Friday 27th August

 

27/08/04 Day 55

I feel that day 55, the Belgrade day will go down as a pivotal day in our travels. Only time will tell, but it seemed to be a day of extremes.

Having not felt like eating last night (after a day of pastry munching), I was a bit non-plussed to find myself still anti-nourishment this morning. So after almost 24 hrs without eating, we dived straight in with a half pig for lunch, in the form of a huge minced pancake-like thing. It was most delicious, and by luck turned out to be on LP recommended delicacy very representative of the Serbian meat fascination (It even decoded me. The third from last bite bringing me within inches of my life - although to be fair, I had eaten 2/3 of Heathers too.)

As if this salty, gristly, monstrosity were not enticingly enough, dinner was a huge, and oh so beautiful chocolate cake!. Despite a long search, and the eventual settling on the expensive option, it was worth it for the location: Belgrades main street window seat, candle...; and the quality: possibly my best cake ever: chocolate-crunch base, cream cheese top and rich chocolate icing.

Another extreme was Heathers drinking: an orange juice and bitter lemon for lunch, a glass of water and a glass of milk for dinner, a coffee for afters and a MacDonalds orange juice to finish.

As for the city... Our first stop was the citadel, a huge expanse of land in the corner of the Sava and the Danube, containing a scattering of standing walls ruined walls, didrinas, parts museums and suicidal men in suits. Absolutely no tourism, and the irony was noted: how tour-groups are found where they are not needed but not where they are!. Definitely a non-entity in our list of cultural sites.

The military museum was also a bit of a let down. Despite having a huge selection of artefacts, it lacked historical information (in English) and the main attraction, the damned stealth fighter, was not even there!

There was also a most distressing incident while Heather made use of a restaurants toilet facilities, leaving me to debate, for what seemed like an ice-age, the curious and suspicious waiter, by reading the (Serbian) menu from to back 4 times. Theassurance that she was in debt to me was obviously taken to heart later, as she provided great entertainment a lunch by getting herself locked in the toilet for a full 10 minutes, before I finally found within myself the compassion to heroically rescue her!. I tell you, the sight of her calling, like a classic rescued heroin, into my arms was the stuff of high-comedy. (Also note that this is the 2nd time such an incident has occurred in the Balkans!)

After the museum we headed for the internet place, where my list of friends increased to 3, and on to the elusive dubbed street for lunch.

The half pig really took it out of us so Heather was left for a 2 hour sleep while I attempted to find another museum, but instead found two cathedrals, one being built and one equally cavernous and beer hall inside. But no museum.

Having walked twice around the city I collapsed for an hours kip, before we headed out for some cake and clothes shopping, the first of which was, as recounted, very successful, and the second, very upsettingly, unsuccessful. But this failure was not permitted to ruin the evening, - by any means.

I feel we may have got out of bed a bit too early this day, so eager we were to discover Belgrade. It was dull, cloudy and cold and drizzly but we ventured out anyway. All the cafes had their seats and tables out and there was a distinct lack of customers. After reading the Lonely Planet tome and time again in the hope that something more exciting would appear in the Belgrade section. We settled for the citadel. There was absolutely no signs, directions or anything portraying any information about the place - it might not have even been the right place for all we know. It was kind of eerie, windy and empty of foreigners.

The new one the river wasn't even photo worthy. We found the cafe which was raved about in LP: it was empty. So after this affairI longed for the bustle of the city to remind me there was still life out there. Lunch was nice as for once we weren't in a hurry to be anywhere - it also felt like a locals' joint. The toilet was not amusing especially coming so soon after the first incident and to sift we consider the facts, we may conclude that the Balkans need to know how to make doors. Let's see, there was Ravny where the first locking in incident took place. Then Split where you had to throw your whole body weight against the toilet door whilst quickly fiddling around with the lock just because they made the doors too big. Onto Dubrovnik where we broke the lock on our door. Sarajevo was an exception and Belgrade will I'm sure not be the last we hear of shoddy carpentry skills. I can't believe how long I slept for in the afternoon and again today (tomorrow) I have spent the whole train journey dozing. Here's what I thought about the city - by day - a place for the Serbs to go for their 'big shop' and not really for tourists who are looking to see the sights (because there aren't any). Admittedly we picked a drizzly day but the cafes weren't full, the people weren't terribly lovely, they were just going about their own business and they weren't hanging around to socialise (as they were in Sarajevo). By night - the shops are still open and it has a Christmas shopping feel to it and the cafebars sort of fill up - we had already decided yesterday that the street lighting was flashable and when I come to think of it most of the buildings / water fountains were lit up. In conclusion: a city in whichthe people don't appear to be very proud. Not a lot of charm and I couldn't see any point in going back.