Day 42: Belgrade, Serbia - Defining Revitalization

This is Belgrade.

This is also Belgrade (in case you didn't figure it out, that hole was caused by a bomb). 

The unfortunate part about overnight trains is that sometimes they arrive early, very early, like 4:30 AM early. Granted, this was partially caused by a time change, but it was still too early for anything to be open. Tourist information is shut down, stores are closed, and almost all booths and windows at the bus station are closed, making asking for directions rather difficult. No matter, nothing that wandering around at dawn can't fix.

I burst into my hostel before anybody was awake, and quickly changed that by stomping around the room while everybody was still sleeping. Figuring sleeping at that point was rather useless, I headed out to see what I could of Belgrade in the morning. My first stop was Belgrade's fortress, which had been taken and retaken 115 times, according to my guidebook. You'd think after the 57th time it was taken, people would have learned that it was difficult to defend the thing and would stop trying.

Fortress.

Admittedly, at this point I had seen quite a few castles, fortresses, walls, etc., and wasn't too enthused by another one. However, this was Belgrade. Housed within the fortress was a military museum, which was quite interesting considering the location. It held war artifacts from the 6th century, through World War II, and the somewhat recent NATO/UN conflict.

This girl was nicely positioned to provide scale next to the big bomb.

Tito's uniform, yes!

I spent the rest of the day wandering Belgrade's cosmopolitan pedestrian streets. It actually has quite a few of these, compared to the smaller cities in Bulgaria. One was the "main" one. Another was called the bohemian student walkway. And another one was "Silicone Valley," due to the high number of rich people who walk on it. It was very vibrant and oozed energy, a stark contrast to the bombed buildings I saw on the way in, and old military establishments I saw that morning. Very cool.

Belgrade is supposed to have an amazing nightlife, so I did my duty and tried to sample it. My companion was a lonely heart Swedish guy, who recently broke up with his girlfriend and wanted to make sure I knew all the details. Belgrade clubs move their locations to boats in the river during the summer, so that's where the lonely Swede and I headed. Apparently he had a few drinks before we left, which only made him want to talk about his ex-girlfriend more. Then his flip-flops broke on our way to the boat, which he somehow managed to connect to his broken relationship with his ex-girlfriend. 

The boat was pretty cool, though it was a Wednesday evening so not exactly a popular night. Nevertheless, there were a lot of people on the boat, some good music, and lots of smiles and laughter. Except from the Swedish guy, of course. If you are an Italian girl, and your name is Francesca, and you're 35 years old, and you recently broke up with a Swedish guy, and then you invited him to Italy, and he said no, you should really call him.