Belgrade, Serbia.

Belgrade and Serbia have had along history of invasion. Starting with the Illyans, then Celts, Romans, Slavs, Turks, Austro - Hungarians and Germans briefly in WW 2.
These are the names Belgrade has been known by over this period.

The main feature of the city is Kalemegdan Citadel, a fortress on a hill high above the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers. It has guarded the rivers, vital for the military and for commerce. Over 115 battles have been fought over the citadel, and the city below and parts of the fortress have been razed 40 times.

The main square in the city is Trg Republike with a statue of the liberator of Serbs from Turkish rule on his horse. From here Kneza Mihailova, a pedestrian street goes uphill to the citadel. Plenty of pasta, pizza and ice cream along here!

Tried the local Serbian food with the help of Aussies Kent and Al. We went for the bean and sausage dish which provided plenty of gas the next day - real cowboy food. Washed it down with the local beer.

Belgrade was bombed by the US and NATO forces for 78 days in 1999 over Serbian indiscretions in Kosovo and neighbouring countries. The targets were mainly military ones including Army HQ. A few of these buildings still haven't been rebuilt. Added to Nazi bombing in WW2 and post war central planning, the city is rather drab and hard edged. Serbia and Belgrade have not yet come within the comfort zone of most tourists.



We are living history here in Belgrade. The Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was arrested for war crimes in the city last night. He has been on the run from the authorities and War Crimes Tribunal for over ten years. At breakfast we could hear shouting and chanting out in the streets and it was his supporters protesting his arrest - they were just around the corner in Trg Republike. Police in riot gear have been around the streets all day keeping an eye on the protesters. We didn't think it was a good idea to photograph them!

Novi Sad, Serbia

We caught a bus to Novi Sad and sailed past all the cars that were queued at the border leaving Hungary. It was a hot day and people were sitting in the shade created by the cars and many just pushed their cars as the queue moved.
The three lines of traffic backed up about a kilometer. We were glad to be in a bus that had a designated lane.

We checked into the newest hostel in town, other than the university dormitory there is only one other hostel in town. The owner Dujo, is a guy from Kosovo and he is building some apartments in the attic as well so John was able to take a look and give him some tips.

The hostel was located in the walking street which was full of bars, cafes and restaurants. Our bedroom overlooked the street and at night it got really noisy being a Friday night so we went out with Dujo to a Serbian bar to listen to some Serbian music.

We met Abri from Jordan but lives in Spain and here she is practising how to whistle, with instructions from Lil or course!

Novi Sad is famous for the Exit Festival which had been on a few days before we arrived. Some students started the festival a few years ago and now it is a huge event which is held at the Petrovaradin Citadel across the Danube River. The attendees camp on the castle grounds.

Szeged, Hungary

On the way to Szeged we saw the farmers harvesting the wheat, cutting hay, and others picking apricots and plums. There were many trailers on the roadsides selling huge watermelons.

Szeged was a short one night stop so we did not have to take long bus or train rides. We did not find any hostels listed in the city so used a pension web site we stumbled across to book a room. The room was in a noisy, dingy hotel block and one night was enough there.

We caught the bus into the city centre and found some outdoor tables under a highway bridge to have a cold ale and some local fried food. It was such a hot evening that the families were in the park playground nearby with their children trying to tire them out so they would sleep.

Nearly every corner has ice cream shops or you can find mobile ice cream fridges in the squares or parks. The ice cream has a soft texture and a yoghurt flavour.

Pecs, Hungary

Pecs is pronounced Paich and will be crowned European Culture Capital for 2010.

The Turks had 150 years of occupation here and the Romans had 400 years and Christianity flourished in the 4th century.

The domed building in the central square has both a crescent representing Islam and a cross for Christianity and is called the Mosque Church. It was originally built as a church and then rebuilt by the the Turks as a mosque without a minaret. Today it is a Christian church.

The city has ruins of 16th century Turkish baths and 4th century Christian cemetery and mausoleums which are now UNESCO listed sites.

We stayed at Pecs's first and only hostel situated in the walking street. It had a. balcony from which we could watch the world go by.

We met lots of interesting people including Julie, an American living in Germany and Ellsworthy, from Sri Lanka who looks after elderly folk in Germany . We cooked a shared dinner and tried some of the lovely local Hungarian wine.

