Day 13 - We confirmed that we could take bus #59 to the new train station. Trains no longer run across the river to the area of the former station. It took at least 20 minutes and the 'station' was no more than a platform with a couple of ticket machines.
We bought tickets for the next train heading to Novi Sad, the second largest city in Serbia. By chance a slower electric train was next to leave. As it had a few more stops, it took us nearly 52 minutes.
However, we didn't make it to Novi Sad. Our train stopped at the adjoining town called Petrovaradin.
No one explained anywhere that the Novi Sad train station was completely closed. Eventually, we heard about the story that in November of 2024, the new station facade suddenly collapsed killing 17 people in the tragedy. The national government was rocked with allegations of nepotism and fraudulent contracts.
Of course, locals knew the facts but a lot of tourists, us included, were caught off guard when told to go out to the main road and take a blue bus into the town of Novi Sad. The bus didn't charge any extra and it did only add about twenty minutes getting into town.
It was an interesting day and we crossed the Danube by the old fort and took a short walk into the old part of the town. When it finally became time for lunch we chose a place under some umbrellas. Luckily, we had a waiter who told us about the station in Novi Sad being closed. We were going to head nearly 2 kilometers to it! We thought it was just our coming train that stopped in Petrovariain.
It seems the station has not been fixed and has been completely closed since the fatal accident. We had to retrace our route into town by taking a #9 bus. I'm glad he mentioned the number. We walked back out to the river and had to wait quite some time before one came along and brought us back to the station for a train ride back to Belgrade.
We didn't have any local currency for the bus, so used an ATM to get about $10 bucks worth of dinars for the bus fares.
The ride back into Belgrade was on a uber comfortable high-speed train that shaved about 20 minutes of the trip. It was delightful watching the scenery fly by at around 160 kph. We got back to the hotel by bus at around 5:00 pm and rested a bit.
We walked to the 'happening section' near Republic Square tonight. We only bought shawarmas as we weren't very hungry. We did find a rather famous Sri Lankan restaurant where we'll probably go for lunch tomorrow. We have just one more full day in this city.
