Belgrade to Sofia by Bus

 

Day 15 - Goodbye, Sky Hotel. We had a nice stay in Belgrade.  The only direct bus to Sofia, Bulgaria left at 2:30 pm.  That made it an especially comfortable and slow morning.  We checked out of the hotel at around 11:30 am after our fourth satisfying breakfast buffet.

We availed ourselves of the free #59 bus to the bus station.  We had already got tickets online.  As they didn't collect the local station taxes, we had saved 600 dinar cash (US $5.80) to pay at the station.  That gave us plenty of time to watch the comings and goings until our 2:00 pm loading time.

   

Our tickets were purchased through Flixbus but they had contracted with an existing company for this bus route.  It was an uneventful but interesting trip across Serbia.  

Serbia is not part of the EU.  We had to re-enter at the Bulgarian border.  It took a while.  We got to the border when the sun was still shining at 8:00 pm.  The first step was to stamp out of Serbia.  Then we got back on the bus for the 300 meter trip to the other border.  That took a bit longer as the official had to vet each passenger one-by-one.  

Of course, we breezed through but as this border often handles refugee claims and entry from third country nationals, it took a bit longer.  We saw that a few folks had a little trouble.  We think only one couple may have been denied access.  The border had signs explaining procedures in a number of languages including Turkish and Arabic.  We drove onward at around 9:30 pm.

It was, of course, dark by the time we arrived at the bus station in Sofia in 10:10 pm.  They must build in a lot of extra time into the schedule as we were due at 11:00 pm.

Google Maps showed our hotel as being 1.1 km from the bus station. As we'd been sitting for a number of hours, we figured it'd be okay to roll our one carry-on with wheels and carry our two backpacks rather than trying a taxi. It took about 10 minutes as we chose the Amar Design Hotel near the historic center of Sofia. We usually don't check into a hotel at 10:20 pm but they knew we were coming. Even the TV in our room expected us.

We toyed with the idea of going out to get some dinner.  We did buy sandwiches and pastries for the bus trip and figured we may as well eat some breadsticks and cookies that were in our back packs and call it a day.  It was an long, eventful one, but one that involved little stress. 

The Belgrade Fortress Before Lunch

Day 14 - Our time in Belgrade, Serbia is quickly approaching an end.  We have stayed three nights in the Sky Hotel and have just tonight remaining.  We knew it was going to be hot today.  In fact, the local meteorological department issued a warning that it was going to be over 35C.

It has been hot but not terribly difficult.  We have ensured we stay hydrated.  I count my beers as helping with that.  We had breakfast and asked for a way to walk up to the Belgrade Fortress without a lot uphill walking.  The receptionist at the hotel suggested taking tram #2.  It was a downhill walk to the tram stop and the trip included a route around the city.  Free sightseeing!  We jumped off at the top of the hill right next to the promenade. 

Belgrade is located at the confluence of two rivers.  Time to guess.  If you assumed the Danube is one, you were correct.  The city is situated where the Sava river joins it.

We sat quite a lot when we found park benches covered by the shade of trees.  We watched people and their animals out on a fantastically bright Sunday.  The promenade continues right along the pedestrian only section of the city where all the restaurants and shopping is.  We walked into a shopping mall near that end and bought a larger bottle of sports drink to share.  When it got to be 1:30 pm, we went for lunch at a restaurant we'd seen yesterday.  Jay noticed online there is a Sri Lankan restaurant called Curry Souls. 

We've been on the trip for two weeks today.  I can't say food in the Balkans has much other than salt and pepper as seasonings.  So, today's lunch was really satisfying.  Unlike fairly uniform Indian food, Sri Lankan cuisine has mouthfuls of complex flavours.  Jay spoke with the cooks as they were right behind a glass wall that allowed viewing of the preparation.  The three member 'day shift' fellows were all from Sri Lanka.  The food too is delivered from the island.  Just the wait staff were locals.   The experience was nice.

We just returned from our final walk uptown.  We are leaving for Sophia, Bulgaria tomorrow by bus.  Although the elegant Orient Express once travelled between these great, old European cities, now that is not possible.  We were a bit surprised to only find one direct bus between Belgrade and Sofia.  We booked seats on its 2:30 pm departure.  Unfortunately, that puts us into the Sophia bus station at 11:00 pm.

