The Archive

Day four in the big brother bus

So we're on to day 4 now right?

Fortunately, due to the 'summer season' of Zlatibor involving the town shutting down at midnight, we managed a nice early start to the (actually) short drive to Belgrade.

Less conveniently, as you get into Serbia, the signage starts to move away from Latin and towards more cyrillic lettering. Fortunately, it's not too hard to learn the letters, and I managed most of them on the plane from London. However, all that meant was that, given a minute or so, I could unravel the symbols and get the meaning. This does not help much when you pass a roadsign at 80kph, I can assure you.

Still, we rolled into the outskirts of Belgrade pretty efficiently nevertheless.

And it was at this point that we discovered we had a small problem...

"Adam, could you pass the map with the hotel on it?"
"What map?"
"The map. The hotel you booked must have had a map or directions on the website surely."
"Erm, I've got the address. It's on Sarajevska street."
"That's not on this map. Come on Adam, surely you thought to bring a map."
"Well, it's near the bars and cafes."
"Oh for fuck's sake Adam, this is a city of a million and a half people. That's quite big. It's not like we're just going to run into it. Jesus."
"Look, there it is."
"Oh, right."

And so we pulled up at the hotel, wondering quite what we had done for God to steer us away from the several hours driving the streets of Belgrade we had expected.

Anyway, the hotel was nice enough and enlivened, for sure, by the presence of what appeared to be a girls' volleyball team staying in the place. Hurrah!

But this was no time for flirting, we had a city to visit.

Of course, this was a city that Nato (aka us) had bombed quite extensively back in 1999, so we went to find the first thing any culturally sensitive traveller would seek out - bomb damage.

Don't worry, the Belgraders are used to their town getting destroyed, as it has apparently been destroyed and rebuilt a grand total of 40 times. Frankly, they might as well make it a city of tents if they're going to have to keep putting it up again that often.

There are, though, some sights to see, including the Kalemegdan or ancient fortress. Or rather, the ruins of the fortress. The sense of enduring age and grandeur of the magnificent building was particularly enhanced by the Red Bull extreme BMX Championship that was going on, resulting in the odd, but actually quite cool juxtaposition of banging pop beats, lunatics on bicycled jumping off ramps and spinning in the air and the craggy, ancient walls of the fortress.

Oh, and the fortress is also home to Mestrovic's (remember him - you can't move in Zagreb without bumping into one of his statues) Victory statue. This statue was made, oh, ages ago. It was originally intended to be put up in the centre of town.

Unfortunately some folk took objection to the fact that the statue was naked and you could see its, erm, dinkleton. Well, it was cold there I suppose, so it may not have been too impressive. Anywya, the end result was the statue was relocated to a point in the Kalemegdan looking across the river, so the offending member was not so easily visible.

So we saw the fortress, took in the parliament, the post office and some old church and that, to be quite honest with you, was that.

You see, Belgrade is famously unattractive. It is also, however, famous for it's amazing nightlife and the party-hardy nature of the people.

Do you see why we came here now?

So, dinner in a traditional Serbian restaurant (curiously named '?' as a result of a bicker with the cathedral next door) with a couple of bottles of wine and we were ready for a night out.

But where to go?

It turns out that a lot of the nightlife occurs on barges that are moored on the river by the disused Hotel Yugoslavia and other places. Why they couldn't just open up bars in the hotel itself I don't know, but the fact remains that most of Belgrade's nightspots are aquatic.

So we found ourselves a nice boat playing early eighties music (when in Rome, do what you'd do in London, as they say) for a few drinks before moving on to the next destination, Akademia.

This was, we had been informed, a great place to go and dance to alternative music.

Which was true. Almost. In actual fact, the Serbs we met up with the next evening told us that the club we had chosen was in fact one of the best in Belgrade - twenty years ago.

It's not any more. Nobody goes there now except us and a handful of very, very young people. Oh, and one really huge, fat man with an enormous swastika tattooed on his basketball of a bicep.

Nice.

It was only the next day that Pellet decided to mention to us that he'd noticed the fat nazi's friend making strangling symbols behind Atul during the evening.

Despite this, we were happy enough at the empty club. We drank and danced and eventually went home. Most of us did, anyway.

Wig and Pellet, on the other hand, decided they were not yet finished. Instead they found a group of friendly Serbs to take them to the next place which was, they assured, the only place left open in town. And that was closing soon too.

"Ok, you can come in, but only for one drink."
says the bouncer.

"OK fine," says Wig.
"Six vodkas please," says Wig, seconds later, to the barman.

The boy's a genius. So much so that when it came closing time, he became convinced that there was an 'after party' to be had at the bar and tried to convince Pellet to hide in a cupboard with him until it all started again.

Pellet, fortunately, was not as drunk as all that, so pulling his friend out of the cupboard with the words "You're not Anne Frank," he got him out of the bar, into a cab and safely home.

Another successful day.

posted by Peter The Great @ 2:30 PM