Novi Sad – Belgrade – alexiswanderlusting

Mary was also heading to Belgrade so we decided to take the bus together. We headed to the bus station and there was a bus leaving in about 15 minutes for only 600 dinar (about $6). The bus ride was about an hour and a half and of course it was raining when we arrived in Belgrade. The hostel was about a 25 minute walk from the bus station so by the time we arrived at the hostel we and our bags were quite wet. The guy at the hostel was really nice though and gave us a tour and showed us our room (he even carried my bag for me, although he did complain that it was too heavy lol). We changed into dry clothes and hung out in our room for a while and then went our separate ways and I went to get some food and find an ATM. The guy at the hostel showed me a walking tour I could do on my own to see some of the sights that aren’t included in the free walking tour that I was going on tomorrow. It was still kind of raining, but I decided to chance it, but gave in eventually and bought an umbrella.

Highlights of the walk…

Parliament BuildingBombed buildings from the NATO bombing of 1999. The city decided to leave them as is. More of the bombed buildings Oldest hotel in BelgradeInside St Mark’s churchThe outside of St Mark’s churchInside the Cathedral of St Sava. Wars and money issues mean it’s not completed inside, which is a weird sight. The outside of the Cathedral of St Sava- it can hold more than 10,000 people. It’s huge!

After walking around I returned to the hostel and at about the same time as Mary and we decided to go get dinner at a place close by that serves traditional food. Of course, it was raining quite heavily so even with my umbrella, I was pretty soaked by the time I got to the restaurant. We got a carafe of wine, split a pepper salad (roasted red peppers [called paprika in Serbian] are very popular here) and I got meatballs in tomato sauce as there was really no chicken or vegetarian option. The meatballs were ok (I don’t have a whole lot to compare them too 😉 but the tomato sauce was really good.

We got back to the hostel soaked again and just chilled. We have 3 new roommate from Tunisia and they were going out and invited us, but we were both tired and wet so we passed. One of the girls is starting her Master’s degree at UW in the fall! What a small world.