That's not a problem for we're retired and on vacation!  We planned night by night up to this point in our itinerary.  We were clever enough to leave more than a week open after Sophia and before our final stay in Bucharest, Romania.  So, we've extended Sophia by a couple of days already.  This is because we noticed that their gay pride parade is on the Saturday, the 14th.  As long as we were so close, we messaged the hotel for another two nights making a total of six.  We will have free nights after that to decide just how we'll get to our departure city of Bucharest.

Jay and I began travelling together 40 years ago this year.  In the years before the Internet we travelled differently.  Of course being able to breeze into a European or Asian city and find accommodation 'on the fly' is a skill less required nowadays.  However, beginning that way has ensured that we don't sweat the small details ...

Starting the Day Seeing Saint Sava

Day 12 - Belgrade hosts one of the five largest Orthodox Cathedrals in the world and is part of the Serbian Orthodox Church. After talking with the receptionist at our hotel, we headed to it on one of the city's free buses. It took around 15 minutes along a main artery in the city.

 

Upon spending quite a lot of time inside, we walked back to the road and caught the same bus #31 back in the direction we'd started.  However, we stayed right on it and got off at Republic Square. 

   

The main pedestrian streets we walked yesterday were in this uptown area.  We'd heard of a famous mosque here too that was built in the 1500s and it was in the old neighbourhood near the fort area.  We walked to take a photo too.  The history of this area is so long and complex!

Today continued to be hot.  It is somewhat unusual for June for the temperatures to reach 33C but it is today in this age of continuing record-breaking weather statistics.  We were thinking of finding a restaurant nearer our hotel and walked back down the hill rather than getting on a tram with a number unknown to us. 

We walked past a small Turkish restaurant and decided to go in for lunch.  There were no other patrons inside at the time so we had the guys full attention.  He was from Turkey but married a Serbian woman and has owned the place for four years but lived in the city for 15.  When talking about the weather, he mentioned Dubai and Qatar in the summer and never experiencing 45C until that trip.

In the evening we went back out and walked different areas near our hotel.  We also jumped on a tram named #12.  It is good visitor practice in any city, but it riding the trams and buses makes even more sense because it's free.

When it started to get dark, we realized we should have dinner.  I hadn't had a pizza since we were in Venice, Italy back at the end of last month.  The near corner to us had an Italian restaurant.  So I had my second pizza of this trip in Belgrade, Serbia tonight.

Tomorrow, we will be off on a day trip to the city of Novi Sad.  There's now an electric high-speed train so it'll only take around a half hour on the rails.  Getting to the new railroad station will take about a half hour as it's on the other side of the river from our hotel.

Zagreb to Belgrade by Bus

Day 11 - We had no trouble eating breakfast, getting to the bus station, and boarding our Flix bus this morning before 8:45 am. The bus left exactly at nine on the dot.

 

 

We travelled for about five and a half hours in total and arrived at the new bus station in Belgrade at the specified 2:30 pm. The time included a rest break of 15 minutes, a change of driver along the way, and having our passports stamped out of the EU and into Serbia at the borders. We had been travelling within the EU since our first flight landed in Zurich for our connecting flight back on May 26th. We will return as soon as we leave this country and venture further eastward into Bulgaria and Romania.

I saw on Google Maps there was a tram from the bus station to the old town area across the river. Public transit is free in Belgrade now. We exited the station and sort of went the wrong way for a bit of time but still managed to get on Tram #7L. The tram was old and didn't have A/C. Today is hot. In fact it was 34C! That, for comparison, is hotter than it was in Colombo Sri Lanka today! Still, I wasn't too bothered by it. 

Even after we got off at our stop, we still had to walk 800 meters to our hotel and got a little lost. The Sky Hotel is very nice and new. The air conditioning was welcomed by the time we rolled the bags to this destination.

 

 

We knew that it's be better to be on this side of the river near the original town.  We got maps at the hotel but thankfully used Google Maps to get back to our hotel after a little walk in the evening.  We sort of skipped lunch today and needed to have something hearty to eat.   We ate Middle Eastern shawarma bowls up on the pedestrian only street area.  I say up because it is physically up on top of the hill from our hotel.

We stopped for ice cream on the way back.  We did duck into a little market and picked up some basics to put in the refrigerator.  My generic 500 ml can of Lowenbrau lager was fine for writing today's entry.