Tag Night Train

We took the night train from Sofia, Bulgaria, to the Serbian capital, Belgrade. We arrived before the city had fully awakened at 6am and had to wait for the luggage storage room to open at the train station before we could stash our bags, change our Bulgarian currency into Serbian cash, and have a quaint, train station breakfast. It was raining when we arrived and, in Mike’s words, “this is exactly what I thought Eastern Europe would look like, rain and all!”

We set off towards Old Town with a general plan of just walking around until we spotted something of interest. The rain came down heavier and heavier until the town was shrouded in a grey haze. In old town we set our sights on the Kalemegdan Citadel, which has withstood some 115 battles over the past 2300 years. As a direct result, the city itself has been razed to the ground over 40 times. Today the interior of the citadel no longer houses terrified people, but a lovely park complete with modern art and extensive seating. It looks out over the junction of the Danube and Sava rivers, which explains why it was such a contested area in antiquity. We stumbled upon the citadel’s military museum and decided to venture inside.
The military museum was a bit confusing since nothing was in English, but it did beautifully outline the entire history of former Yugoslavia in metal recreations of armor, wooden ships and uniforms. After walking through the maze of artifacts for over an hour, we came across the “modern era” section which included bits of an American stealth fighter shot down in 1999, complete with the captured pilot’s uniform and tactical gear, as well as a dangerous amount of weaponry. Outside the museum there was a row of brightly painted tanks, exploded ordinance, and cannons. Some of the military equipment was apparently very rare, and extremely overused, giving the citadel a sad and somber feeling.

We walked back into Old Town to find the national museum, but it was under construction so we wandered around the downtown alleys looking at the elegant shops and busy cafes. Belgrade’s bohemian street, once known for its relaxing and low-key atmosphere, is now a busy cobblestone lane stocked full of tourist trap T-shirts, overpriced pubs and quaint but expensive eateries. We slipped across the cobblestones in the downpour and walked around Old Town for several hours before heading to the train station.

There was no train Sarajevo, so we found a bus that would leave a bit later in the night. We bought bus tickets for the night bus, something we swore we would stop doing since it was exhausting. Nevertheless, traveling by night means at least we are not spending money on accommodation for the day! We ate dinner in town and walked around in the rain snapping pictures of bombed-out buildings that had been left as monuments to former wars, and gazing at the beautiful architecture of the city. As the sky turned dark we returned to the bus station and were amazed to discover we would be on a double-decker bus to Sarajevo, and our seats were on the top, in the very front row!

Pretty Kitty

We only had a five day transit visa for Azerbaijan. It is a relatively small country and while we would have liked to stay longer than five days, the visa was 130$ for 30 days or $20 for five days, so we took the later and decided to see as much as we could in the time we could afford to buy.

We spent the morning walking around the city as we weaved our way to the train station to reserve tickets for the evening’s 10pm train to Tbilisi. When we arrived at the station we wondered from window to window asking about a train to Georgia’s capital. Every window-attendant just shrugged, mumbled in Russian, and pointed to another window. We literally made our way, one on each side, down the entire 24 window ticket buying area asking each person, all of whom was rude, and down-right mean. Finally, I started asking other travelers. Most were friendly enough, but said that they did not know how to buy a ticket either. Everyone looked frustrated, annoyed and disgusted with the ticket salespeople. Finally, as I was about to cry, two Azeri boys said they would help us. They stood there patiently with Mike and made sure he got a good ticket for a fair price and then even helped translate from Russian to English for us. Without those friendly boys we might still be wandering around the ticketing office from window to window like lost children.

We headed to the train station at 9:30 a bit depressed that we already had to leave. Our time with the American family in Baku was great, and as we waited for the train to leave we found we already missed the fun loving antics of their young child, who had kept us company over the past few days.

The train was supposed to take 15 hours, but as with everything in the Caucus we’d experience thus far, the time was much more. But, this turned out (as it usually does) to be a good thing. We met Famil on the train, the young man who had helped us purchase our tickets earlier that day. His bunk was only a few doors down from our sleeper train compartment, so he spent the evening drinking beers on the train with us and chatting. His English was phenomenal, and he told us how he spent time in Barcelona and Turkey, as well as in Georgia and his home country of Azerbaijan. He speaks several languages fluently and is learning Spanish. An older gentlemen calling himself Frank (for our benefit) was also in our compartment. He tried to communicate with us in Russian and charades, the latter of which was more effective. A friendly and talkative cabin-mate, this gentlemen was fun to travel with and kept us all entertained with his storied (some of which Famil translated for us).