Pecs is a university city and is quiet now as the students are on holiday and have returned to their home towns. There was a German guy in the hostel looking for an apartment in the city so he could study medicine. He said it was cheaper than Germany and the standard of instruction was better through his German sister university in Pecs.

Many British people fly to Hungary on cheap flights to have dental and cosmetic work done as it is better quality than they can get on the National Health system and much cheaper.

The wall of padlocks is a tourist sight here!

Szentendre, Hungary

Took a day trip to Szentendre which is easily accessible from Budapest by train. The graffiti in Hungary has been the most prolific. The ground floor of the houses in the street parallel to the train line had been covered for the length of the 19 kilometer trip. The metal sun shutters were covered with graffiti as well as the window glass. The trains are covered and so are the windows and the latter are often scratched so much that it is difficult to see out of them. Of course the fences separating the street and railway lines were also painted. Most of the works were signatures and not political slogans or messages.

Szentendre is a former artists colony along the river. There are many 18th century buildings as well as Serbian churches built from 1752 and 1764. It has the usual narrow cobbled streets and was a pleasant place to spend time away from the bustle of Budapest.

Budapest, Hungary

Caught a train to Budapest that took 2 hours and took the metro a couple of stops to our hostel. It turned out that the double rooms for the hostel were actually down the street in an apartment. The apartment had 3 double rooms and we could use the well equiped kitchen to cook. Our room was enormous with table and chairs and 4 beds.


They have a strange way of numbering the floors here and the first floor was actually on the 3 level of the building!

Our room looked out over the street and we could see the beautiful old synagogue from our window. It was30+ celcius and very hot for sleeping without fans and aircon.


We visited Chain bridge which was the original bridge across the Danube joining Buda on one side of the river to Pest on the other. At this time of the year there is a summer festival and the bridge is closed to traffic and filled with stalls selling food and crafts. We tried some of the local fried dough and yoghurt which was like a huge pancake.


There were jewelery stalls and these creatures made from hay which were very interesting and smelled so fresh that they could have been cut and made that day.

Along the bridge was a photographic exhibition as well. The photographer had mounted a shot of Budapest on a huge screen and then photographed local rural families in front of the backdrop. Most of the families had never been to Budapest!



At each end of the street were stages with musicians and comedians entertaining the crowds. These guys arrived on their bicycles and put these long instruments together and got the crowds clapping.



We visited the castle on the hill and some of the old buildings.

Lil's brother was presenting a paper at an animal reproduction conference so we caught up with him for a traditional and very filling Hungarian meal at a restaurant.

Gyor, Hungary

We wanted to visit the Lake Balaton in Hungary but were not able to get any accommodation organized online. We later saw a poster advertising a marathon and festival there so that may have been the reason why. Instead we caught a bus to Gyor. The modern looking bus left on time but then stopped outside a restaurant a few minutes away from the bus station where the driver got some food in plastic containers and no passengers got on. There was no air conditioning and the windows didn't open so it was stuffy in the 30+ temperatures. Houses and transport cater more for cold weather than hot!

After passing many fields of wheat, corn, and sunflowers and many stops later we arrived in Gyor. We were unable to find any hostels on our usual internet sites and managed to find a new site with a 3 star hotel that was cheaper than a hostel would be and it was lovely.

There are several categories of eating places in Hungary we read. Etterems are expensive restaurants with lots of choices of dishes, stuffy waiters and expensive prices. They serve venison, veal, trout, salmon, goose liver, turkey, frogs and the usual meat dishes. They also charge more to sit outside and a steak is more expensive than in New Zealand. Vendeglo are smaller and serve homestyle regional dishes but we only saw one of these! Etkezde are cheaper tiny places with a counter and sometimes a couple of tables. Grill serve wraps or kebabs and some grilled meats. Cafes and kavehaz serve desserts, tea, coffee and a huge range of alcohol.

It seems the habit here to eat a main meal in the middle of the day and blackboards had specials advertising Meal A and Meal B specials. In the evening it seems more common to have a drink or beer and dessert or ice cream. The torts look incredible.

Other than wander around the narrow streets there was not a lot to do in Gyor but it was nice to be in a quiet small town and watch the locals fishing on the river, sun bathing at the pools (they were outside heated ones), and going about their daily business.

