Blog: Belgrade...Belgrade...Belgrade...Belgrade

I think that you can guess from the title where I am?
After three months of my journey, I have enterred the capital of the former Yugoslavia.
Beograd is bustling, busy, lively and loud. It has some incredibly ugly parts but also some overwhelmingly beautiful bits - like the views across the Sava and Danube rivers and the glimpses you get of the orthodox churches lit up as you walk around the city at night.

Serbia has been tough, but I'm slowly getting to understand and appreciate its charm. Like Hungary, it is a country of contrasts, but the contrasts are perhaps even more pronounced here.
In the centre of a village on the way into Belgrade - the equivalent location of Chelmsford or Guildford in England - my path was stopped by a flood of cattle pourring out of a farmstead. These were accompanied by a number of yapping dogs; I was unsure whether they were strays or farmdogs herding the cattle. This was looked on by an old woman dressed in a colourful shawl leaning on a wooden stick, who looked as old as time itself. A Mercedes Benz drew up beeping at the cattle to get out of its way so it could rush on towards the capital. All this, just after I passed a posh cafe terrace laid out on the dirty pavement with reclining seats with huge cushions, and shiny menus and umbrella shading.

It was images like this that have made me determined to carry on. Between Novi Sad and Belgrade as I walked parallel with the Danube, I sufferred a crisis of confidence. Some of the road walking has been so terrible, always dodging oncoming lorries and streams of Yugos that I was close to giving up and taking the bus. But, now I determine to carry on and search out country roads even if it is a longer way round.

I think the USB port works here, so here are the Hungarian smiles I promised you.

Paul