Today we took a 3-hour walking tour that was really a pass-by of some of the key attractions plus plenty of history as well.
By the time I had done a walk before breakfast plus the tour plus walking to dinner tonight, I had covered 17.7 kms (MF a bit less as he didn’t do the early morning walk).
My morning walk uncovered some interesting gritty industrial sectors amidst the bohemian neighbourhood in which we are staying.
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The tour - led by the amiable and knowledgeable Nebojša - took in the main sights including the National Assembly (or Parliament) - opposite Piornrski Park and where stands a monument to the Nobel Laureate Ivo Andrić; Trg (=‘square’) Nikole Pašića (unfortunately under re-construction); Terazije Fountain opposite the beautiful Moscow Hotel; Trg Republike and the National Theatre; Knez Mihailova (the main pedestrian street of Belgrade); St Michael’s Cathedral and opposite the kafana called '?', the oldest coffee tavern in Belgrade built in 1828; and finally Kalemegdan Park and the Fortress where we had views over the confluence of the Sava and Danube Rivers.
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A key task today was to buy our return train ticket to Belgrade at the end of our trip. Nebojša had been very helpful in explaining the bus ticket system: buy the tickets at one of the many newspaper/cigarette kiosks and get a daily ticket as this is so cheap: 125 dirhams (=$A1.75) - my goodness, we could afford to live here!
My feet were tired though (!) so after we successfully (after trying 3 kiosks …) bought said tickets, we walked on to the Moscow Hotel and had Moscow cake (yummy!) and local coffee (much nicer than the one we had earlier in the day on our walk to the People’s Assembly!
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Then it was off to get a bus - still had to walk nearly a kilometre to get the right stop - and scrambled onto an absolutely PACKED trolley bus driven at a frantic speed across town to the station - well, NEAR the station. More walking and then into a very efficiently moving queue to buy our tickets from Podgorica to Belgrade on 1 June on the overnight train.
With that done, we returned to the bus stop and waited an eternity for a bus that didn't come according to the displayed timetable; then the one after that fortunately was not crowded as another that had gone past in the meantime was ‘packed to the gills’.
We decided to take the bus right through to its terminus near the campus of the university and the Childrens Park where we had walked earlier with Nebojša so we could get an icecream from Crna Ovra (Black Sheep) icecream shop - oh my goodness: I DO think this is the BEST icecream I have ever had (mine was mascarpone raspberry with pistachio plus a scoop of blackberry). Yum!
We had considered visiting the Nikola Tesla Museum (Tesla is the now well-known Austrian-Hungarian physicist whose work contributed to what we know as AC current - although the Serbs like to claim him as their own) but we erred on the side of good sense by returning to our apartment for a rest to avoid falling asleep at dinner.
As things turned out, dinner that Marko had booked for us yesterday was at a Michelin star restaurant (!) and the food was very good but a cold wind had sprung up which certainly curtailed any prolonging of the meal outside so, after checking out the meeting spot for tomorrow’s tour on the way home, we high-tailed it back to the apartment and off to bed!
Well, how lucky are we. We having our wonderful breakfast where we are staying (after a very good night’s sleep) - and it has started rai...
Yummo. SC.
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