Day 11 8 Sep - A day in Belgrade, Serbia

Photo above - trams in city centre Belgrade.

Belgrade barber buzz cut

Today, we had an easy day in Belgrade….no travelling, except by local public transport, which is all completely free here!

After breakfast, I decided that it was time to keep up with tradition, and get a haircut. I go to a local barber at some point every time I am on a trip. It is a nice way to mix it with the locals and test my language and communication skills. Most places it costs very little and you can just walk in. Here in Belgrade there were five barbers within a few hundred yards of the hotel, but I chose one up a narrow street that opened at 10am. He was very friendly, and the place was quite funky looking. He did me straight away, shortest cut with clippers and a little head massage thrown in for £7. Not as exciting as being done in a hut by the side of the road, with a car battery powering the clippers, but not everywhere is like Africa!

Old station and train squatting

Next we set off to walk to the old train station that has closed since a new flashy one opened just out of the centre, which we arrived at yesterday. The old one is now empty and disused, and there are barriers all around it, but it is a lovely building. It has a huge statue in the front of it which I think is fairly new, which is all lit up at night. There is also something called Tito’s blue train sitting in a corner rusting away, which is actually a train engine that used to pull Tito’s private train carriages. It currently appears to have a squatter living in it.

More evidence of recent conflict

On the way to the station, we passed a huge old government building which has a lot of bomb damage. This was inflicted by NATO in 1999, which it claimed was aimed at stopping the Kosovo war, which was going on at the time

Trying the local public transport

We then decided to hop on the number two tram which does a loop of the city which should take about an hour. Public transport is free here, which is just as well as the service stopped after about 10 minutes as there are currently roadworks ahead, so it is not currently able to do the loop. We had to get off, and get the service back in the other direction. The rolling stock of these city trams looks to be from the socialist era. They are old, sparse and simple, but effective, efficient and easy to use.

Fortress, Danube, street food

We went nearly as far as we could on the tram and got off at the Fortress/Park that we visited yesterday. We walked around the area a bit more and got a much better view of the Sava River meeting the Danube. Finally, we walked back through the centre to our hotel, stopping on the way for some amazing Sri Lanka street food bizarrely.

Later I just sat in the park enjoying the sun and people watching. Tomorrow, we catch another train, south across Serbia to the city of Nis.