Belgrade

Tuesday 31st

I first went to Belgrade in this summer enroute to Greece with Mary so I already knew bearings in the city. After a very agreeable lie in I met Ana and Barbara for the start of a more comprehensive tour. We started in their favourite and super trendy coffe shop “Greenet”. We then made our way over to a street on which each of them, as part of a group project on their architectural course, had a house to redevelop. The street has some buildings which are derelict and some which are still inhabitted. The principal question was whether or not to keep any parts of the old buildings or to start afresh.

We continued through the neighbourhood. Belgrade has some beautiful old buildings, some of which are in desparate need of repair. It also has some quite oppressive concrete architecture in a greyey-brown darker than I have seen anywhere else. Down some more side streets and up to the Orthodox Church, the largest (or 2nd largest??) Orthodox church in Sebia. It is still under construction but we were able to stroll inside beneath its souring arches. It looks beautiful from the outside, but what is incredible is the sheer volume contained beneath it’s concrete vaults. Huge slabs of marble lay to the sides waiting to be bolted onto the walls. High above us, workers were busy in the dome above our heads. It was only then that I realised we had happily strolled into the middle of a building site with materials being moved around thirty metres above us and we had no hard hats. Still, if a lump of marble falls on you from that height, there is not a lot a hard hat is going to do…

We traversed back across town and back across the main shopping area to a much older part of town. Enroute we passed the site of another project site for the faculty of architecture. This time it was a busy junction with trams cars and people intersecting in a very tight spot. The project had been to untangle as best as possible the mess. From what Ana and Barbara said, there are a great many architectural contests in the city which must make Belgrade a great place to study architecture. Unfortunately only a handful of them are built as there is just not the money.

Ana had picked out a cosy restaurant for lunch. Ever since arriving in Vienna I had been a bit on the chilly side. I really hadn’t reckonned upon it being this cold, a symptom I suppose of the apparently mild autumn we have been having in Paris. As we ate we were accompanied by a traditional Serbian band comprising a clarinet, accordeon, guitar and double bass. The band would improvise on one tune, and then all of a sudden the accordeon player would change tune and a few moments later, the rest of the band would catch on.

I was left to my own devices while Ana and Barbara went to a design workshop. I spent some time rethinking my itinerary for the rest of the week. I had been due to take the train the next day to the Romanians mountains where I intended to do some hiking, but I was feeling more and more apprehensive about this plan. I was concerned about turning up in northern Romania and finding all the hostels shut. I was also a little nervous about the train connections I would have to make, including one change in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere with a two hour wait in between. With all this mind I had another trawl through the timetables and another plan came to mind. It was thus that I decided to go to Bucarest (not orginially on my itinerary) and to go via Sofia. The plan had the advantage that I wouldn’t have to worry about accomodation as I would be sleeping on night trains (ultra cheap in this region). There was also the added bonus that I could spend an extra half a day in Belgrade.

That evening we undertook a tour Belgrades night spots including a very cool cocktail bar hidden down an alley, up a stair case and behind a very plain looking door that you had to buzz to open before making your way into the brightly lit lounge. While Ana and I were up for a party, I think the rest of Belgrade went to sleep early that evening but that didn’t stop us having a great night chatting until the rather small hours.