Belgrade – the White city

At the Bulgarian-Serbian border

 

Transport to Belgrade

After passing the border to Serbia and receiving our last stamp in our passports we hoped that hitchhiking would be easier again – but unfortunately it wasn’t. We waited for quite a long time till somebody took us. It was father and a son who came from Turkey where they went for a business trip. Their company was based on producing and selling cake decorations all over Bulgaria, Serbia, Turkey, Hungary, all the way to France and Germany. What a funny business! Then another two guys took us from the toll both close to Batocina till Kovin and from there we took a bus for the last 30 km to Belgrade.

One of  many houses in Belgrade

Couchsurfing

Luka hosted us for two nice nights in his apartment in the middle of the heart of Belgrade. His apartment was temporary without electricity because some wires were broken and his landlord took some time to fix it. But this was not a problem at all and we used lights based on solar panels - the same which you could buy at Hannah’s former workplace. It was really nice of him to host us even through he needed to prepare himself for his exams of political sciences. He was super nice, welcoming and helpful and as we got a little bit lost in the beginning he helped us to find his place and picked us up at the bus stop. He even let us sleep on his 3000€ worth antique couch which is from his landlord. We went out the first night for a beer and shisha and the second night we went to his gig as he is playing the guitar and singing in different bars during the night to make a living. And he introduced us to a really nice coffee place in Belgrade as it turned out we all are coffee lovers and are enjoying a good cup of coffee! 

Enjoying our last cup of coffee together

We enjoyed Luka’s companionship a lot and we hope he did as well. At least he said it was a great experience to host us as his first couchsurfers and he will continue to host people!

St. Markus church - the prettiest church in Belgrade

Free walking tour at the castle

City

Belgrade was compared to Sofia: lots of high buildings, big streets, tourists and way more people - but beautiful with it’s old buildings, the atmosphere with the Donau, the castle and the waterfront. We did a 20th century free walking tour and an old center free walking tour. We learned a lot about the architecture and history of Serbia and its complication with its neighboring countries Albania and Kosovo.

Donau

Belgrade with its cafes, shopping malls, super markets, people’s dress codes, bakeries, etc. made us understand that we finally hit Europe and soon we would be in Paris and Stuttgart. The city seems like a place where there is always something going on but on the same time it is not completely overwhelming in seize and impressions like Beijing or Istanbul where it can quickly just get too much.

Typical Orthodox church

and from inside - gold over gold

Casablanca Bar in Belgrade: Luka is playing!

People

We just finished the free walking tour and wanted to contact Luka to meet up for dinner when Julie’s friends from Paris, Aymeric and Jacko, wrote her that they are in Belgrade as well. What amazing surprise! We arranged that we would meet up in the bar where Luka would play in the evening. Julie was excited and really happy to see her friends and we had a good conversation, lots of laughers, a couple of beers and ciders and the nice music of Luka to listen to. It was a great evening in the old streets of Belgrade in the heart of the city.

(Re)united in Belgrade

 

Another day of hitchhiking

Transport

It took us two different buses to get more or less out of the city to a small petrol station where we were lucky to find a guy with a car which runs on gas to take us. He needed to go to Batajnica for his work – he owned a company which was producing cotton socks. It is so funny what kind of people you can meet while hitchhiking. We just got dropped at a petrol station on the high way when we could get another lift with a truck driver (who was transporting sunflower seeds) till Backa Topola. From their we found a younger German-Austrian couple in a self-build camping van who took us till the border. There was a huge traffic jam so we were lucky to get out of the car and just walk for 2 km pass it.

traffic jam in front of the border

We didn’t have any problem leaving Serbia (...except that we really needed to pee but didn’t have any money left to pay the toilets...). When we arrived at the Hungarian border the policemen told us that we couldn’t cross this border by foot. It was only allowed to pass the bored by car. We were mad and desperate because there was no sign nothing which announced this before and normally it is super difficult to find somebody to take you in their car across the border.
So we started to knock at the windows of the cars which where waiting and we found somebody!!! Samuil: originally he is from Bulgaria but is working in Munich since the last two years. First at McDonalds and now as a driver for a trade company. He told us that he got stuck at the border since 6 hours! So we were lucky that we only needed 1,5 hours to pass the border. It was nice talking to him in German, to learn something about his life and about the advantages and difficulties people from the new/ eastern parts of Europe face when they come to Germany or France to work. We had such a good time that he took us all the way to Budapest instead of just over the border! 

Good bye Serbia!

"Only" Hungary, Austria, Germany (and France) left to travel through. We are really close to reach our final destinations!!