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Hi again!
The photp is of M on the Danube and we're still on the Danube, but in Belgrade this time. Long river!! Still having trouble uploading current photos in these internet cafés.
Our journey to Belgrade was a bit of a laugh at first. We mistook our train for a locomotive, so nearly missed it! There we were, travelling along a mini track (think Deeside, with weeds to boot) in a train as big as a bus, just us and 3 women. We must have been going at all of 15 mph. Passport check at last Hungarain station followed by the Serbs at next tiny halt. Countryside got flatter if that's possible, and lots of apple trees and corn growing. We had a stop of about 3 hrs before the next REAL train, so had lunch in this town called Subotica. Waited about 40 mins for our order to appear (Ron, we didn't walk out!) only to be told by 20 yr old waiter that the cook had been fired that morning and he had had to cook!! What a laugh.
Serbia reminded me more of home, with youths at the station shouting with bottles of beer, which we hadn't seen in Poland or Hungary. There, they eat so much ice cream, drink lots of coke type stuff that their teeth must be rotten but livers OK. Next train was terrible because it was SO hot, and about a 4-5 hr journey. Not so clean either as Hungary or Poland. Approach to Belgrade was a sorry sight, with hovels and shanty -type homes with folk living by the train track. First we'd really seen of this, although a few begging children being chased by café owners. Turned out we could have had air con in the train if we'd left our 1st class carriage and gone to another! The cleaner was trying to tell us, but the language barrier, you know ....
In Belgrade the waiters etc speak café Englaish sufficiently but it's the street names which get us stuck with the Cyrillic alphabet. We need M to read the map, and me to translate the letters from street names into Roman letters so we can find our way round.
Belgrade is a funny mixture. Many grand builings, but few refurbished. Others literally falling down and just being left like that, it seems. Tourist Info couldn't be friendlier, but there isn't that much round the city in English. We did get a peek into the Serbian Parliament buildings, just because M was dead nosy and the janitor was dead nice! Building very nice indeed. Mornig out of the city today, watching European canoe-kayak championship heats. Nice for a breather from the city, which is a very traffic -clogged and noisy (car horns) place.
Tomorrow we're off to Montenegro. The adventure continues .... no hotel booked for tomorrow night!!
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