serbia

Unfortunate Belgrade

08 Sep 2011
Posted by Marisa
Marisa's picture

Unfortunately for Belgrade, someplace had to come after Sarajevo and it was unlucky enough to be the next stop. It was another hot and long train trip, but instead of ending up in a surprisingly wonderful place, this time the unknown turned out to be less desirable. To illustrate this, all over Europe I've been taking jumping pictures in front of famous monuments. This is the one I took in Belgrade:

Jumping in Belgrade

It's not really fair to the city, as they did have some more scenic places than these smokestacks, but they were my first impression of the city. The place we were staying was a little out of the city center in a new apartment development that looked like it had been airlifted right from Korea, which had a nice homey feeling, but the downside was that it was surrounded by flat, empty land and those smokestacks. So after the beautiful hills of Sarajevo it was a bit of a downer.

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Once we managed to get into the city, it was nice. We took a little boat ride across the river and had a nice dinner, since food had gotten significantly cheaper as we travelled south and east through Europe.

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They had a very nice citadel which we walked through at dusk, watching the sunset over the meeting of the two rivers (Danube and Sava).

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Overall, not really a bad place, definetly with some interesting moments. Is it a coincidence that my least favorite place in Europe came right after my favorite? It could be, but then the same was true in Asia with Taiwan being our standout and then Vietnam becoming notorious as my least favorite place on the planet. There was probably little hope for either Vietnam or Belgrade coming in the trip plan when they did, but Belgrade at least tried to redeem itself.