The countries that we briefly touched on in this region were: Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia. I say briefly because we only visited 3 cities within this region.
Serbia
BELGRADE – We flew into Serbia’s capital (Yugoslavia’s capital from 1918 to 2006) from Istanbul on March 15, spending two nights. Belgrade was not a beautiful city but an interesting one. It felt like it was still trying to live in the old communist regime. They love Putin here. The people, it appeared to us, seemed like they were struggling to make a living. The young taxi driver who drove us from the airport to our hotel felt no hope in the country and couldn’t wait to leave. The buildings looked tired and like very little had been done to them. They still had trams, possibly from the 50’s or earlier, that looked like they had seen better days. There was however a younger, creative crowd that was doing some very innovative start-up businesses. It certainly felt promising.
The fortress
Old tram
Graffiti
Gary loves a good church
Where the Sava and Danube Rivers converge
Fortress gates
Our train to Zagreb
Refugee area run by UNICEF, between Belgrade and Zagreb
Croatia
ZAGREB – We took the 7-hour train into Zagreb. Stepping out of the train station we could tell it was a lovely city: beautiful architecture and a sculpture facing the station, giving it an instant impression. We spent 4 days here and really enjoyed our time. A lovely walking city and beautiful architecture on just about every street.
Magnolia trees across from train station
Pedestrian street
Lovely Saturday farmers’ market
Traditional dance in main square
Traditional
Modern
View from above
Gary and his buddy
The tower
The cutest little chapel inside the Stone Gate
Traditional painted scenes on Easter eggs
Square
Loved the roof tiles on this church
The Stone Gate
Bosnia
SARAJEVO – We arrived in Sarajevo after a 10-hour milk-run train ride. We were very tired by the time we got to our hotel and wondered whatever happened to the romance of train travel. This was one of the things we were looking forward to once we got to Europe. Once we checked into our hotel we walked down the street to a lovely traditional Bosnian restaurant. The food was so yummy.
We had every intention of hanging around Sarajevo for a bit and then heading down to the coast and traveling up it by train, but the reality is that this area does not have the same infrastructure as other parts of Europe when it comes to trains. Also the weather was crappy and when we looked at the 2-week forecast it was going to continue to be crappy. So, we looked to flights instead and based on price, time, possible destinations, and less crappy weather, we decided to head to Munich, Germany. The morning we woke up to head to the airport made us even more glad that we had made our decision – slushy snow everywhere!
View just outside our hotel
The old (Turkish) section
Turkish section
The Library (town hall)
Homey Bosnian restaurant
Yummy Bosnian meal
And a little Slivovitz