Podgorica, Montenegro

So far on this trip I've seen some truly spectacular scenery through the windows of various buses and trains. Unfortunately, photographs taken through those windows just never seem to come out right. But it's the memories that count. And in leaving Serbia I had the most memorable journey of all: the legendary sleeper train from Belgrade to Montenegro, covering 296 miles and 254 tunnels and 435 bridges. We arrived in Podgorica shortly after dawn, just as the first yellow sunbeams were beginning to tickle the mountain peaks.

I paid 20 euros extra to travel in a 2-berth couchette, rather than the 6-berth compartments in peasant class. There is no segregation by sex and so one's couchette-mate is a matter of blind luck. Obviously my first choice would have been a visually-impaired young lady with an affectionate nature and flexible morals; but in the event I was happy to settle for my second choice, which was that nobody at all turned up and so I had the whole compartment to myself.

Admittedly the term 'sleeper' is something of a misnomer. The train frequently stops at signals and the sudden diminution of noise wakes you up every time. (It's funny, I'm always driven to distraction by smartphone pings and earphone leakage, but I can abide the deafening clatter of 1950s rolling stock with the utmost complacency.) Also there was the abrupt 3am bang on the door from the Serbian border guards, closely followed by a similar visitation from their Montenegrin counterparts. There were no shower facilities on the train, and the toilet was of that kind that makes me just thank God that, as a man, I didn't need to sit down on it.

After five nights in my Belgrade fleapit, plus the overnight journey described above, by the time I arrived at my hotel I was in a fairly advanced state of decomposition. I threw myself on the mercy of the receptionist and, like an angel in human shape, she let me check in even though it was 8am and I was five hours early. In accordance with the laws of justice and karma, I've given that hotel five-star reviews across all platforms.

With its wide sleepy streets, bright sunshine and distant mountain ranges, Podgorica reminds me in some ways of the remoter parts of Arizona or California. Admittedly there isn't a whole lot going on here, but the people are friendly and there are plenty of places to get coffee and good food for a pittance. And on the rainy days I've settled for sitting on my hotel room balcony with a book and a beer or two. It's a tough life.

Surely the world needs more capital city centres that look like this.

At the train station, looking north at the mountains through which I arrived

View to the east from near my hotel

I didn't manage to find out the names of these teams,
and so I don't think this counts towards my foreign football badge collection
(USA, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Serbia, Scotland)

Edd vs Food #67
Chicken, bacon, cheese, chips, pita bread
At Home of Gyros

Belgrade, Serbia

Going from Novi Sad to Belgrade is like going from San Francisco to Los Angeles, or from York to Leeds. Bigger is not necessarily better.

The first thing that catches your eye as you approach is the Western City Gate tower, a huge and monstrous piece of Soviet Modernism / Brutalism, and by far the single ugliest building I've ever seen in all my travels. I didn't manage to take a picture but you can check it out here. The photo doesn't even begin to do justice to how horrible it looks from below, under grey skies on a drizzly October afternoon.

Indeed it stayed grey and drizzly for pretty much the whole of my time here. I don't really mind, partly because I'm more comfortable when it's cooler, and partly because I look marginally less of a pillock in jeans than I do in shorts. But it makes for some rather drab photos, as you see below.

I took in a football match at Red Star Belgrade. It's hard to believe that they won the European Cup as recently as 1991. The attendance was only 7,315 - not exactly impressive in a city of over a million people - and a decent chunk of those were tourists like me. As well as the club shop selling the usual pointless merchandise, there was a weird secondary outlet devoted to hooligan gear: gas masks, hoodies, unsavoury T-shirts, etc. Almost the whole of the real home crowd was made up of these burly ultras, with their constant chanting and flares and banners and firecrackers. It's telling that when Red Star scored their opener, late into the first half, the ultras didn't bat an eyelid: they just kept on going with their song about killing Kosovans or burning Bosnians or whatever else it was. There was no spontaneity or humour, all the songs being orchestrated by a twerp with a drum and another twerp with a loudspeaker.

Quite frankly it didn't feel like being at a football match. It felt more like being at a Nazi rally with a kickabout going on in the background. So I left at half-time. Apparently this lot will be joining the EU just as we're leaving it...well, ships in the night, and all that.

Kneza Mihaila, the main shopping street in Belgrade.
I'm actually staying right on this street. But my room is at the top of many, many stairs...
...and in this case 'single occupancy' would be more aptly titled 'solitary confinement'.

Temple of St Sava
One of the world's largest Eastern Orthodox churches.
If you squint, it does kind of resemble an old Greek guy with a beard.

From the west bank of the Danube

Red Star Belgrade
This graffito relates to UEFA admitting Kosovo as a recognised national team. (Long story.)

National Assembly of Serbia

What The World Needs Now...

Edd vs Food #66
Burrito Madre
A fairly competent fast-food chain, exclusive to Belgrade.

Novi Sad, Serbia

We are now well and truly back into the world of Real Travelling. Eight hours on a rickety old bus, with nobody speaking English at either end, nor anywhere inbetween. I was the only tourist and thus the only person to get hauled off the bus at the Bosnian-Serbian border. The Serbian border guard had that characteristic look of forced civility, of suppressed violence, the bearing of a man who's inclined to shoot you in the head and resents you failing to appreciate the effort it's costing him not to do so.

But he waved me through, eventually. And so off we trundled into Serbia, the bus driver continuing to smoke like a chimney through his open window.  I wonder if he was communicating with oncoming drivers via smoke signals? Either that or he was attempting telepathy, because it was a very winding road and some of his high-speed overtaking manouevres were speculative to say the least. It made for an interesting journey.

Even though Novi Sad is relatively tourist-free, most of the locals speak pretty good English. I don't think the local food quite matches what I had in Bosnia, but the burgers and pizzas are excellent, and anyway the beer more than makes up for it. Serbia is home to several first-rate breweries, most notably Kabinet, whose wares I look forward to somebody importing to the UK at the earliest opportunity.

Novi Sad's old town has several really nice bars where you can pick up these and other local beers for the equivalent of two quid or so. It also has an eclectic mix of Islamic and Eastern Orthodox architecture, as well as a fair bit of evocative Warsaw Pact-era bleakness; nowadays the latter has a certain charm of its own, and anyway I think even the dullest Soviet-style stone cube is still preferable to the ravages of 1960s town planning back in the UK.

I freely confess that I had never heard of Novi Sad until I started researching my trip. But I'm glad I came. This place is a hidden treasure, an oasis, and it can't last forever - I have no doubt that in decades to come I will look back at this and thank God I got here when I did, before everyone else found out about it. As it is, now that I've been, I don't mind if you all check it out and I heartily recommend that you do so. Fly to Belgrade and then it's just one hour on a bus. Provided you don't mind the driver having a fag along the way.

Freedom Square

The Name of Mary Church

Bishop's Palace

Petrovaradin Fortress

Edd vs Food #65
At the Banjalučki Ćevap Grill
Don't know what it's called (no English menu, just Serbian & pictures)
Several animals were harmed in the making of this dish.