It was also a time to get some photo CDs burnt and book an online flight from Split in Croatia to Gatwick in September. Sometimes we have to spend more time planning the next move than we do visiting the sights!

Bratislava, Slovakia

We took a train from Propad to Bratislava that was full of local backpackers who were returning from their outdoor holidays. We passed through fields of sunflowers and various grains but mostly wheat.

We checked into a hostel that had just opened in March and it turned out to be a part of the veterinary university. It was a huge block building 10 stories high and the hostel took up the third floor. The corridor stretched for 100+ metres without a fire door. The room was obviously used by students during the term and rented to travelers over the summer. It was not a place to meet people though as it had no common areas to gather. We shared a bathroom with two other people and had a one element electric cooker and a fridge but no cooking utensils. On the campus was a bar and a cafeteria which was convenient and meant we didn't have to take a long walk or buses to find food. It was promoted as the cheapest hostel in Bratislava and it was compared with some of the others we looked at online.


We had summer temperatures of 25 celcius and a lightning storm, great weather for getting laundry dry.

The hostel was not far off the banks of the Danube so we were able to walk about 30 minutes to the Bratislava Castle which is described as looking like a four-poster bed. It is covered with scaffolding and having a major facelift and some extra buildings added to the structure.

Below the castle are streets of old Jewish houses.

The city has 420,000 people and has a lovely small town feel. In the old city main square is the 14th century St Martin's cathedral where ten ruling kings and one queen were crowned.

Like all the other Eastern European places there are restaurants lining the narrow cobbled streets and squares.

This guy is the most photographed guy in town.

After exploring the city and seeing all we wanted to we decided to take a bus to Devin Castle on the outskirts of the city. The stone castle was built in the 9th century on the banks of the Danube and a smaller river. It survived attacks from the Turks but was blown up by the French in 1809.

It was decided to leave the castle as a ruin and there are some rooms with the artifacts that archaeologists have unearthed. When they dug up the graves in the church cemetery they found the average age of the skeletons to be 22 years old. A display of skulls showed how the shaman used to drill through to the brain, or hit the skull with a heavy rock causing the bone to 'dent' in order to cure mental illness or get rid of demons. Some of the skulls showed signs of healing after such treatment.

Some of the leg and arm bones showed breaks that had healed and without traction they would have been shorter than the other limbs. A few bones showed signs of syphilis.


Archaeologists were working on the site while we were there.

Zdiar, High Tatras, Slovakia

Left Olomouc by train and after one change and a border crossing arrived in Poprad, Slovakia. We passed some of these small buildings surrounded by vegetable gardens on the hillsides. We are not sure if they are summer cottages or allotments.

Slovakia is famous for ice hockey, beautiful women, mountain hiking and folk traditions. The language is different from Czech as well and it is difficult to read anything as it doesn't resemble any words we know.

Once we arrived in the mountain area it was noticeable how many Slovakians were out and about hiking the trails. They were loaded up with backpacks, sleeping pads, and walking poles and many joined us on the bus as they were returning from their hikes while we were headed to our pension.

We managed to find a website that listed pensions in Zdiar so booked a double room. The pension is owned by a local couple who speak a little German and no English. The son who appeared about 25ish could speak a little English as well.

The family home was three stories high and we were on the second floor. There were 5 huge bedrooms and ours had a balcony overlooking the village. We could cook in the kitchen and had a 10 seater dining table for the two of us. No one else arrived while we were there so we didn't have to share the facilities at all.
It was wonderful to have so much space after some of the pokey hostels we have been in.

In the winter Zdiar is a popular place for snow skiing, and snow boarding. There are numerous pensions that have accommodation, saunas, tows, ski schools, restaurants, and bars. In the summer these same pensions cater to the hikers.

The hills are covered in pine forest with several sawmills around the village. Many people were splitting logs and storing the firewood for winter, age old traditions for these places!


We watched the local farmers with their horses cutting hay, turning hay and making hay stacks. We saw the occasional cow and a few sheep but most animals seemed to be in huge barns attached to the back of the houses.


We did several walks around the village between the cloud bursts and had one day of fantastic weather and managed a full day walk through the forest and around the village hills. We only met two other groups of walkers so it was very quiet. The trails were well marked in the forest but we had to cross lots of fields of wildfowers and hay stacks and potato patches before we connected with them.