and has a word with her boss who then gives us evil looks while we eat our food. We soon find out why, the waitress has told him that we ordered the drinks but then changed our minds and refused to pay for them! No wonder he had a face like thunder. We leave and decide not to visit again.

The next stop is the Old Bazaar which is the oldest part of Skopje. We cross the stone bridge and find the Old Bazaar which is heaving with people. It’s full of tiny streets and market stalls, definitely the least familiar part of Europe we’ve experienced so far, but it’s quite overwhelming so we make our way back through the city, passing even more statues and the closed Tourist Information (Doh!), we’ll come back tomorrow.

Crossing the Stone Bridge

The Old Bazaar

More statues!

Another visit to the market as we are in desperate need of a charger for the tablet (We left ours in Stockholm), the stall holders are really nice and search around for a while, not stopping until they’ve found what we need, cheers chucks! The next stop is the tourist information centre where we get some advice and the best written guide books ever! Christine loves them and would be quite happy just sitting and reading them instead of actually exploring.  We choose to go to the Kale Fortress on top of a hill, it looks like a great place to explore but when we get there it’s closed to the public because of an “incident” ooh err! We walk back down to have a better look at the statues and read about them as well as seeing the Monument to the Fallen. We’ve read that a local restaurant near us is one of the best so we go out for dinner and have a lovely meal. It is nice to have some posh food on the cheap!

Kale Fortress

How many statues can you spot?

The monument to the fallen

Today we want to go on a day trip to Matka Lake so we wait at a popular bus stop and hope that the right bus turns up. It’s difficult as the bus stops don’t have the numbers of the buses that stop there so it’s all guess work. After an hour we give up and get the bus to the Millennium Cross instead. The bus stops at the bottom of Mount Vodno and we make our way to the cable cars that take you to the top of the mountain. The staff are on a half hour break, will we ever get our timings right?! Finally we get on the cable car, it’s the cheapest one that we’ve been on and probably the longest. At the top we get magnificent views of the city and the surrounding mountains and see the millennium cross which is huge! We head to a romantic looking viewpoint for a special moment but another couple gets there at the same time, we wouldn’t mind so much but they didn’t even stand together to admire the view. As we walk off it becomes apparent they were just waiting for us to go, maybe we should have stood our ground for longer!

 

Up to Mount Vodno

Millennium Cross

I walked all the way up...honest!

View of the city

Probably could have picked a better background.

Lovely views

Going back down to Earth

Back down in the city we visit the Mother Teresa memorial house which is built on the site of the church where she was baptised, even incorporating some of the original features. It’s a fitting tribute to such a wonderful woman and it’s lovely to read about all of the amazing things that she has done as well as her words of wisdom that she wrote for herself and for others.

Mother Teresa Memorial House

Wise words

The next day we attempt to visit Lake Matka again. Filip has told us where to get the bus from and when we arrive at the station the bus turns up, we got our timing right, hurrah! The bus driver turns people away while he eats a sandwich at the back of the bus, when he returns to the driver seat he makes a phone call and then starts driving away! A couple of people jump on as it is moving but we’re left behind and the next one isn’t for another 90 minutes, great. We decide to have a slower stroll around the Old Bazaar and a look in a few shops. It’s nice not to have to rush round and we find a nice bar playing Pink Floyd music, it’s actually sunny enough to sit outside which makes a nice change after the freezing temperatures of Stockholm. While we are sat outside we hear the call to prayer from the local mosque being said over the loud speaker in the town, it’s unusual to us and it takes us a while to work out what it is. There isn’t much more that we want to see in the city and James isn’t feeling well so we go back to the flat so James can get some rest (party-pooper). 

Triumphal Gate

Old cars and, you guessed it, more statues.

Art Bridge

 Our final day in Skopje is a non-eventful one as James still isn’t well so we spend the day packing and cleaning the flat ready to catch our night train to Belgrade. We find a nice pizza place to fill us up before getting the night train to Belgrade at 8pm.