Woke up around 06:00, on the way to breakfast I changed people's 'Do not
Disturb' notices to 'Please make up my room' and vice versa. It's the
little things.
Breakfast was unusual - lots of local food. I had a
sesame seed pastry filled with chopped bacon and tomato relish (not
bad), a piece of roll with cream cheese, tomato and shredded cheese (too
cheesy), bacon, cheese pie, and a couple of pastries. The restaurant
was a bit small and was playing music, many of my favourite Serbian
tunes.
Checked out, trundled down to the bus station and bought the
tickets to Belgrade. It's amazing how far pointing and nodding gets you
when you don't speak the language.
Journey took about 3 hours through fairly uninspiring countryside, saw quite a few abandoned and half built houses.
Arrived
in Belgrade, pretty depressing; grey tower blocks, concrete overpasses,
graffiti everywhere. It was also miserable weather. Got off the bus and
the hotel was literally over the road, and another modern one. Very
spacious bathroom but no bath, decent sized bedroom with a queen bed.
Left
the hotel, went across the road to a supermarket to get some water,
then back to the hotel to get the umbrella. Over the road to buy the
tickets to Sarajevo, then back to the hotel to get some more cash
because they only took cash and cleaned us out. Into the bank next door
to exchange some money, then back to the hotel because the passport was
in the safe. So far we hadn't travelled more than 200m from the hotel.
Used
Tripadvisor to find a seafood restaurant because we were both fed up
with meat, asked at reception which bus to take and then waited at the
wrong bus stop for 30 minutes. Got the bus, which was free. Well, it was
for us because it was packed and we couldn't get near the driver to
pay. Tracked our location on Google maps to make sure we knew when to
get off and he started to go in a different direction so we got off in
what looked like a dodgy area. Turned down a street which had several
jewellery shops - once again Song managed to find them. Walked for about
10 minutes in the rain - the weather was appalling - and saw the Danube
river, very wide.
Thankfully the restaurant was open (it was only
17:30), wasn't booked out, and had a table in the non smoking section.
Although it was open so didn't really make that much difference. They
were playing more of my favourite Serbian hits.
I had a local beer
(of course), and ordered the seared tuna steak on a bed of potato and
shard cabbage cooked in olive oil and lemon juice. Song had octopus and
calamari also on a bed of potato and shard. We also had a cherry tomato
and rocket salad.
Very very very good. 100 times better than the the meat platter we had yesterday.
Had Tiramasu for dessert, the meal cost about $60 .
Walked back to the main road to get the bus back to the hotel, but it was raining so decided to get a taxi instead.
A bit tired, watched TV and went to sleep, another day in Belgrade tomorrow.
