Belgrade is another beautiful city. We took a free 2 1/2 hour walking tour. We went up to a castle and had panoramic views of this modern cosmopolitan city.

The people here are extremely nice and very helpful. Believe it or not most speak English. It was very hot again today so we stopped in a major square and had Mojitos – the only drinks with ice in them.

I took a picture of the sign because we are now in countries that use the Cyrillic alphabet. Naturally we had to look for dinner. It was looking grim at best so we stopped in a little place that at least had pizza. Well it turned out to be a gem. We had Serbian salad, vegetarian pizza and a cold plate with a selection of meat and cheeses. What a gem of a restaurant- everything was great.

Then we went on to the train station. I had it backwards- first the overnight train then the train to Bucharest. Well the train was not air conditioned and we were in a compartment for 6 people. We had the windows open, but it was still hot. The train was supposed to leave at 7pm and did, but it went 10 feet and stopped because the engine broke. We only had an hour in Sofia to make our connection. It was a long hot trip and if course we arrived late – we also gained an hour because we are so Far East. We missed our connection and are now at 4pm sitting in the train station for our 7pm overnight train to Bucharest. Because we arrived in Sophia at 10am we walked around Sofia until now. It was hot, but only in the 90’s. We stopped on an Irish Pub for Mojitos and had a cheese plate and some wings.

I am also sending pictures of a really neat bridge in Belgrade. Also, I have many pics of Belgrade on my camera.

I also forgot to mention our hotel in Belgrade was extremely nice and very modern. We were there only to take a shower and sleep – best of all breakfast was included. On the buffet along with the usual they had breaded fried eggplant and what we thought was onion rings. The onion rings was really squid! But there was also a tray of fancy cookies that were really delicious. We are outside of our train now and the train’s final destination is Moscow. Tune in tomorrow (pending WIFi) for the further adventures of Marsha, Stephanie and Barbara.

It is 9:30pm and we are still on the train
to Belgrade. We left at 1pm and were supposed to arrive at 9pm and we still have at least an hour to go. It was very hot when we left Budapest- over 100 again. Officials we passing out liter bottles of water at the train station and crews were watering the trolley tracks (I guess so they don’t buckle in the heat). The air conditioning could not keep up on the train so we rode most of the way sweating. When we crossed into Serbia they hooked up an air conditioned car and the conductors directed us to go sit in that one. The air conditioning only lasted about 10 min and we were back to sweating. The dining/bar car had the older windows that were down half way and if we were moving there was a breeze. Problem was we were hardly moving- we could have walked faster. I think the intense heat had a lot to do with this too.
It is now 1:45 am and we just got back from dinner. Belgrade looks nice. Of course we came in at night but they have some really neat bridges. As you can guess we made it to the hotel and they recommended a restaurant that serves until 1am we hurried over there because we were tired and hungry. The walk to the hotel was uphill, but it seems that we are always walking uphill. I had a Serbian dish, Marsha had a beautiful (according to the menu) salad and Stephanie had gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce. We are trying to plan tomorrow since we are only here one day and leave on an train to Sophia in Bulgaria and then take an overnight train to Bucharest in Romania. The Serbs we met speak English and are very helpful. Will let you know how our travels progress.