In which Sid and Doris have guided tour of the town and plan the ride into Beograd. The guide book says the train would be better, but of course it is being built now.
The tourist office promotes a walking tour of the city, which starts from the National Theatre. If you like the London equivalent you will be disappointed that it is only just Brutalist. Our guide was waiting and we two were the whole attentive audience. The opening was lightly marred by our guide nearly fainting, which was odd as we had specifically banned Miftah Bat from adding fragrance to the atmosphere. We apply a bottle of water and get her going again.
The walk took us around the centre and showed us the outside of buildings we could investigate for ourselves later. Our leader brought some external view being half Zambian (remember the non-Aligned Movement? ) and what’s more hailing from Belgrade. And being lightly coffee-coloured, the darkest skin we have seen for several days.
We finish down on the river looking across to the fortress. The bridges are all new, the TV station is being rebuilt and our guide tells us that Clinton and Blair do not get a good press in the town. We diplomatically skated over the Serb Kosovar match which seemed to have had about 10,000 Albanian losers.
We asked how, after the Croation Ustasha activity Yugoslavia was put back together after WW2. ‘Oh, Tito swept that under the carpet and kept it there.’
We asked about the railway, there being no line from the capital to the second city. The official line (see what Sid did there?) is that it will be ready in two years. Our guide’s view, five years. Coming from London with its splendid Cross-Rail project (not to mention Thameslink 2000, which I didn’t) we have no basis for superiority.
The afternoon is spent at Adventure Headquarters with our new map of Bulgaria spread out on the bed and some e-planning aids revved up. We have a pretty good idea of the next four or five days. These are along the Danube, perhaps the most picturesque bits since Linz to Budapest.
We are preparing for the run to Belgrade with lunch in our courtyard and dinner at a nearby fish restaurant, which was marked Number One of all eateries in Novi Sad.
It was charming and the food better than we’ve had for a while. S says we must eat.
So, a quiet day before our planned assault on the road to Belgrade. Had the train been running we would likely have taken it. Mostly because our legs and heads were tired. Tomorrow is Saturday which worked well for getting light traffic into Budapest. We are ready for the run to Belgrade. Oh, yes.
We finish with a picture of the matches offered in the fish restaurant (along with an ashtray, enthusiastically used by several patrons). Doris has a large matchbook collection but now of course they are quite rare in restaurants, so this was a #virtualsouvenir reluctantly left behind.